181–190 of 505 posts
My wife and I have 2.5 and 0.7 year olds. Because of remote work, I have the luxury of living basically anywhere. My wife and I made the move from a 300k city to a 40k city about 45 minutes away. There's many reasons we did. Chiefly, it's far far cheaper. But also, it's calmer and quieter and just a nicer way to live. What we didn't expect to see, which we are absolutely delighted about, is how different childhood se…
Would you happen to live somewhere in Europe?
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Helping raise a teenager in Japan, it is pretty close to a dystopia. The idea that students could have free time seems to be frightening to the whole education system.
I wrote a big sibling post, but I wanted to just point out that schools do tend to use up student's time. Students are required to enter a club and often these clubs are 6 days a week, so compared to the west, students have no individual free time. I know many (most) western parents think this is awful, but most of the students I had loved club and never wanted to go home (we had to turn the lights off at the tennis…
I remember, discussing with the head of the kendo club why she was into kendo, she said she was not really into it. She could not answer why she chose it or spends so much time there. I think acceptance and resignation are things that are taught very early in the Japanese education system. And don't get me started on the sempai/kohai system that just normalizes peer pressure and a generational hierarchy. I have seen people in their 60s still obeying their one year older sempai!
I did not like the school system I went through in France, but almost every thing I disliked is magnified in Japan. Yeah, the students clean up their classrooms and the admins do their paperwork correctly that's about all I see as advantages. All the rest is about formatting perfect wage slaves with no room fro creativity or self-search.
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.
Then the market will sort it out.
I have a child. I love him very much. I can not fathom why any parents would not have free time as priority. Free time is amazing. Here is why. - I get a break. - My child gets to learn how to learn on his own. - My child builds independence. - My child learns to manage his time on his own. I see this playing out in the work force too. Far too many people I have worked with that are younger need to be told exactly wh…
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...
When I was a kid, I used to just watch TV and wait for friends to come at home to play.
In one particular afternoon, there was nothing good showing on TV and my friends are away. I complained to my mom that I was bored(implying that she should solve this "problem" for me).
My mom basically said just what you posted above. That it was my responsibility to find my own fun.
That was an epiphany that had a tremendous impact in my life.
Consider too that many of these children's parents also don't have good relationship skills. It doesn't really bode well for our communities.
Well, 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 recently became a Scoutmaster. That's what I'm trying to do: give the kids the same opportunity we had - freedom to explore the outdoors. Confidence to take care of themselves and not need an adult to do everything for them. To give them opportunites to build character.
The strongest memories I have of Scouts were of the older boys teaching us things, and of myself doing the same for younger boys. These “things” ranged from profound reflections on life to very practical skills. We ran our own fundraisers, planned our own trips and periodic events, and staged our own elections for very meaningful leadership positions.
“The Adults” were always in the background, jumping in to support and advise when asked for. I always thought that they had chosen the easy path, because they didn’t have to work too hard! In retrospect, I realize this was actually the hardest path – to trust that your kids and their insane friends are actually capable of intelligible self government etc.
And this didn’t come at the expense of excellence, but quite the contrary! Our troop had a proud legacy of winning the various prestigious awards at summer camp year-after-year, and the boys were very good at passing down this expectation of integrity and success to successive generations of kids.
That’s something that is hard to maintain in troops with very hands-on adult leaders - once a Scoutmaster’s kids age out, the culture of the troop can change dramatically. On the flip side, troop culture seems to be more resilient when it’s boy-led.
Anyways, I wish you the best of luck! Thank you for bringing these pleasant memories into my head to reflect on. Your kids will thank you for your restraint :)
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Kids in Japan lead carefree "be home by dark" lives up until late middle school and high school, when they start studying 4+hrs/day and sleeping <5hrs/night to prep for standardized tests. I don't think Japan is a horrific dystopia for teens but it's hardly the "let kids be kids" culture that America of yesteryear (apparently) was.
It's easy to get led into thinking this is ubiquitous, but it really isn't. Life gets difficult for school children around year 3 min middle school (about grade 9). The long and the short of it is that if you want to get a really top job, then you need to come from a top university, which means that you usually need to come from a top highschool, which means that you must get a good mark on your high school entrance…
Let's say it how it is: this is a gift to private schools at the expense of the poors' education. Private schools are expensive but always have some room left.
Here is how it works: you can only register at ONE public school (that is, a school that will not have prohibitive costs). You can play safe by choosing a low tier one or take a risk at choosing a high ranking one. Thing is, if you fail, you only have very expensive schools left, so most poor families will just skip that part of education or only register their kids to a "safe" high school with low scores. There is not a single good reason to not allow two or three fallback choices.
> never once did my students do their homework!
I am assuming you were teaching in a juku or another kind of additional education. If so, it could be because your homeworks were not mandatory and the school already had given them enough to fill 4 hours of work.
"the reputation Japanese schools have is completely undeserved."
I am not sure the reputation they have in US. French tend to think Japanese schools are good, I was appalled at what I discovered.
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This is going too far. I've lived and spent time in various USA cities: LA, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Denver, etc. I never had any difficulty walking downtown after dark.
You are talking about very large cities only. How about most of the U.S. with smaller cities and towns?
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 lesson…
"The areas where children once congregated for unstructured, unsupervised play are now often off limits. And so those who can afford it drive their children from one structured activity to another."
edit: formatting
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This is going too far. I've lived and spent time in various USA cities: LA, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Denver, etc. I never had any difficulty walking downtown after dark.
LA and Chicago have some really bad areas, but also some safe ones. Memphis, Houston, NO, St Louis, Baltimore etc have some crazy high crime neighborhoods, and it used to be worse. Murder rates higher than the worst places in the world. Not even places like Afghanistan come close.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate
[1] https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/focused...