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New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

news.nationalpost.com

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Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#81

Post by alongenemylines »

aunty_helen wrote: post #72
patrickdavey wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ACC is possibly the best thing about NZ, and most surprising. For example, you can go hiking (tramping as they call it here), fall down, break a leg... and ACC will fly out a helicopter to get you, bring you to the hospital, patch you up and send you on your way. All at no cost to you. As OP said, this counts for anyone on NZ soil, regardless of nationality. Keeps lawyers at bay. It's great. I know of friends in the…

'All at no cost to you.' Really? the 400$ a year I pay for my motorbike rego that goes straight to ACC is no cost to me? (I do think it's a pretty good system however)

Compare that to the thousands of dollars an average medical plan in the US costs - and we still have to pay out of pocket for many medical expenses too!

I'd much rather pay $400 a year.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#82

Post by samsolomon »

lnlyplnt wrote: post #2

This reminds me of this article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-pare... We might finally have some reversion from this awful "safety" obsessed parenting trend.

The Overprotected Kid was a great feature in The Atlantic. If you enjoyed this story I recommend you take a look at it.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#83

Post by aunty_helen »

alongenemylines wrote: post #81
aunty_helen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'All at no cost to you.' Really? the 400$ a year I pay for my motorbike rego that goes straight to ACC is no cost to me? (I do think it's a pretty good system however)

Compare that to the thousands of dollars an average medical plan in the US costs - and we still have to pay out of pocket for many medical expenses too! I'd much rather pay $400 a year.

The 400$ only covers the use of a bike. There's also 0.95% of you salary taxed for workplace injuries and 1.26% for non-work injuries. Then there's car registration which is about 200$/yr and a tax added to petrol which comes included in the $/Litre cost (they put the figure at 330$/yr). 2600$ is a rough estimate of my ACC levies paid each year. I think there's also some portion of cigarettes and booze that goes to ACC as well.

One of the negatives is that when you're in need of an operation but it's not immediately life threatening you're prioritised and end up on a wait list which could be several years long.

A bit off topic, but there are definitely good and bad aspects to both systems.

http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/levies/current-years-levy-rat...

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#84

Post by jasonwocky »

joshfraser wrote: post #58
jasonwocky wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans are notoriously bad at risk assessment. We're more worried about child abductions than childhood obesity. Statistically speaking, only one of those is a real issue today. Quit talking nonsense. A young boy got abducted mere blocks from where I live not more than 3 years ago. Those parents would give anything to have an obese kid right now. Asking parents to make decisions based on the aggregate damage child…

According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, about 115 children / year are the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. These “stereotypical” kidnappings involved someone the child did not know or was an acquaintance. The child was held overnight, transported 50 miles or more, killed, ransomed or held with the intent to keep the child permanently. 115 children out of ~74 million in the US. I under…

Again, in my case, it didn't need to be amplified by the media. It happened around the corner, to an 8-year old child whose parents wanted to grant him some independence. He was literally kidnapped on the first day they let him walk home from school alone.

I understand that stranger abduction is a rare occurrence. What I don't buy is the approach of divorcing that statistic from the "parental overprotectionism" that so many of you decry. Yes, kidnappings are probably trending down (I don't know for sure...I can't find any statistics other than from 1999) at the same time that parental protectionism is trending up. Isn't that the whole point?

> The biggest risk to your kids being abducted is one you probably don't want to admit -- around 200,000 children/year are abducted by a family member.

I don't mind admitting that at all. I just don't see what it has to do with my argument (which might be admittedly difficult to read now since it doesn't fall in line with the HN hive mind).

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#85

Post by krrrh »

fnbr wrote: post #62
krrrh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds exactly like my elementary school playground in Alberta (so much so I had to wonder if we went to the same school, but then I imagine there were photostated plans for getting a playground up quick with old tires and chains that made the rounds in those days). Everything in Canada has gotten way too safe. In Germany however, they've still got a lot of downright expressionist playgrounds. This ladder I witn…

Not Belgravia, by any chance? We had the same thing at my elementary school in Edmonton!

It was in Leduc actually. I'd like to think that enterprising Albertan tire recycling firm figured out how to make a side business in playgrounds and that these were everywhere.

Re: New Zealand school tossed its playground rules

#86

Post by mrottenkolber »

seestheday wrote: post #80
mrottenkolber wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any permanent injuries? This stuff is quite dangerous unless performed with disciplined caution. I would not want to observe kids boxing (ouside a boxing sports club). Hit the throat. Bad day.

Got anything to back up your statement? Everything fight I've seen between two willing participants (not bullying) is that it isn't really very dangerous. I'm 36 and I still love to spar. I do it with boxing headgear, a mouthpiece and gloves now, but when I was young my friends and I always used to fight for fun with no gear. Sometimes it was fists only. Sometimes grappling, kicks, punches. Sometimes it was with hock…

Dropping is rather dangerous, and if you hit a throat hard enough its pretty much an instant death.
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