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Kids need freedom, too

persuasion.community

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Re: Kids need freedom, too

#271

Post by lnwlebjel »

golemotron wrote: post #243
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…

This will sound terrible, but one theory why parents are so risk-averse with their kids is that 1-2 kids per family is the norm today. When it was more like 3-5 it was harder to keep track of all of them and they (the kids) inevitably did risker things. Moreover, the loss of a kid feels far worse if you don't have more.

There might actually be something to this. My child #3 gets more freedom (and is much more self sufficient!) just because I am often too busy with the many other things to interfere with her learning process.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#272

Post by sjg007 »

korethr wrote: post #135
mumblemumble wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am seeing this, too. Oftentimes, ostensibly in the interest of protecting children from harm, we try to control their behavior with increasingly disproportionate ultimatums, to the point where the authority's response is vastly more harmful than the situation itself. It seems that nowadays we have an extremely interventionist culture, and it leaves us ill-equipped to recognize situations where the best thing to do…

> I am seeing this, too. Oftentimes, ostensibly in the interest of protecting children from harm, we try to control their behavior with increasingly disproportionate ultimatums, to the point where the authority's response is vastly more harmful than the situation itself. And IMO, perversely, this incentivizes behavior problems. Kids sooner or later (and often sooner in the case of smarter kids) catch onto when adults…

My kids figured this out... I think the solution is that you have to be consistent and both parents have to back each other up. Some people say that you should setup house rules and let the kids help set them up that way they have ownership.

The other thing would be to go to therapy. We don't teach people how to be parents but there is a lot of applied child development skills you can learn.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#273

Post by wheels »

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…

> the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan

I think it's far more common than that -- actually, guessing wildly, I suspect most children around the world get themselves to school and that the US is the outlier.

In Germany, where I live, and where my oldest will be starting school in two months, it's common and encouraged for kids to walk to school in their first year (age 6). Admittedly, ours is only a quarter mile away. We've just started letting our son go alone to the bakery downstairs and across the street from our apartment, and while it's not quite typical, it's also not wild here for a 5 year old to do that.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#274

Post by sjg007 »

semitones wrote: post #64
caturopath wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's striking to me that the extreme end of 'freedom' here is letting a 9 year old ride a train alone. I must be getting old. I realize it's relevant because Skenazy wrote and talked about doing so, but it's also just so non-extreme.

I agree, it doesn't seem that extreme to me. Maybe something like letting your 9 year old get on a bus to another state, without a phone, and telling them "come back when you're done having fun!" would be extreme.

We stick kids on the plane unaccompanied to be minded by a flight attendant.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#275

Post by agotterer »

cuddlybacon wrote: post #75

Jonathan Haidt wrote a book called The Coddling of the American Mind [0]. He'd agree that adults need to give children their freedom back. He talks about what the consequences for not doing so have been for Zoomers and it is quite worrying: escalating rates of depression and anxiety, increased rates of suicide, fewer friends, even fewer close friends, reduced social trust, more on-campus violence, increased favorabil…

I’m a big fan of this book. It’s largely about the cancel culture, over protection, and how the voice on college campuses has been changing. How we went from college being a safe place for open debate and discussion to an environment which is becoming less welcoming of differing opinions and perspectives. The authors try to identify the origins of the change and use data and statistics to back up their claims. I thought it was an interesting read and recommend it for parents and non parents alike. The last quarter of the book does talk a lot of parenting and the idea of free range kids.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#276

Post by sjg007 »

minikites wrote: post #220
ryandrake wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I said "perception". People believe kids are going to get kidnapped or murdered, even though the crime statistics don't bear this out, therefore they don't think knocking on a random door is OK anymore.

So why does the truth not change people's perceptions?

TV and movies reinforce the misconception. News is also global.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#277

Post by omegaham »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #50
quadrangle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's some argument for stats and science here. Padding for Rugby might actually make sense whereas the trend where kids can't go to the park or the grocery store alone is counterproductive. A world where kids playing actually risky sports use safety equipment but also have the independence to go to the park and do pick-up games with friends with no adult supervision, that sounds like the right balance. Not e…

It's not settled science but there's decent evidence that the padding and helmets contribute to the more violent nature of American football (where serious and long term injuries are more common than in rugby).

The issue with American football is the "line in the sand" nature of yardage. In rugby, as long as you wrap up the ball carrier and bring him down, it's fine if he gets another couple yards. In contrast, letting a running back get another couple yards is often the difference between a first down and a turnover.

Another reason is the lack of laterals in American football. In rugby, if you commit too hard to tackling a player, he laterals the ball to the player next to him, and you're now in a really, really bad defensive position. In contrast, laterals are so rare in American football that you can commit as hard as you want without consequences.

Neither of these things go away if you get rid of the helmets and pads; it just makes it more likely that people will die on the field, as they frequently did before helmets and pads were introduced. At one point, football was killing so many college students that President Roosevelt threatened to ban it.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#278

Post by flukus »

caturopath wrote: post #51
tw04 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major difference is the vast, vast majority of households were single income. "Working mother" was a non-existent thing. Men went to work, mothers stayed home. So if you let your kids roam the neighborhood in the summer SOMEONE'S mom was there to keep an eye out. I would say, in general, it also lead to more socializing in neighborhoods because while I would never claim that a stay-at-home mom isn't doing a full-…

Eyes on the street used to be provided not only by stay-at-home parents, but by other folks going about their lives: people walking through, shopkeepers, etc. Over time, modern suburbanism became more and more locked in: extreme separation of uses, strikingly non-through streets, non-street-interacting access to apartments, houses, and shops, lower density, etc. This isn't the only story, but it's certainly a part of…

> Eyes on the street used to be provided not only by stay-at-home parents, but by other folks going about their lives: people walking through, shopkeepers, etc

Not just eyes but they were empowered to police kids as well, the local shopkeeper could "order" you to go home and confiscate the lighter you're burning leaves with without repercussion, but doing so now could just as likely end up with an angry parent coming back with the big "don't tell my kid what to do" speech. Similarly spanking was a punishment that friends parents could dish out, but this slowly faded out and now everyone is scared to make any physical contact whatsoever.

The accepted rules on what sort of justice could be dolled out by non-parents changed slowly and unevenly leaving many confused to the point where they just stay out of it entirely, or maybe just call the police for the worst infractions.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#279

Post by renewiltord »

bsf_ wrote: post #167
nomel wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids don't go outside because there's no kids outside. I don't think it's that simple. If you let your kids outside, away from your supervision, there's a very real (absolutely certain, where I live) risk of the police getting involved.

I can confirm this - last year I had to deal with Redwood City PD because my 11 year old daughter was playing after school on the playground (which is, amazingly, not allowed in CA?!). I stood my ground, but the incident involved the police department and meetings with the principal before it was resolved. California is doing a good job of driving the liberal right out of me.

Thank you for sharing these stories from the trenches. I wonder what practical things I can do when I am a parent that will prevent these harmful interactions.

It reminds me of the fact that I used to be crazy paranoid on weed in uni but I ate some a year or so ago and I just felt good. I was terrified of the consequences of being caught. Once the police disappeared as a threat, the actual thing was fine.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#280

Post by presentation »

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…

A take from Japan - actually for cycling it's not bad. Even though the infrastructure doesn't have nice separate cycling paths, it's still 16% trips taken by bicycle out here vs 25% in the Netherlands [1]. Most neighborhoods aren't high-speed and streets are tiny, making low-speed cycling not so dangerous, and the proximity of neighborhoods means that kids bike places all the time.

[1] https://medium.com/vision-zero-cities-journal/the-unique-saf....

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