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Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#331

Post by em-bee »

jjk166 wrote: post #206
ddq wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why replace it? You're just teaching the child that breaking things has consequences for others but not for them.

At some point in time you made the determination that the value of the child possessing that item was greater than the cost to purchase said item. While them breaking the item may have changed the equation, generally it doesn't. In real life if you accidentally break something, you replace it and move on. If the child is old enough perhaps have the replacement come out of their allowance/have them do something in exc…

well, i might make that determination for a laptop used for school, but surely not for a thing to play computer games or watch tv. if that breaks there is unlikely to be a new one for at least a year.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#332

Post by em-bee »

IanCal wrote: post #248
evandale wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't beat anything into submission. I set ground rules and gave her safe ways to be upset. If she misbehaved she lost privileges she enjoys. I never neglected her if that's what you're trying to get at. That's a pretty low-blow to accuse me of based on what I wrote. Be better. Obviously locking children in rooms isn't right. How about this, instead of locking kids in a room, you could try making a toy room and lo…

"beating into submission" is a phrase that does not mean physically beating. > I never neglected her if that's what you're trying to get at. If you did that to a child it would be neglect, that is the point. Children aren't cats. It is more complex with a child. It's easier when they're a baby, but increasingly more subtle as they get older. Nobody is saying you can't take things away from them or set boundaries, but…

it's not "Do as I say because I am the boss", it is "stop your behavior because it is not appropriate". children need to have boundaries. if those boundaries are crossed there must be consequences. when my kids argue over who gets to use the computer, i take the computer away until they calm down and settle their disagreement.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#333

Post by em-bee »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #69
lolinder wrote: post #44

Earlier 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…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(philosophy_o... feels obligatory to mention here: > a theory in education which posits that individuals or learners do not acquire knowledge and understanding by passively perceiving it within a direct process of knowledge transmission, rather they construct new understandings and knowledge through experience and social discourse, integrating new information with what t…

i believe the reason OLPC was not successful is because they underestimated the externalities. how much it would cost to build the infrastructure (electricity/internet access) to make the laptops usable, the effort needed to train teachers. etc.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#334

Post by vacuity »

jdougan wrote: post #299
dghlsakjg wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let them play monopoly with allowance money? /s In all reality the most effective drug and vice talks I ever got were in High School. The first was from our school's substance counselor who was a former crack addict, and mother of one of our fellow students. She just told her story, and talked about all the horrible shit she saw, but never once told us drug war lies. The other was from my English teacher a few weeks…

"Drugs will make you feel awesome. Never trust _anything_ that makes you feel like that"

Also, it's a whole lot more difficult getting out of addiction than getting in. If you just have a shovel you can dig deep, but climbing back up is a different story.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#335

Post by vacuity »

pineaux wrote: post #300
duckmysick wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wondering: how do we teach kids about addiction (substances, gambling, phone/internet) and its consequences? Theoretical explanation is not effective. Letting them experience it first hand might be too destructive, because of the nature of the addiction. Can any parent chime in what worked and what didn't?

This was already a solved problem. Just get the kids use all the stuff away from parents when they are between 14 and 18. Yes it will do a little bit of brain damage, but getting pissdrunk at that age and having your parents nurse you back to normal is a great experience for a kid. I know this from first hand experience, when I was 14 (it was sorta normal in the Netherlands at that time). I was a lot more carefully w…

I don't know about the Netherlands, but I'm definitely not doing that in the US if I have kids. Also, that might work most of the time, but it's going to hurt when a portion are addicted and can't easily recover.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#336

Post by em-bee »

shard wrote: post #47
awesomeMilou wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (who are often pushed into scheduled extracurriculars for better academic opportunities) too. Gotta say though, this seems to be purely a thing in the english speaking cultures. Apart from sport and maybe an instrument, extracurriculars aren't a thing in most european countries. Extracurriculars are so peculiar that our ministry of education deems it necessary to make it a mandatory point for teachers to discuss wh…

> this seems to be purely a thing in the english speaking cultures This is a major thing in many East Asian cultures as well, China/Taiwan/Japan/Korea. Korea had to pass a law saying that private academies have to close at 10pm, so that kids aren't studying past midnight, but some academies still stay open secretly as the parents are demanding the extra hours. It's a vicious circle: kids compete for the few spots in…

Korea had to pass a law saying that private academies have to close at 10pm

similarly, china banned private afterschool services for school subjects. i don't know how effective the ban is, but their argument was similar.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#337

Post by Atheros »

Tade0 wrote: post #226
pj_mukh wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's my point, the parents thinks its a dude in a white van to be scared off. But the numbers say its the actual white van going too fast on a four lane road (speed limit 45mph) next to the park. This isn't that much of a problem in older European cities.

