481–490 of 505 posts
I recommend reading "Breaking Clean" by Judy Blunt. Therein, she talks about her trek from growing up on a family farm, raising kids, then escaping to a university town. The problem for her boys was that in the city, they were just boys, but on the farm, they were men-in-training.
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…
When we turned around and came by them again I realised they were watching YouTube on a phone. But at least they were outside, sitting on a not unused car road on the edge of the village.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I live in Japan, so I'm speaking from direct daily experience with a local school system (not international school). But I completely disagree with your statements about "Asia", as if all countries are the same. Let's at least be specific about which countries you're talking about, and what direct experience you have with those countries. I make no claims beyond my local c…
Yes I agree to disagree. Canada is North America and is not the same as you described. Also you must be aware that USA laws are quite complex with different state and federal laws. Moreover it's a constantly evolving common law jurisdiction. So the rules related to parenting have a clear reason for existence and might change in future. It does not make the kids worse off than other countries as each has their own pro…
> Country or region is just too broad a brush to stereotype, even in Japan Sapporo is very different from Tokyo.
I agree about stereotyping. But seriously: even Sapporo (which as a rare relatively new Japanese city has similarities to modern western cities) is much more similar to Tokyo than it is to, say, any North American city.
My point is not about whether laws are what where, but that attitudes are in line with those laws (and are what gave rise to them).
Read other comments in response to the post, and you see many other people referencing experiences similar to what I'm talking about.
I'm not trying to say Japan doesn't have problems (it does). Just that on this specific point, Western countries are heading in a very bad direction IMHO.
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…
But the mall/hangout issue still stands, and that's assuming the malls themselves are still standing. A lot of malls have shot themselves in the foot by banishing the kids; when they grow up, the last place they'll even think about shopping is at a mall.
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…
Just wondering if you have time for them to be bored and having to dibs their own entertainment?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This is all pretty US-centric." Is it US-Centric or urban centric? My guess is most of this board falls on the Urban side (Me included). I am unable to apply many of my valuable unstructured rural experiences as a youth to how I want to raise a child in a city. I thing I'd have the same challenge with Rome, Dallas, Barcelona, or most other urban centers.
My kids go to a city high school. They have different kinds of unstructured experiences. After school, they have all kinds of restaurants and coffee shops to choose from. They can hang out at the Jewish Community Center and play FIFA. They sometimes wonder with their friends to a field at a local university to play soccer. They watch movies at the local theatre I only find out about when they mention later what they…
However, my bike gang was a bunch of little vandals. So we probably skewed the stats towards not letting kids outside.
Now I’m parenting in big city and I feel sad for how kids around here live. Trying to figure that one out before he gets older. He’s only 1 so I have time.
I've thought about this a decent amount and I just can't agree that unsupervised outdoor wandering is a good thing before maybe middle school. Kids are stupid and even the smart ones get peer pressured into doing stupid things that can injure or kill them. Like when I crushed my wrist riding a bike downhill on a paved road in 2nd or 1st grade. Those kids apparently rode on roads all the time which looking back seems…
> Kids are stupid and even the smart ones get peer pressured into doing stupid things that can injure or kill them. This happens to adults too (especially sheltered ones). It’s a part of life. Wouldn’t you say it’s important for kids to make those kinds of mistakes and learn some important lessons about the real world while the consequences are still relatively small?
Government ruined child hood, in particular over zealous DFACs units have ruined parenthood as well to education where a child not being supervised is a child not enjoying themselves. Seriously, when did we come to the belief that children need structured activities all the time. Easy answer, when government employees stepped in. When politicians and government employees decided they knew better than parents or child…
The scope of schools, social services, police, etc. in the US are all perfect examples of this. We are now at the point where children from ages 6 and up are doing more work than full-time office workers. My nephew (4th grade in Missouri) leaves for school at 7:45 AM, comes home at 4:00 PM, usually with 2-3 hours of homework a day. And when he does happen to get free-time? Oh, better carry his phone and be with an adult. Frankly, it's total madness, and I'm glad that I am not a child in today's world.
I can't help but feel that this is the result of decades of grand-standing. Every single person wants brownie points for being seen as someone who "supports school". Of course, supporting school never means improving current paradigms, it always translates to "more school days, more supervision, more money, more teachers, more subjects, more more more". New idea, next time someone suggests adding more to a school curriculum, ask them to project the increase in teen suicides. That's a low-blow and an emotional appeal, but that's where things are at right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's anti-public school FUD paid for by the charter/private school lobby. linuxftw, you remember FUD dont you?
Or is this anti-charter-school FUD paid for by the union/public school lobby? This is not a convincing counterargument, even though sometimes it's a convincing original argument.