Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#351

Post by solatic » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:13 PM UTC

bill_joy_fanboy wrote: post #98

plsbenice34 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harmful parenting styles lead to children that grow up to be debilitated and somehow it gets turned around to be called 'entitlement'. It's just shifting the blame from the bad parents to the child, like victim blaming.

Whenever someone uses the word "entitled", I just hear my mom. People who participate in and contribute to society are entitled to things. They should have a sufficient wage, safe housing, food and clean water. If I as a tax-paying, working member of society am not "entitled" to anything, why would I care about the perpetuation of the society? If I'm not "entitled" to anything, why should I care about anything or any…

Because in the real world, the only transactional relationships you ought to have are ones that explicitly involve money. It's difficult to learn to start to relate to people in a non-transactional manner, but it's necessary to develop genuine relationships.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#352

Post by teaearlgraycold » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:26 PM UTC

dopeboy wrote: post #334

silisili wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noticed mostly the same. I still think it's a win, our kid seems much happier and more outgoing than a lot of others that end up over. Further, she tends to find friends with similar minded kids, I guess because they don't have much in common with someone glued to their phones. I've had to actually ban kids from our house for their shitty attitudes and/or social media addiction, which may or may not be related. I don…

I respect the heck out of that - it takes guts banning your kid’s friends. Curious - how did you carry this out? You told your child to stop inviting them or you asked the problematic kid’s parents?

My parents did this growing up. They’d tell me directly about the child being banned and to not invite them over.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#353

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:26 PM UTC

comfypotato wrote: post #326

rychco wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stereotypical American helicopter-parent/soccer-mom can be viewed as a direct result of poor zoning practices & the resulting suburban sprawl. A typical child is completely incapable of going anywhere without the guidance of a car-driving parent. It is unlikely, either on foot or bike, that they are able to get to school, get to/from sports practice, meet with friends, shop at local stores, run errands, have a pa…

There’s something to be said here for neighborhood interactions among children of varying ages. I used to enjoy playing around building forts in the suburbs with some other young guys in friend’s neighborhoods that had lots on kids in the same age ball-park. It’s not life-changing autonomy, but it was definitely free from any sort of helicopter parents for afternoons at a time.

There are probably a lot fewer kids per neighborhood than when you were growing up.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#354

Post by _dain_ » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:31 PM UTC

another_story wrote: post #296

geysersam wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biking a few miles took 15-20 minutes I imagine. Why would you not let your 11+ year old kids bike that route? Sounds okay if there's not too much traffic.

Just let kids ride slower on the sidewalks and follow pedestrian street crossing rules.

That's treating the symptoms not the cause. The roads should be safe enough for kids to ride on.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#355

Post by fallingknife » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:33 PM UTC

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #280

rychco wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stereotypical American helicopter-parent/soccer-mom can be viewed as a direct result of poor zoning practices & the resulting suburban sprawl. A typical child is completely incapable of going anywhere without the guidance of a car-driving parent. It is unlikely, either on foot or bike, that they are able to get to school, get to/from sports practice, meet with friends, shop at local stores, run errands, have a pa…

> The stereotypical American helicopter-parent/soccer-mom can be viewed as a direct result of poor zoning practices & the resulting suburban sprawl. Is there any evidence for that? Because, every new HN thread seems to attack suburban "sprawl". The reasoning seems plausible but I can also present plausible reasoning that goes the other way.

It's not the reason. You see the same things in neighborhoods where you can walk places. And suburban sprawl was just as much a thing 30 years ago. It's an excuse that suburban parents use for their helicopter parenting, which is entirely anxiety driven.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#356

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:33 PM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #297

refurb wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I grew up in the suburbs. Nothing but houses and maybe a strip mall 2 miles away. By the time I was 12 I was allowed to bike wherever. We rode all day long, to the strip mall, the even bigger mall (3 miles away), to each other’s houses, to hiking trails, etc. It was a great childhood. Lots of autonomy and a safe environement.