The city I grew up in was levelled by Nazis during WW2 and rebuilt to be car-centric. The OP said that everyone is walled off by cars so they have a mindset of controlling their children, lest they get run over. You're saying that they're actually afraid of kidnappers etc., while they should be of cars. To me these points are contradictory. In any case do you think removing cars will solve the problem? My guess is th…

If the cars caused the mindset then the mindset would necessarily be delayed by two generations because mindset and worldview changes require new humans.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#338

Post by em-bee »

ddq wrote: post #163
clsec wrote: post #134

Seeing lots of comments about over scheduling children's free time. I took music lessons, did Cub Scouts Weeblos & Boy Scouts, played little league, played Pop Warner & high school football and ran track. All after school activities. As for freedom.. I took SF MUNI, BART, Ferries and Golden Gate Transit starting at 7 year old. Any free time I had was spent playing with friends. And I had to be home by the time the st…

Scouting is an interesting example because my experience included both ends of the scheduling vs. freedom spectrum. My first troop was all about the weekly meetings, merit badge classes, memorization, structured activities, and the like. Camping trips almost always had a specific goal, like hiking a certain trail or getting certain merit badges. My second troop was about going camping and making our own fun. Once the…

i was going to mention scouting somewhere in this thread for exactly that reason. we didn't have merit badges in the country where i grew up, and scouting was a lot more of less structured exploring of the outdoors or activities planned and organized by the kids themselves. and most importantly, parents were not involved.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#339

Post by [deleted] »

jstarfish wrote: post #93
adamredwoods wrote: post #36

Before everyone begins chastising parents: >> He notes that this is a correlation, not proof of causation, although experiments with animals support the claim that play deprivation causes anxiety and poor social development. I also wonder if "playing" in Minecraft, or Roblox supports this definition of play. Or even RPGs like DnD. It's interactive, and allows children to experiment. It's not a physical world, but I d…

> I also wonder if "playing" in Minecraft, or Roblox supports this definition of play. Or even RPGs like DnD. It's interactive, and allows children to experiment. It's not a physical world, but I don't know if these parameters were explored. I don't think so, but that's my opinion. These virtual worlds have entirely different sets of rules that do not reflect those of reality or social norms. Kids do go through the s…

[deleted]

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#340

Post by em-bee »

jstarfish wrote: post #93
adamredwoods wrote: post #36

Before everyone begins chastising parents: >> He notes that this is a correlation, not proof of causation, although experiments with animals support the claim that play deprivation causes anxiety and poor social development. I also wonder if "playing" in Minecraft, or Roblox supports this definition of play. Or even RPGs like DnD. It's interactive, and allows children to experiment. It's not a physical world, but I d…

> I also wonder if "playing" in Minecraft, or Roblox supports this definition of play. Or even RPGs like DnD. It's interactive, and allows children to experiment. It's not a physical world, but I don't know if these parameters were explored. I don't think so, but that's my opinion. These virtual worlds have entirely different sets of rules that do not reflect those of reality or social norms. Kids do go through the s…

Kids do go through the same motions of testing boundaries, but they're testing boundaries that would get you punched in the face or jailed IRL-- but they get away with it without consequence because it's all virtual. There's no consequence to scamming other kids in Roblox or destroying people's artwork in Minecraft

i'd like to disagree. first of all these actions don't have serious consequences because it's a game. destroying someones work in minecraft is no worse than destroying your lego house. that would not get you punched in the face either, nor would cheating your classmate out of their lunch money.

there are also less consequences because of lack of supervision. i don't know about roblox, but the minetest servers my kids play on absolutely have rules against breaking others work and punish players by putting them in an in-world jail or blocking them from the server. in both cases the consequence is that the kids can't play. they have to learn how to interact with other players just as much.

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