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We Have Ruined Childhood

nytimes.com

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Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#421

Post by ocschwar »

honzzz wrote: post #306
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…

>>> someone will call the police on you This may be a naive question but please bear with a non-US person - what would happen in the US if someone actually called police on you? Could you just say "these are my children and I think it is good for them to be unsupervised, good bye"?

It really depends on where you are. Local cultures differ on this, and the only place stronger than Facebook at encouraging peer-enforced group think is the break room at a police station. If the cops in your town are cool with kids running free, then you're fine. If they're not cool with it, then you have a problem.

The other issue is a real concern: what are the prevailing traffic speeds in your neighborhood. I'm in Massachusetts, where roads are narrow and lined with all sorts of attitude adjusting devices for bad drivers. So people are driving at mostly under 40kmh. Other parts of suburban America, people will literally reach 80kmh as soon as they've left their driveway, in which case, sorry, you do have to keep your children prisoner in their own home until they can eyeball the speed of a moving car. That only kicks in at about age 9, and there is no known way to hasten that skill in children. So, TLDR: avoid the suburbs if you want your kids to run free.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#422

Post by linuxftw »

wincy wrote: post #401
microcolonel wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You guys in the States have it bad. I hear terrible stories about the fear that now surrounds any kind of freedom for kids. Over here in the UK we’re a bit better, but the “give them exams ALL the time” and schools being on their knees, financially, are all too familiar Of course, this is all because of lies and locked-in unintended consequences. The schools have no practical reason to be on their knees financially…

The “school system” used to be “20 parents in a town agree to pay a teacher to live here and teach”. If she did a bad job she’d be fired. The incentives are right that way, now the “customer” (ostensibly the parents, or the child) is no longer actually the customer.

A lot of places have charter schools now. Pretty much has come full circle. Nobody uses public school unless they have to.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#423

Post by francisofascii »

maxheadroom wrote: post #303
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…

> ...and the woods that do remain are typically private property. I've heard that in the states you can own a piece of property but have "no right" to get to it, as it's surrounded by other pieces of private property and, so, you're at the whims of those properties' owners. Is this true? In Sweden, we have the concept of 'Allemansrätten'[0]; which is to say that 'private property' (in the absolute sense) doesn't exis…

Right. Freedom to roam in the US is all but lost. A century ago the notion of private land was how you describe. Today, you might have a property owner calling the police or pointing a gun at you.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#424

Post by redskull »

Welp...we have these trash leftist teachers...teaching children that this is a "terrible place" and socialism is better...I truly blame all of this on schools....and it needs to change...Awesome a teacher has a leftist ideology...YOUR own personal opinions should stay far away from children especially when they are trash...Saddest part is kid's don't even get taught History correctly anymore. which is MINDBLOWING

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#425

Post by ausjke »

i grew up in a village, bicycle is the only transportation tool, all kids can play free outdoors, the only danger is deep water, once a while one or two kids got drown somewhere in summer.

other than that, it's worry-free for parents, everyone knows everyone, there is no abduction, no gun violence, etc. it's just kids outside to enjoy and explore the true nature.

I consider the traffic, the cars on the street in particular, is the No.1 obstacles for kids playing outside in US. My kids' childhood freedom is taken away by cars in the neighborhood 95% of the time, the rest is still concerning, but not a big deal.

It's actually a quiet neighborhood but still, hit by a car on the street for young kids is too concerning, so we have kids at home most of the time, where they started killing time with TV, computer, social network, until their childhood is long gone.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#426

Post by LanceH »

As my kids started playing youth soccer, it stunned me the difference between their experience and mine. It used to be we would get dropped off at the field an hour early, run around everywhere, eventually play the game, then run around again until we were dragged away. Now, it is show up in time for the warmup, game, leave.

This has proven to be the common pattern. Everything is event driven -- kids go to practice, they leave. They go to a friend's house at a certain time, then leave. Play dates are scheduled. There is no just meet outside.

We've even ruined adulthood. My parents and their friends would drop in on each other without calling ahead first. I was shocked to discover this wasn't normal when I grew up. Who puts the unprepared house ahead of seeing a friend?

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#427

Post by floren »

masonic wrote: post #240
moultano wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"During a meal at a restaurant" is the time parents are most likely to get them out. Don't assume that generalizes to when they're at home and have lots of options of what to do while waiting for dinner. Keeping kids quiet and happy while they're hungry and waiting is the hardest part of going out to eat with young kids. We use crayons and paper, but I don't think that's so intrinsically better than an iPad.

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.

You fool, you mentioned sports! The one example guaranteed to make the Hacker News crowd rush in and defend the child watching Youtube!

Try this simple modification to get them on your side of the argument:

> I remember being at a TED Talk 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 events. Having never been taken to a major thought leader event for my entire childhood, seeing this saddened me.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#428

Post by ocschwar »

Grzegrzolka wrote: post #295
parasubvert wrote: post #286

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…

USA is just slowly rotting away. From what I read here about how modern life in US looks like I seriously suspect that there will be some kind of massive epidemic mind deseases outburst there in 15-30 years.

It's here: depression. Opiate addiction. And the whole 2016 derangement.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#429

Post by odessacubbage »

The_rationalist wrote: post #365
odessacubbage wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you elaborate?

From Wikipedia Authors, scientists, and physicians including Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Edzard Ernst, David Gorski, and Simon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education to be dangerous and pseudoscientific.[17][11][12][13] Others including former Waldorf pupil Dan Dugan and historian Geoffrey Ahern have criticized anthroposophy itself as a dange…

i think people overestimate how much of the goofy theosophy stuff is actually part of the day-to-day education, it serves more as window dressing than anything else tbh. it's odd and in some ways anachronistic but at it's core i think the waldorf model works well because it treats children as children rather than products and liabilities. frankly the weird hippy bullshit was better than being treated like a potential school shooter because you have problems at home.

Re: We Have Ruined Childhood

#430

Post by YinglingLight »

cwal37 wrote: post #418
winchling wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. One suspects the concept of quality time came in with the rising incidence of divorce. Where quality time implies some kind of performance or role, which is stressful, hanging out with one's children is wonderful. I find that the compensations more than make up for the difficulties. I enjoy the company of people who are totally open and forgiving. I get the profound satisfaction of watching them learn. I re-e…

Divorce rates in the US have been declining for decades. Unless you're referring to a different area or timeframe?

They're children born out of wedlock now.
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