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Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

letgrow.org

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Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#401

Post by hosh »

yamtaddle wrote: post #17
hosh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Let Grow organization that wrote this article and help advance legislation protecting parents, advocates for a parenting style that lets kids grow into resilient, independently-thinking adults. This is more than just protecting parents or preventing unnecessary breakup of families. From that lens, the question I have is, how does this kind of parenting style help poor families?

> a parenting style that lets kids grow into resilient, independently-thinking adults > how does this kind of parenting style help poor families? I am not sure what you mean.

People here seem to think that this parenting style means to let kids roam around unsupervised, and that is all there is too it. But it is not exactly the same. It still requires time, thought, and energy on the part of the parents.

Example: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/6169288...

Poor families may not have those resources.

What differentiates this parenting style and neglect due to being too exhausted working multiple jobs just to make ends meet?

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#402

Post by jrumbut »

Alupis wrote: post #295
didip wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car-centric culture and gun-centric culture is making our society to be like this. Also, most states defund mental health institutions. Finally, the 24/7 news cycle covers a lot of crazy behaviors, encouraging copycats to one-up the crime even more. Is it a surprise if Americans are more paranoid than ever?

> Car-centric culture and gun-centric culture is making our society to be like this This can't possibly be the cause. The US has been filled to the brim with cars for decades - yet this is a modern phenomenon. Similarly, bad guy have had loads of guns in the US since even before the US was a thing... yet again, this is a modern phenomenon. > Finally, the 24/7 news cycle covers a lot of crazy behaviors, encouraging co…

I don't think any of this is new, it's a continuation of a trend.

I'm intending to have children soon (admittedly later than normal), and it was only in my parent's day that the interstate highway system came into being.

The world has changed quite a bit in not the last few generations. We're in the process of developing new social norms to deal with these changes, so we've got overreactions and underreactions.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#403

Post by hosh »

kyoob wrote: post #21
hosh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Let Grow organization that wrote this article and help advance legislation protecting parents, advocates for a parenting style that lets kids grow into resilient, independently-thinking adults. This is more than just protecting parents or preventing unnecessary breakup of families. From that lens, the question I have is, how does this kind of parenting style help poor families?

Advocating for laws that promote reasonable childhood independence benefits families where all the adults have to work more hours to get by, leaving their kids in safe but unsupervised situations more often.

This parenting style doesn’t necessarily save parents time.

For example, to implement this: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/6169288...

It means involving toddlers into helping in small ways (and having to pay attention to the toddler’s capacity), even if that help initially involves many mistakes.

People who are barely treading water may not have the resources to do something like that, being too exhausted.

Further, you are mistaking safety for well-being. There are situations where overall mental and emotional well-being comes from the confidence built on taking calculated risks. You can only do that when the family and community has a solid social safety net.

To think that protecting poor people’s ability to parent grossly misses the point of this.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#404

Post by zdragnar »

Gigachad wrote: post #269
kungfooey wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live about a half mile from my kid's school and we walk most days, or I bike. However, it has been... eye opening. We live in a fairly urban area of Nashville, but my street doesn't have sidewalks. We've been yelled at multiple times (me, my wife, and our kindergartner) by drivers to "Get out of the road!" (This is on a 25 mph street.) There are ditches and uneven ground on both sides of the road. Even the sidewalk…

Large parts of the US seem like a nightmare society. I can’t imagine how limiting life must be when your basic freedoms like walking are so restricted.

Any forum with a large group of problem-solvers who are discussing a problem are going to have a larger-than-average number of people announcing all kinds of terrible things.

Put another way, some Americans just love complaining about America.

We're a country of 330 million people, spread out the length of an entire continent. Name a problem, and somewhere, someone has it. No place you go to has every problem, and I imagine most places you go the average person will have more good than bad to say about where they live.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#405

Post by JanSt »

danjoredd wrote: post #100
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

Its been a genuine problem. I have heard people actually say that if a kid is playing outside by themselves, then the parent should be charged with child neglect because the kid could get hurt. Any time a kid gets hurt on YouTube the comments are filled with people blaming the parent for not being outside with them. Thing is, playing outside by yourself gives you a strong sense of independence. The kid might get hurt…

By that logic my childhood in Germany was 95% neglect. Also, I was hurt often and that was good.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#406

Post by citrin_ru »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

From what I see in media more supervision for children (compare to what was norm 25-50 years ago) is a trend across most economically developed countries. But the US is definitely the most extreme case.

I would not be surprised if there is an inverse correlation between birth rate and "child protect" laws - the less children a country have the better it tries to protect (to the point it harms everybody). But child hostile laws (and they abuse by police and social services) like in the US definitely not encourage young people to rise kids.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#407

Post by citrin_ru »

pilarphosol wrote: post #31
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

The US is a low trust society, because of all the poverty. You really notice the difference if you travel to Europe. It turns out that having half of the population be economically unsafe makes everyone and everything unsafe.

My impression is the opposite - it is easy to encounter unsupervised children in a poor neighborhoods but practically impossible in upper-middle class ones.

Helicopter parenting is common in families where one of parent stays at home with one or two kids and directs all energy into supervising and 'developing' them. Having high income such families have disproportionate political power and able to enforce this model of rising kids on society at large.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#408

Post by fwlr »

oaiey wrote: post #392
lmz wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think these folks have seen traffic in Jakarta, and yet kids still walk to school there. You can't compare the two. Traffic in Jakarta is often barely moving while the suburbs have the opposite problem.

Maybe. But we all agree that American suburbs are peaceful, heaven-like places compared to many places in the world. In Australia it is poisoness animals, in many countries it is the availability of drugs, in some crime, kidnapping and rapist. And God forbid you live in a war zone. Most parents would love their kids growing up in a safe place like in the US, the EU or Japan. But they are not and are faster independen…

Minor quibble: Australians generally aren’t afraid of our poisonous animals, and it generally doesn’t factor into whether we let our kids play outside.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#409

Post by lazide »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #380
bluGill wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is not the only country adopting. There are places in Africa to watch out for. Though many have stopped adopting as abuse was too common for the benefits.

The big issue for China is that they needed kids staying in the country not going out of it. Even in the 00s, they were adopting primarily disabled kids, and I think that has almost stopped now.

Eh, the big issue with China (and Russia that did the same thing recently), is that it was embarrassing when someone did an international documentary and it became clear that many domestic orphans no one Chinese wanted.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#410

Post by oscillonoscope »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #232
msla wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the subculture of people who get incandescently angry about CPS aren't the kinds of people I'd want anywhere near children.

for those of us who ticked off at CPS, that's kind of the point. who you want "anywhere near children" should have nothing to do with my relationship with my kids.

Why? It seems like those things are directly related. If I see somebody treating their child poorly then I wouldn't want them caring for my children.
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