This seems to also be fear mongering as for example teen suicide is still down from the early 90’s. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm
Things are different, but that does not always mean they are worse.
We Have Ruined Childhood
41–50 of 505 posts
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. There is no better example of a failure to do basic math than running active shooter drills when 98% of child gun homicides happen outside of school hours.
Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe, and Red Lake are the mass shootings of my lifetime to take place in schools. Virginia Tech and another community college also saw mass shootings, if you want to include tertiary education. Note that three of these are in the top 10 (and 2 in the top 5) if you rank them by deaths.
As far as I know, there’s also no evidence that active shooter drills make students safer.
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#43Well, if you report 24x7 hate and danger, scare the crap out of people, and report that there is danger behind every tree, then yes, childhoods are ruined. Things are getting safer and the only way you would know it is go look at the CDC stats. Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation.
From the article:
> The suicide rate for children is twice what it is for children during months when school is in session than when it’s not in session,” according to Dr. Gray. “That’s true for suicide completion, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation, whereas for adults, it’s higher in the summer.
It seems that families are particularly under stress if such observances can be made. As a single white guy, I find this a bit alarming because I've always had this notion that a family unit would be an easier way to ride out deep depression, rather than not. It just goes to show.
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#44Well, if you report 24x7 hate and danger, scare the crap out of people, and report that there is danger behind every tree, then yes, childhoods are ruined. Things are getting safer and the only way you would know it is go look at the CDC stats. Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation.
I too grew up in the be home for dinner generation and am very grateful for having lived it.
One of the comments I sometimes make to others when this topic comes up is that I'm glad that cell phones and the Internet didn't exist when I was a kid. Why? Because I likely would have missed out on the best parts of being a kid. Boredom was great. We would then find something non-boring to do, such as: ride bikes, play basketball/football/baseball, swim, listen to music, ride go carts, and so on.
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#45Does this feel to anyone else like a lengthy characterization of a very particular time/place of 20th century child rearing? And, if it does, is there a reason to believe that we got parenting exactly right in, what, American circa 1950-1970, after starkly different parenting norms both before and after?
Let's add "affluent and white and fortuitously non alcohol addicted" to "1950-1970" and I think you nailed it.
I spent my childhood in southeast asia. No one was what would be considered anything other than various levels of poor compared to the US.
All of us neighborhood kids ran around in semi-feral packs and played together, being home before night, and I enjoyed it very much. Yes, there was a lot of work to be done. But kids got to be kids, too, and suffered none of the overscheduled insanity I see around me nowadays.
Slight aside- I honestly think that being able to contribute to the household from a young age was good for our mental health, too. Even if (as an example) hunting grasshoppers for a snack was silly fun together, we were proud to hand over our catch, and it felt good to be appreciated by the adults.
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. There is no better example of a failure to do basic math than running active shooter drills when 98% of child gun homicides happen outside of school hours.
Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe, and Red Lake are the mass shootings of my lifetime to take place in schools. Virginia Tech and another community college also saw mass shootings, if you want to include tertiary education. Note that three of these are in the top 10 (and 2 in the top 5) if you rank them by deaths.
Homicide isn't even in the top 10 ways to die in the US. The students are in more danger from drowning, by a wide margin, than any school shooting.
https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/w...
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#47Well, if you report 24x7 hate and danger, scare the crap out of people, and report that there is danger behind every tree, then yes, childhoods are ruined. Things are getting safer and the only way you would know it is go look at the CDC stats. Kids need time with their friends away from parents. I'm so glad I was able to grow up in the (sadly last) "be home for dinner, be back by dark" generation.
Indeed. There is no better example of a failure to do basic math than running active shooter drills when 98% of child gun homicides happen outside of school hours.
@Causalityl , @jranmer - question for both of you (or whoever) - at what rate of death if any would it become appropriate to do these types of drills and why?
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#48Does this feel to anyone else like a lengthy characterization of a very particular time/place of 20th century child rearing? And, if it does, is there a reason to believe that we got parenting exactly right in, what, American circa 1950-1970, after starkly different parenting norms both before and after?
Unless I'm quite mistaken, free range child rearing was very much the norm basically anywhere in America or Europe for at least several centuries (with the caveat that children were also commonly used as a labor force, especially with subsistence farming). Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, while admittedly idealized caricatures, spend prodigious amounts of time outdoors unsupervised, and this is seen as normal. Red Riding Hood walks to her grandmother's house alone. Rupert Bear spends his time wandering the local fields with his friends. Etc...
If you want a vivid picture of just how free-range life was in 19th century America, I recommend "Two Little Savages" by Ernest Thompson Seton, a fictionalized autobiography of the author's childhood published in 1903. While it's certainly a romanticized picture, and the events in the book represent an unusual amount of freedom for the protagonists, it still documents fantastically a variety of 19th century parenting styles and the nature of the society that has been lost.
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#49Who is We? Actually I think I get it - we had kids in NYC too. But we left and I find the stories in the article to be rather alien now.
Kids running free from house to house and playing on their own. Is that really so rare outside of some of the big cities?
Re: We Have Ruined Childhood
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know what the composition of the other 98% looks like? i.e. accidental firings at home, murders, suicides, etc?
I restricted my comparison to homicides only. They're basically statistically insignificant compared to the other much more common causes of child firearm death.
Thanks, sorry, misread. Was asking because am curious about how the deaths break down overall as this would affect what we might want to focus on when attempting to reduce them.