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Kids need freedom, too

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Re: Kids need freedom, too

#201

Post by germinalphrase »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #8
kbelder wrote: post #2

I'm having this issue a bit with my wife. I want my 9-yr old daughter to go to the playground a couple blocks away on her own; my wife is reluctant. My argument is that it's statistically very safe, especially in our neighborhood, and that we and her older brothers all did similar things. Her argument is that a girl needs to be more cautious than a boy, and that although she knows it's unlikely anything bad would hap…

I would be much more concerned about some well intentioned rando calling the cops on you because there's a child unattended.

I live in the Midwest. I am a teacher. My wife is a social worker. I hear this fear about being charged Or having your kids taken by CPS because you let them walk alone to the grocery store or something, but I’ve literally never heard of it happening. I even have known a couple CPS workers in the past. The stuff they deal with day to day is wildly more intense than what people are suggesting here. My instinct is that it’s a straw man, but clue me in. How common could this possibly be?

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#202

Post by lotsofpulp »

indymike wrote: post #192
lotsofpulp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, allowing police to arrest and charge a child for bad behavior at school (i.e. won't obey the teacher, outbursts - not for actually criminally violent behavior). Are there any examples of this happening? I do not recall reading about any incident where police responded to a school where the cause was not due to physical violence. If I was managing a school (or any other establishment), I would instruct…

Using shady url from yesterday's HN topic: Students arrested for social media posts: http://www.5z8.info/openme.exe_bknq Student arrested for burping: http://www.5z8.info/peepshow_jxbr Student referred to judge and jailed for not doing homework: http://www.5z8.info/foodporn_axiz School cops arrest more kids of color, too: http://www.5z8.info/aohell.exe_zane

Thanks, those are sad and ridiculous.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#203

Post by grahamplace »

burlesona wrote: post #169
CalRobert wrote: post #154

It's great to allow your kids to take risks, and we do this with our own as much as we can (they're 1 and 3, so "within reason" is still doing some heavy lifting. I pick ticks off of them now and then and patch up their share of bruises). But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that…

I agree wholeheartedly. My life dream is to build a car-free city in the US so I can live there. When I was young and even more naive I hoped I could do this before having kids, so they could grow up with that freedom. Now I’m hoping maybe I can do this by the time I have grandchildren. We’ll see. It would require a lot of capital in the form of patient equity to pull off.

The team at Culdesac is working on something like this in Tempe, Arizona, with capital from the likes of Alexis Ohanian[1]

see:

- https://culdesac.com/

- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/business/culdesac-tempe-p...

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alexisohanian_culdesac-re-ima...

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#204

Post by rmah »

CalRobert wrote: post #154

It's great to allow your kids to take risks, and we do this with our own as much as we can (they're 1 and 3, so "within reason" is still doing some heavy lifting. I pick ticks off of them now and then and patch up their share of bruises). But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that…

In NYC, over a million kids of all ages walk, skateboard, bike, kick-scooter, or take the bus and subway to school every day. Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school. Well, really they travel in packs, but still. Even in the dangerous Big Apple, the number of serious accidents or criminal incidents while going to/from school is just a handful a year.

When I was young and growing up in the burbs, many kids walked or rode bikes to school. The roads were much more dangerous back then. Crime was much MUCH worse. No one batted an eye. I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#205

Post by lotsofpulp »

heavyset_go wrote: post #197
lotsofpulp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, allowing police to arrest and charge a child for bad behavior at school (i.e. won't obey the teacher, outbursts - not for actually criminally violent behavior). Are there any examples of this happening? I do not recall reading about any incident where police responded to a school where the cause was not due to physical violence. If I was managing a school (or any other establishment), I would instruct…

> Are there any examples of this happening? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/orlando-6-year-old-arr... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maryland-police-5-year-old-boy-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEDTPxpjDhk

The top two might be good examples, but the YouTube link says the kid was punching a teacher, which is a good example of what I meant by punting that to someone with better legal resources than me (if I am a worker at the school).

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#206

Post by sixothree »

betwixthewires wrote: post #125

I thought this article would be about other things judging from the title, but these are good points. I'm not that old, and I remember "be home before dark" when I was in the single digits. I was going outside, by myself, since about the age of 5. As soon as I could ride a bike that was it. Basically my parents made dinner and paid the rent, the rest was all me in my own life. There was a phase in my childhood where…

Gen X here. I started riding my bike in my neighborhood as soon as my next door neighbor took off the training wheels. It was a small neighborhood with clear boundaries.

