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We Have Ruined Childhood

nytimes.com

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Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#91

Post by rayiner »

germinalphrase wrote: post #77
protomyth wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unless it's a difference in degree" Let your kids play outside by themselves or walk to school, and get reported to Child Protective Services. It is very much a different world these days.

Look - I'm sure you can find some outlier news article about this happening, but as someone who actually has professional contact with CPS once in a while, this is - in my opinion - wildly hyperbolic. The social workers I know who work for CPS have excessive work loads of really intense circumstances (like, children being preyed upon, beaten, chained to radiators...). They're not doing parent interviews because someo…

It’s not hyperbole. It’s happened twice recently in Montgomery County, a DC suburb near me: https://patch.com/maryland/silverspring/mother-free-range-ki.... (It’s one reason we moves two counties over.)

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#92

Post by shioyama »

seattle_spring wrote: post #78
shioyama wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which I think is more of a problem than helicopter parenting in America Sorry, as a parent in Japan, I beg to disagree. The system here has lots of problems, don't get me wrong - and I really don't like the "juku" (cram-school) model at all. But particularly at younger ages (which in many ways are the most important ones), there is still that fundamental freedom to be on your own with your friends. Kids age as youn…

> Kids age as young as 5 are often out on their own with their friends outside, or walking to school, etc. That's something you would be arrested for in the U.S. Do you mean "until age 5"? All of the kids I knew from that area of the world, as young as elementary school, spent every second either studying for school or practicing piano/violin.

No, I mean what I wrote, "as young as 5".

> All of the kids I knew from that area of the world, as young as elementary school, spent every second either studying for school or practicing piano/violin.

Sorry, but "that area of the world" is way too broad. Korea, for example, is quite different from Japan. And in any case, it's dependent on the cross-section of society you're talking about.

Elementary school itself, for example, is not suffocating at all, from my experience. Too much homework, yes, but not to the point that kids have no free time.

But again, my point is not about the amount of work. It's about the freedom to be on their own.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#93

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #47
Causalityl wrote: post #10

Earlier 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.

@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?

The answer isn't dependent on rate of death.

It's based on when we start teaching children to heal through trauma, as well as take responsibility for and learn to release their emotions.

These drills are simply trauma fuel. They're irresponsible actions taken by irresponsible, fear-driven adults who think they know what kids need when they themselves don't know how to be ok in an horrific situation or how to heal from it without developing toxic behaviors...

Toxic behaviors like the kind that traumatize children further.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#94

Post by Causalityl »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #47
Causalityl wrote: post #10

Earlier 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.

@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?

When there aren't far more productive ways to spend that time. For instance, teaching and reinforcing the wearing of seatbelts, talking to kids about domestic abuse, or even just child gun safety like not picking them up and playing with them.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#96

Post by dragonsh »

shioyama wrote: post #66
fzeroracer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I don't think Japan is exactly a good model to bring up here. Kids are independent with their free time, but most of their free time is taken up having to study seven days a week while dealing with absent parents having to work long hours and a grueling school system that is part of the reason why Japan has such a high suicide rate among youths. Which I think is more of a problem than helicopter parenting…

> Which I think is more of a problem than helicopter parenting in America Sorry, as a parent in Japan, I beg to disagree. The system here has lots of problems, don't get me wrong - and I really don't like the "juku" (cram-school) model at all. But particularly at younger ages (which in many ways are the most important ones), there is still that fundamental freedom to be on your own with your friends. Kids age as youn…

Well Seoul, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai are similar when it comes to kid going out. But the childhood is still under siege in these places by constant pressure to excel with lots of extra curricular classes. My close friends kids in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Shanghai and Beijing spend most of their time in extra tutoring or music or painting or dance classes or something else where they have to excel. They have very little time left to just play and learn social skills. During some free time, they spend time in self-absorbing mobile or online games.

So I don't think Asian cities fair better than North America or Europe. It's a global problem. Two kids seating in front of reach other talking via instant messanger or in-game chat.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#97

Post by chrissnell »

I am a parent of two boys—ages 7 and 4–and I hardly recognize the negative forces that this author laments over because my wife and I have simply chosen not to raise our kids that way.

When my boys get home, we get outside and do sports. We’re in the middle of (tackle) football season right now and that’s what my 7 year-old does five days a week for two hours every evening. It’s exercise, fun, camaraderie, and lessons for life, all rolled together. My four year-old spends the practices on the sidelines, digging in the dirt with other little brothers and sisters and chasing the bigger kids around the track when they run laps.

When football season is over, we move on to other team sports. When those are over, we ride our bikes around the neighborhood and play pick-up football games in the front yard.

What we don’t do: iPads, TVs, or smart phones. It’s not that came into parenthood with some anti-technology mindset. Rather, we let our kids have these devices and we saw immediately the negative effects on their behavior, attitude, and motivation, and so we took them away. They get to use them on the rarest of circumstances: during airplane rides or as a brief reward for a week of good behavior.

Adam Carolla once said that the problem with kids isn’t all of the things that we’ve added to childhood, it’s all the things we’ve taken away. Sports, free time, boredom, tree forts, and neighborhood exploration have all been curtailed. For much of this, we have over-involved, over-concerned mothers to thank (and a bunch of dads that think like moms).

It doesn’t have to be this way. Nobody is forcing us to raise our kids in the post-millennium style. You can raise tough, resourceful, happy, outdoors-loving kids if you want to.

If you are a parent of little ones, have a look at this article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/magazine/the-anti-helicop...

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#98

Post by tjr225 »

taurath wrote: post #55

I mean. I’m not okay either. I work to try to reduce my screen time as much as I can but when it’s part of the job and also an always ready hit of dissociative dopamine in my pocket it creates an awful feedback loop that I’m not equipped to handle. At work as a programmer, you’re “supposed” to spend some free time doing projects and have “hobby development”, so you can reach the next career echelon. Even not in a pro…

This is why we need to advocate for this stuff from our government. If enough of us agree that we should make this possible, it can happen.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#99

Post by zrail »

weiming wrote: post #74
roasm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes, my kids will say they're bored. My response to them is that my job is not to entertain them. They totally get it, though sometimes they're still bored...

Why not plan an activity or build something together?

Or let the kid plan an activity. Sesame Street literally has a song about this.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#100

Post by jcranmer »

Causalityl wrote: post #37
jcranmer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes they did. They are also a tiny drop in the bucket of child gun homicides, an even smaller drop for child gun deaths, and an incredibly small bump in child deaths overall.

Active shooter drills aren't about preventing child gun homicides. They're about active shooter situations inside schools, which are actual events that have happened.

You may debate how useful they are, or if the frequency of school shootings is sufficient to justify them, but I will point out that the number of times I have had to evacuate a school (admittedly, due to a bomb threat) is equal to the number of times we had to "assume the position" for a tornado threat (exactly once).

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