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Kids need freedom, too

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Re: Kids need freedom, too

#301

Post by mikelward »

sjwalter wrote: post #297
sjg007 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is shocking to me how often I hear the advice "go to therapy". Therapy presents its own risks, often never discussed. And it screams of a total lack of self confidence.

More information on the risks?

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#302

Post by sixothree »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #259
sixothree wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Sounds awesome, thanks for sharing. Reminded me of this short story by James Joyce called The Encounter [0], (minus the creepy guy). I never did anything like that, and I grew up in the US in the 90s. Typical suburban upbringing, nowhere in particular to go without a car. Were you in the US? [0] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2814/2814-h/2814-h.htm#chap0...

This might not come as a surprise but New Orleans. Things were.. different in the 80's here. And for sure we had plenty of run-ins with creeps.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#304

Post by prawn »

rcpt wrote: post #133

Trucks are a lot bigger now and traffic is worse. I'd love to let my 6 year old wander the neighborhood freely but there's a good chance he wouldn't see 7 simply because he's shorter than the grill of most SUVs (let alone the lifted bro dozers that are so popular now)

This is why I think that "when I was a kid I roamed the woods for decades at a time" comments are largely irrelevant in these discussions if we're talking about an urban environment that has changed. "When I was a kid", my street was pretty much empty of cars and we'd skateboard and ride and kick balls around. If a car entered that same street now, the visibility has completely changed, given it has cars parked both sides all up and down.

Bigger cars, more traffic, poorer visibility, everyone rushing.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#305

Post by Cd00d »

bhawker wrote: post #289
ping_pong wrote: post #257

I recently watched E.T. by Steven Spielberg, and was shocked at how different life was in the 80s. The mom left Elliott at home alone, sick with a fever, at the age of 9. She also left the daughter who was 3.5 alone while she went to the supermarket. Their only instructions were "don't get into trouble." Those would both get you in a lot of trouble in 2021, but I'm not sure I understand why. It's even easier these da…

This is a movie.

Not really helpful feedback, as it was a movie reflecting the standards of the time.

I was a latch-key kid starting at age 7 in the 80s because I hated the daycare that we used after school and advocated for the freedom. I remember being blocks away from home at age 4 or 5 on my own until it was time to eat and heading back home.

It really was a different experience. And, I say this as a parent of a 6 year old in a roughly similar neighborhood environment.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#306

Post by [deleted] »

bhawker wrote: post #289
ping_pong wrote: post #257

I recently watched E.T. by Steven Spielberg, and was shocked at how different life was in the 80s. The mom left Elliott at home alone, sick with a fever, at the age of 9. She also left the daughter who was 3.5 alone while she went to the supermarket. Their only instructions were "don't get into trouble." Those would both get you in a lot of trouble in 2021, but I'm not sure I understand why. It's even easier these da…

This is a movie.

[deleted]

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#307

Post by rjzzleep »

rmah wrote: post #204
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 burb…

When I was in Louisiana for a year I'd walk or cycle to work. Walk was about half an hour and most of the way had no sidewalks. Buying things at a target meant cycling for 40 minutes on a busy road with no bike lane or sidewalk(a street where I later learned a person had turned without watching and cracked a friends skull open).

"Fun" fact: On my way home I was wearing a pink/white Nike hoodie and asked a woman for directions and she said something like "sir, please step away I have a child".

I grew up in Europe, so I get what you're saying and agree with it, but for most of the US, that is actually built for cars, it's not true.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#308

Post by ping_pong »

sixothree wrote: post #206
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 a…

I think I was younger than 13 when Back to the Future came out. I saw that 3 times with my friends, and each time we had to travel by bus by ourselves for about 45 mins across town.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#309

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#310

Post by tidenly »

ekianjo wrote: post #294
eru wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school. That's not a little kid, that's just a kid. Americans have weird standards for kids' independence. Compare the Japanese show 'my first errand' where little kids go on their first errands: https://www.reddit.com/r/JapaneseGameShows/comments/1lvvgm/h...

You'd probably want to avoid citing Japanese TV shows as reference. They are all fake and completely scripted/heavily edited from start to finish.

True, but younger kids walk around by themselves (mostly in groups) all around Japan. Japan is a weird case though where the cities are safer than the countryside.
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