Agreed. OP’s comment makes no sense in the suburb I live in now (built around 2000), and the suburb in which I grew up (built early 1970s). Both have nearby schools, supermarkets and plazas with retail businesses, working teenagers, playgrounds, parks, etc.

rychco’s comment makes sense in my suburb.

Even I have anxiety crossing 5 lane roads with 40mph speed limits. There is usually a huge pickup truck or SUV going at least 50mph, who may likely be distracted by their phone. This was not as much of an issue a few decades ago.

And that is just the 40mph ~30ft to 40ft wide crossings.

The 7 to 9 lane wide, 80ft crossings on 40mph roads are incredibly scary to cross, and that is in daylight.

Just the other day, at night, an old homeless woman was crossing it with her luggage, and we were stopped at the left turn lanes. The walk signal changed before the old woman could finish crossing the road, and she could easily have gotten hit by an inattentive or fast driver after she popped out as she passed the stopped cars.

I would limit my kids crossing the 7+ lane roads until teenage years, and the 4+ lane roads until 9 or 10. And night time might even be more restrictive.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#357

Post by kebsup » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:34 PM UTC

One time in a group project at a Danish university, an American exchange student suggested we dedicate a group conflict mediator, because she does not like to approach people directly. Luckily the Danes were more sane and we've rejected that immediately.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#358

Post by leonhard » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #235

I worry about generalizations in this regard, but consistently my daughter's peers in college who had helicopter parents were less functional. May simply be correlation of course so drawing conclusions would be bad. That said, it's super hard to experiment on kids without getting in trouble :-). As a parent unfortunately you have to pick a path. My eldest had the tendency to only learn through experiencing the negati…

How did you improve your conflict management skills and do you have any particular lessons to share?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#359

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:48 PM UTC

rychco wrote: post #221

jasonhansel wrote: post #9

> Chentsova Dutton said America has an international reputation for prizing autonomy, but her study opened her eyes to a more complicated picture. American parents tend to be overprotective when children are young, acting as if kids are going to live at home for a long time, like parents do in Italy. Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college, like families do in Germany. The result…

The stereotypical American helicopter-parent/soccer-mom can be viewed as a direct result of poor zoning practices & the resulting suburban sprawl. A typical child is completely incapable of going anywhere without the guidance of a car-driving parent. It is unlikely, either on foot or bike, that they are able to get to school, get to/from sports practice, meet with friends, shop at local stores, run errands, have a pa…

Independence requires free time. Kids, at least those with parent who expect them to go on to higher education, dont have free time. They dont just play baseball on the school team a couple days a week. They play on literally ALL the teams. Then there are non-school karate lessons. And thier language tutor. And thier doctor visits. And thier therapists for whatever learning disbaility they are told they have. Middle class kids are cogs in a factory. Their greatest free time is chatting with friends via smartphones while being shuttled between appointments.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#360

Post by II2II » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 12:53 PM UTC

another_story wrote: post #296

geysersam wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biking a few miles took 15-20 minutes I imagine. Why would you not let your 11+ year old kids bike that route? Sounds okay if there's not too much traffic.

Just let kids ride slower on the sidewalks and follow pedestrian street crossing rules.

Intersections are where many pedestrian injuries and fatalities happen, due to "inattentive" motorists. The reality is the motorists are probably attentive to other vehicular traffic, which poses a much greater risk to them but poses a huge risk to pedestrians.

Then there are the agressive motorists. I have seen motorists intentionally[1] accelerate towards school crossing guards. People seem to get impatient when being held up in traffic, even when it is a product of their own decisions (like driving past a school on a residential side street when school is starting for the day).

[1] Of course, I don't know their actual intentions. Yet I have difficulty interpreting a vehicle that is creeping slowly into an intersection then suddenly accelerating towards a safety vested person as anything other than a deliberate act.