But as soon as I was 10 and 11 I was leaving to visit friends. I was thinking back recently to one forgotten friend who lived about 1.5 miles away and the pathway I would have taken to his house. It involved crossing two 6-lane divided highways and another Avenue.

I was safe and patient. But I would be aghast to see it in action today.

When I was 13 and 14 we would take "tours" of the city. Even on foot, I would meet friends and we would start early and walk as far as we could. Then take the bus or call our parents. I love those memories. So much.

I loved the city for its shape before I was an adult. And that freedom and those memories have filled me my entire life. And when I started driving I knew how to get to all of the places.

Before she died my mother would always tell me "the kids don't play the way you guys used to". We really tore it up.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#207

Post by fleddr »

The perfect article for this 80s kid to rant about good old times.

My dad gave me a tiny bicycle at the age of 6, and basically said "good luck". I could go anywhere I want for as long as I'm back home in time for dinner. They had no idea where I was, with whom, or what I was doing.

One day, an older kid hit me in the playground. I came home crying, assuming I'd get some support. I was told to just hit him back, preferably harder. I explained that the kid was much older and far bigger. "Get a piece of wood then".

Standard equipment for every kid everywhere were thick knee pads, as mothers grew tired of fixing bloody knees and probably more important: the jeans. On any day, we'd come home looking like pigs, and almost always with fresh wounds.

Throughout this entire period, outside of formal family moments, not a single photo, audio or video recording exists of me.

Not only was it a fantastic childhood, it has helped me become a robust character. I can handle setbacks with ease and instead of complaining, solve things myself.

By today's standards, it would be neglectful or even child abuse. It wasn't. It was paradise.

Child abuse is imprisoning your own child. Not only obsessing over their security, also micro managing their day as if production units.

As for children "performing", my deal was pretty simple and enjoyable. "Come home with good grades or there will be hell". Zero oversight, only the outcome counts.

A fair deal if you ask me. No daily nagging about doing homework, none at all. They couldn't care less. I was fully free to deliver the desired outcome in any way I see fit. Maximum freedom, whilst also instilling responsibility from the start.

To sum this up, the lack of parenting has helped me tremendously.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#208

Post by bsder »

CalRobert wrote: post #154

It's great to allow your kids to take risks, and we do this with our own as much as we can (they're 1 and 3, so "within reason" is still doing some heavy lifting. I pick ticks off of them now and then and patch up their share of bruises). But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that…

> As best I can tell that pretty much means the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan (more for transit than cycling).

Or old pre-car cities in the US.

The point of those is that they have dense interconnection that predates cars. In addition, building roads cost too much in terms of eminent domain, so they don't have very many high-speed roads interfering.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#209

Post by Broken_Hippo »

908B64B197 wrote: post #119
indymike wrote: post #76

I've got five kids. The more I loosen up and let the kids take risks and learn for mistakes the better. The challenge is when the adults inject a ridiculous level of risk to something that should be a learning experience. For example, allowing police to arrest and charge a child for bad behavior at school (i.e. won't obey the teacher, outbursts - not for actually criminally violent behavior). Another is lifetime acad…

> For example, allowing police to arrest and charge a child for bad behavior at school (i.e. won't obey the teacher, outbursts - not for actually criminally violent behavior). Another is lifetime academic and other records. Just send them to a private school where matters are handled privately.

1) Private schools can be expensive, and a few have participation requirements for parents that folks working non-traditional hours can't adhere to.

2) Every private school I lived around growing up was religious, and I'd rather children not have religion forced on them.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#210

Post by yupper32 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #193
yupper32 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today. The future is technology. You're holding them back, socially and technology skills wise, if you wait until they're 13 to give them a cell phone. I was fixing computers and was generally the house technology expert well before I was 13. To get to that point required unrestricted acc…

Hard disagree. Children with phones don't socialize face to face with other children. That's pretty much the most important skill taught in elementary school and you're taking it away from them. You can still let your child use computers at home, but they should have to interact face to face in order to socialize. Yes, the future is technology, but not being able to interact with people without anxiety is not a path…

> Children with phones don't socialize face to face with other children.

Where in the world did you pull this out from?

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