I am especially interested to hear from non-USA readers of HN, as to how much of this sounds like what is happening in their countries vs. how much is a unique American issue.
Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
121–130 of 413 posts
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I came here to post exactly this. It is appalling that we live in a neighborhood where everyone can walk, there are plenty of kids that my son knows within a mile, he's 14 and more than old enough to be out on his own, but every one of his friends is in a math class, or French school, or out of town on vacation, constantly. He goes to the park and there is no one there. So he stays home and watches anime. The only wa…
Yes, this culture of parents scheduling play dates drives me insane. And even if you try to schedule, everyone is so busy. Kids have karate and 30 minutes later baseball and that's after school. It so much different from our childhood and we struggle to integrate into it.
When I first heard about play dates it reminded me of a scene in The Devil's Advocate where one of the wives of the lawyers said that whenever she wants to see her husband, she has to schedule an appointment.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#123> 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…
Apparently it's even worse (slightly, but still...) in 2021 according to https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/su/su7201a6.htm.
This is horrifying. These kids are going to become adults who will, to some extent, struggle to have successful, satisfying and rewarding lives.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#124Earlier 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)
haha I have been maximizing the annoyance level of my parents and others by telling my kids these things: - don’t focus on GPA, focus on actually gaining knowledge and understanding how the world works. good grades are a measure of how you understand things. they should never be the goal. I was a C student and I am more curious about things than many of my peers with fancy degrees. - forge your own path, there is alw…
Assuming you’re American you are really screwing then over by not paying for college. The FAFSA assumes a parental contribution. It’s not just other parents, but the federal government and all the colleges themselves that have the expectation that you will contribute.
There’s no exemption for “I want to teach my kids financial responsibility”. If you’re high income your children will be ineligible for any financial aid and have few options for funding their own education.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#125> 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…
2.5% of 400, or 10, made a suicide attempt requiring medical treatment. That doesn't mean the rest aren't in trouble and in need of help, but it's likely that in a previous decade we could have missed them.
Still, 10 out of 400 needing medical treatment for a suicide attempt, is awful, and seems much higher than when I was in high school.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#126We have really made it a point to have our kid play freely as much as possible and minimize scheduled activities (piano lessons etc.) the problem is that most of his friends are in a million classes so even if he’s free, they often aren’t. That’s been the big challenge. So then there are these magical days where they all don’t have any activities and those invariably happen to be the days ALL kids look forward to. Cu…
I came here to post exactly this. It is appalling that we live in a neighborhood where everyone can walk, there are plenty of kids that my son knows within a mile, he's 14 and more than old enough to be out on his own, but every one of his friends is in a math class, or French school, or out of town on vacation, constantly. He goes to the park and there is no one there. So he stays home and watches anime. The only wa…
I'm at the age where I'm seeing the endgame of this, our cohort of kids & friends are applying to college. They did all these after-school activities, tutors, sports, etc. They were over programmed over achievers. And guess what, even with their 4.5 GPAs and impressive resumes, they aren't getting into the colleges they want (University of California). So what was the point of all that?
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#127Earlier 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)
haha I have been maximizing the annoyance level of my parents and others by telling my kids these things: - don’t focus on GPA, focus on actually gaining knowledge and understanding how the world works. good grades are a measure of how you understand things. they should never be the goal. I was a C student and I am more curious about things than many of my peers with fancy degrees. - forge your own path, there is alw…
In school I didn't care about grades. Still went to a good college.
In college I didn't care about grades. Still graduated.
At work I don't care about promotions. I still get raises well above inflation and am doing great.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#128I 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…
Routinely in New York City at least, you can kill someone using a motor vehicle almost with complete impunity. The driver who led to Sammy's Law (which still hasn't passed) only received a 180 day license suspension a year and a half after the accident, even though he sped past a stopped vehicle on the righthand side (the vehicle had stopped for the child). Death by car is often considered acceptable. There is really…
7,485 pedestrians were killed by cars in the whole of the US in 2021.
this is a great example of where whataboutism is not a logical fallacy. i mean what is your solution? ban all driving?
sure, but give me a proper public transport network that can supply the suburbs and rural areas. fix urban cost of living while you're at it.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wholeheartedly agree based on my own kids, but want to add a caution lest someone misunderstand: this testing, learning, and growing is of a kind that can only be done without adult supervision. It's not something that you can give them with a private lesson. It's not something that can be taught in a classroom. It's not something that can happen at all without adults letting the kids figure it out on their own by…
> I don't want a child learning what heat is by falling onto a wood-burning stove! Famously, the Dusun in Borneo teach their children to respect knives by allowing them to play with them (and cut themselves) as toddlers.
It's a curious thing to only be able to teach the dangers of something by having children try out and experience the reprecussions of dangers. I think an important skill in life is to actually predict and understand danger ahead of time. As in, a knife won't just give you a bruise, it could be easily fatal if used in even the most mildly wrong way. Falling/jumping from great heights isn't something to just experiment with and try. Running in a busy street isn't something to try just to understand the dangers. Running up to an American bison isn't something to just try and see what happens. Etc.
Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Where I grew up people still do pop ins. You get around your problem by helping the person out with what they were doing when you popped in.
Doing the dishes when you pop in? Cool, you get to dry them as I wash. Everyone basically follows this rule. There’s no expectation of entertaining guests if you pop in for a visit.