Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Have Ruined Childhood

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 505 posts

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#281

Post by justinclift »

oska wrote: post #234
code_duck wrote: post #179

This isn’t anything new. In my 90s middle school and high school, the official policy of my school was that we would have an hour of homework per academic class each day. We got out of school at 3:30. With 5 academic classes, a typical bedtime of 10 o’clock, commute times from school of half an hour, and an hour for dinner, that theoretically left zero time for recreation. I’m confused about how they ever thought tha…

I had to re-read your comment. At first I thought you were saying you had one hour of homework per night. One hour per class per day is insane. I regularly avoided doing homework throughout my school life. The only thing I think that suffered was my understanding of physics & chemistry. I doubt I would have better understanding now in any other subject area if I had done more homework, including maths and the foreign…

> I regularly avoided doing homework throughout my school life.

Same here. School hours were (something like) 9am to 3:30pm. They have no authority to allocate time after that, no matter how much they'd like to.

If they had a problem with it, that was their problem. Not mine.

And yep, that seemed to fit well with my later career as a professional (IT) contractor. ;)

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#282

Post by parasubvert »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #83

Seems like society is constantly pushing to remove all the ways in which kids used to live. Can't just wonder around and play on the sidewalks or the streets anymore with your friends, someone will call the police on you. Can't hang out in the woods, as those have mostly been torn down to make way for new neighborhoods, and the woods that do remain are typically private property. Unless you are lucky enough to live i…

This is all pretty US-centric.

Kids are allowed a fair amount of freedom in Canada and Europe, where I still see a lot of kids around malls, or parks, playing basketball in courts (which still happens in NYC), or wooded areas. Sure, more are on their phones etc. But it’s really not that different from the 90s IMO, in many locations.

The biggest change is there aren’t so many clusters of “neighbourhood kids” as there used to be, as people are having fewer children later in life... unless you deliberately seek out a unicorn neighbourhood with similar aged kids. Playgroups and play dates need to be actively organized by parents due to distances between houses.

(I raise two children, and the 10 year old is free to ride his bike and wander, so long as he keeps a phone on for location - he’s taken plenty of bike camps to learn to be responsible).

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#283

Post by dragonsh »

shioyama wrote: post #211
Izkata wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a rare thing, but it is a thing: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/... https://geekdad.com/2015/01/kids-play-arrested/ https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-s... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parent... I didn't even have to dig to find these, they're from the first page of result…

Thanks, and to respond to another sibling comment: this may be rare in statistical terms, but it is more than real enough to motivate a very clear pattern of behaviour among parents (not allowing kids to roam freely, etc) I speak from experience having had people (including family) be shocked at how free our kids are here in Japan versus the experience in North America. Whether the media are making things worse (prob…

I have enough ties to USA and looking at the kids of majority of my childhood friends I can say for sure that they are similar or better off than an average Asian kids who spend majority of time not playing outside but immersed in school homework or extra tutoring activities.

The pressure in Asia builds even before pre-school where toddlers have lessons to attend, to get into a decent pre-school.

Anecdotal evidence to see some 5 year kids playing in playground alone in Asia doesn't prove the point that parents in Asia are not robbing their kids of their childhood.

USA is big multi-cultural place with many different parenting styles. Painting all of them with broad brush without statistical significant studies is not ok.

One might not get arrested in Japan, does not prove anything. I might not agree completely with USA system, but it must have a reason to exist.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#284

Post by zerr »

Waterluvian wrote: post #80

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…

Interesting, how did you get/negotiate remote work (in Robotics?) - did they list some particular position explicitly as remote?

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#285

Post by nmstoker »

kortilla wrote: post #275
masonic wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, when it never becomes the all-purpose go-to pacifier. I remember being at an NHL game where a kid was immersed in his device the entire night, despite being in a $148 seat to (IMHO) the most attention-maintaining of all sports. Having never been taken to a major league sporting event for my entire childhood, seeing this saddened me.

NHL is horribly boring for small children, as are most professional sports. The rules don’t make much sense, the games last way too long, the seats are not child friendly, etc.

And many adults too!

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#286

Post by parasubvert »

It’s a strange article from an outside-US perspective.

My 2.5 year old in daycare has lots of play time (at least 3 hours a day), plus at an hour at home in the morning and evening. Usually about 1 hour is on the iPad (Toca Blocks is her free play game), the rest with books, blocks, in the garden with flowers, on her tricycle...

The 9 year old’s “before and after school” program is all about free play time, plus two hours max screen time at home, though in summer this is usually replaced by bike rides and/or play dates or day camps, with ... lots of free time to balance out any structured activities. Other than studying for spelling quizzes, there has been no homework from Kindergarten through grade 3.

I regularly see kids at the mall or hanging out in parks. Free time abounds in our world... the biggest issue is there are fewer clusters of neighbourhood kids, friends are more geographically dispersed over a wider area, so play date coordination by parents is a must.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#288

Post by [deleted] »

code_duck wrote: post #179

This isn’t anything new. In my 90s middle school and high school, the official policy of my school was that we would have an hour of homework per academic class each day. We got out of school at 3:30. With 5 academic classes, a typical bedtime of 10 o’clock, commute times from school of half an hour, and an hour for dinner, that theoretically left zero time for recreation. I’m confused about how they ever thought tha…

[deleted]

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#289

Post by emerongi »

oska wrote: post #234
code_duck wrote: post #179

This isn’t anything new. In my 90s middle school and high school, the official policy of my school was that we would have an hour of homework per academic class each day. We got out of school at 3:30. With 5 academic classes, a typical bedtime of 10 o’clock, commute times from school of half an hour, and an hour for dinner, that theoretically left zero time for recreation. I’m confused about how they ever thought tha…

I had to re-read your comment. At first I thought you were saying you had one hour of homework per night. One hour per class per day is insane. I regularly avoided doing homework throughout my school life. The only thing I think that suffered was my understanding of physics & chemistry. I doubt I would have better understanding now in any other subject area if I had done more homework, including maths and the foreign…

I also never did homework at home and I agree that it was probably for the better.

The only bad effect is that homework got associated with bad feelings (anxiety, stress), because I had to find ways to still get them done without doing them at home. Going into university this was hard to undo.

We also had the rule of one hour per class per day. The funny thing is that this scales up the more time you spend in school, instead of scaling down. In 10th grade, our school days were longer than my parents' workdays and of course every teacher likes to assign homework on top of that, so you can imagine what the expected load was.

In my opinion, homework should be abolished completely. Work should not be taken home. If you want kids to do extra work, have "schoolwork" classes after regular classes, where they can do exercises that teachers provided them that day. At the very least this provides a direct measurement of hours spent on school, provides a clear expectation and forces a cap on how many hours kids spend on school per day. Of course no school would do that because it would be a nightmare.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#290

Post by cvshepherd »

Semaphor wrote: post #201
shioyama wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Completely agree with your comment, but "sadly last" here is not accurate unless you're talking about North America and maybe Europe. I live in Japan and it's quite normal, even in a big city like Tokyo, to let kids play on their own until it gets dark. I feel…

> and (I hear) Europe as well From what I’ve seen in Germany, not much seems to have changed since I was a kid.

looks that way to me too. seems to be a non issue in germany, i don't see why it would be different in other european countries. i live in one of the largest, and second most dangerous city going by crime statistics, and a good friend of mine lets his 5 and 7 year old kids cart their 2 year old around the block on their own, if they want to. can't remember the last time i read about a child being snatched off the street here.
Post reply on HN