adults are human too, this applies to adults to a same, lessor or more degree
Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
81–90 of 413 posts
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
A pop in? Where a friend just shows up unannounced with a knock at your door and a tip of the hat and says they were just in the neighborhood and felt like they should drop and has a seat on your couch?
Sure. Maybe they catch you at an awesome time, maybe they don't and they leave- it's a pop-in after all. Keep expectations low. At least you saw them.
That goes back to a time when most homes had a stay-at-home homemaker.
Today, I'm not really crazy about the idea of a random pop-in, having to cut the few hours of time that I do have for laundry, dishes, or just a bit of down time, to have to make coffee and find snacks and sit down for a chat. If I were home all day that would be quite different, or so I think.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#83Meanwhile I know people who look at analytics and numbers to decide what sports and activities their child (who is still in elementary school!) should be doing in order to maximize college admissions chances. It's madness. Don't play violin (even if you like it) because there are too many people doing that, you have to do something unique. Don't play basketball, it's too common and therefore too hard to stand out, yo…
> Meanwhile I know people who look at analytics and numbers to decide what sports and activities their child (who is still in elementary school!) should be doing in order to maximize college admissions chances.
Those people are dumb; ignore them. They're "fighting the last war", so to say.
Seriously, an orchestra needs 30-40 violins per tuba. There has to be a lot of violin players, or there is no orchestra (the Harvard orchestra is short on violin players right now [1] - they certainly aren't going to be taking many more "unusual" instruments without more violins)
The injury rates for young athletes keeps increasing (as in younger than 25-30). Plenty of research shows that specializing in a single sport at a young age is a strong contributor to this. Of course those "elite" coaches want your kid to give up everything else; when your kid burns out or get injured the coach just moves on to the next kid in line.
Just opt out of this system, your kids will be fine.
[1] https://www.harvardradcliffeorchestra.org/current-roster
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#84> Moreover, the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey revealed that during the previous year 18.8% of US high school students seriously considered attempting suicide, 15.7% made a suicide plan, 8.9% attempted suicide one or more times, and 2.5% made a suicide attempt requiring medical treatment. Wait a minute, what? Nearly 1 in 10 attempted suicide? So in a middle school of say 400 kids a kid would know…
Yeah that sounds way off.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#85> Moreover, the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey revealed that during the previous year 18.8% of US high school students seriously considered attempting suicide, 15.7% made a suicide plan, 8.9% attempted suicide one or more times, and 2.5% made a suicide attempt requiring medical treatment. Wait a minute, what? Nearly 1 in 10 attempted suicide? So in a middle school of say 400 kids a kid would know…
I would be curious at how far you have to go for “attempted”, especially when most supposed attempts did not require medical intervention (so it might consist of getting the materials and not having the final nerve to go through with it).
But having graduated high school in 2014, my anecdotal reaction based on that experience would be that it seems on the high side but is plausible.
My reaction certainly isn’t “no way.”
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#86I wonder if this doesn't have a lot to do with cars. In surrendering utterly to the preeminence of streets, we have essentially taken our open, free world and overlain it with an immense grid of electric fences -- thick lines all over the map that, if children wander across them, might easily lead to their deaths. So "hold hands everywhere" and "don't let your children run free outside" become the norms. The only saf…
I agree, and not just because busy streets are unsafe for kids.
Neighborhood != community. Imo with: - Lack of interesting nearby spaces - poor walking options (unsafe, unpopulated, unshaded) - poor transit options - growing options online - polarization
Families are less likely to spend leisure or errand time in/near their neighborhoods. And kids suffer for that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
A pop in? Where a friend just shows up unannounced with a knock at your door and a tip of the hat and says they were just in the neighborhood and felt like they should drop and has a seat on your couch?
Sure. Maybe they catch you at an awesome time, maybe they don't and they leave- it's a pop-in after all. Keep expectations low. At least you saw them.
This is how my grandparents and their friends do it and they clearly have better communication with their friends than I do with mine.
Maybe this whole "scheduling" things was a mistake.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#88Does anyone know of somewhere in America where it is common for children to play semi-unsupervised with lots of other children of different ages? I grew up in a super-block like setting and you could look out and see your kids play but most of the time you didn't and they'd form groups with kids of ages above and below theirs and work out some relatively fair way to play a game and have fun.
Usually sports, but sometimes something else. I actually really enjoyed this sort of setting. Kids would get hurt accidentally, there were some harmless fights, and that sort of thing.
I'm just concerned that, independent of my own viewpoint on the subject, I will be unable to find sufficient other parents with this approach, or, should I find them they'll be clustered with other beliefs that I think are suboptimal for success.
Ultimately, if there is a place with this culture then I will try to make it so I can reasonably live there.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but are you maximizing his college admissions chances via skills in carefully selected activities in order to stand out? (mostly joking, but this is how a lot of people approach scheduling these days)
I agree. You get to be really careful where you want to put ur skill points. Play time is part of the skill tree too ;) Full scheduling of random stuff doesn't mean it would always help the children. It's the children's version of appearing busy.
A full schedule is bad for a kid. They need to learn how to keep themselves entertained, or plan their own activities, or manage their own time, and they can't do that if they get a day plan from sun up to sun down.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#90Wow, this is so sad. I grew up in Europe in the 90s with parents who pretty much let me do whatever I wanted as long as I was a well-behaved child/teenager and getting reasonable school grades. At 6 years old I was literally biking by the river or wandering in the woods with my friends after school for hours on end. Every day was an exciting adventure without any adult supervision, just random groups of 2-10 kids who…
I'll shout it from the rooftops: Down with helicopter parenting!
Independence, life skills, and fun stem from the freedom to explore on one's own. If anything parents, should be constantly nudging and encouraging kids to be more independent than is typically expected by:
1. Letting them have some unstructured, unsupervised time, especially out in the neighborhood.
2. Not automatically doing or thinking for them, especially by answering advice questions with questions that encourage reflection and independent decision-making.
3. Expect them to help with chores and needs self-service, pushing back against the expectation that parents are the forever barbers, waiters, and maids while the kids are on permanent vacation.