141–150 of 388 posts
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Everyone here should watch the Japanese TV series, Old Enough! . 2-4 year olds are sent out on their own to run errands, etc. Yes, really, 2-4 years old. And they succeed and are fine. https://www.ntv.co.jp/english/pc/2011/02/old-enough.html
Ngl if the price for that is a Japanese level of social control, conformity, and their mad justice system... I'll take a car line.
My mom walked me to school until I was in 4th grade. She was a single mom and needed to work, so she decided to let me walk to and from school from then on. I made friends on that walk. 30+ years later, I am still friends with many of them even though we live hours away from each other. I'm not a parent, so I don't know what I don't know; but, I've observed so many kids being shuffled between school, events, "play da…
There's an entire section and even a chart in the article that explains why this is different now In 1969 only about 30% of kids lived too far away from school for walking to be a realistic option. In 2009 (and today) that numbers is around 80%. Walking to and from school is great if you can do it. Most people cannot do it.
I wonder if this also takes into account families choosing to send their kids to schools farther away. In particular, sending them to private or charter schools that are farther away.
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That, and just let kids walk home. It's good for their muscles.
Many of them can't walk home from school. As the article says, most students now live too far away from school (greater than three miles), and many rural/suburban areas have underdeveloped sidewalks and traffic systems. If three miles sounds like not a big deal, it certainly is when you have short legs, a backpack full of books, and uncooperative weather. I was lucky enough to walk to/from school for most of my schoo…
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"he decided" is probably one of the issues here. back in the day it would have been "this is what your doing now kid"
That kind of upbringing worked out really well for the boomers, we are in this mess because of that. Kids should have agency and independence, but also a feeling of safety, trust, and security. You cannot force a kid to work against their own safety instinct because of your own selfish comfort.
I think this article misses the one big problem (as I understand it). It's that schools need to dismiss the kid to their parent. I have family in North Carolina and I understand that cars have the family number displayed, and someone with a radio communicates to the school staff "Car 315 is here", they then find that kid and dismiss them. Just do away with that. When the bell rings, send the kids outside and they wil…
The traffic is caused by vehicles queuing up in line, period. The system you describe isn't necessary to cause the traffic. It's not the root cause.
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The traffic is caused by vehicles queuing up in line, period. The system you describe isn't necessary to cause the traffic. It's not the root cause.
But it does cause it because every car needs to get checked off. When I was a kid in the 80s, there were still quite a few kids that got picked up, but no one was picking them up from the door. They'd park somewhere around the school within a block or two.
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I'm sorry for your experience, but this is extremely location dependent. Walking home from school in many areas is perfectly safe. In other areas it's not. Making blanket statements or restrictions without context doesn't make sense.
So you’re conceding this is location dependent. So in effect you’re saying the article is also location dependent? Pick one. If you knew the statistics on kidnapping or missing children in the US, you would not think of this as a “life-style” choice. By the way, 80% of US population live in urban areas so your experience living in 20% is not representative.
The article is literally about how location effects are driving the changes.
> Pick one. If you knew the statistics on kidnapping in the US, you would not think of this as a “life-style” choice.
Child abduction is extremely rare in the United States.
You might be confusing sensational headlines with statistics. It's common to report missing children or parental disputes as kidnapping, which people conflate with children being abducted off the street
Here's an article about it with some real statistics from the FBI: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wisconsin-missinggirl-dat...
For some perspective: The number of children abducted by strangers in the United States every year is similar to the number of children who die from head injuries from riding a bike: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/
More people in the United States die from lightning strikes every year.
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Just letting the kids out en mass is how my son's school worked until Covid. Then they went to the call out the car as it arrives system as you describe, and they never went back. It is so much worse. Thankfully, my son drives himself to school now so I don't have to deal with it any longer.
I've never heard of this call-out system. It sounds like how you'd run a prison Our schools just open the doors and the kids run to the cars.
Just like all security theater, it's easy enough to get around. All you need is the same looking card and the identifier. Most of the time, that's just the kid's name on the card. Some color code the card by class grade as well.
I know this as I was helping a friend scoop their kiddos up from school, and they just sent me to the school with the card. Nobody questioned who I was. They just saw the card, radioed the name, and the kiddos were waiting at the curb when I eventually crawled up to the spot. Since the kiddos expected me, there was no "who is that guy" situation. Otherwise, just fake a card and get a prize is how lame this setup is
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Ngl if the price for that is a Japanese level of social control, conformity, and their mad justice system... I'll take a car line.
> I'll take a car line Push this out thirty years. One set of kids was navigating the real world since they were 4. The other has been mollycoddled with overparenting and screen time. Which cohort do you think will be happier, better adjusted and better off? Then realise that it's not uncommon to see grade schoolers taking the subway to and from school in New York.
This is the kind of article that needs to get into national culture. We gotta change the way we live. I don't know how to get it to happen, but we need more people doing this.
People need to stop being fucking pussies and actually engage with dumb arguments. It seems people these days are so conflict averse that no one ever speaks up. "We all have our opinions!" Yeah, and sometimes they are stupid.
Currently we're a 39 minute walk from school; a little long for a kid at age 8.
We're like a 10 minute drive, in traffic with lights etc, and I think basically a 10 minute bike ride. There isn't a good biking system because the roads are set up like a grid, and there's no walking path through it.
I think for biking culture to thrive you need bike only or bike/ped paths, otherwise you end up having to bike on busy streets or stop at many intersections.
I'm going to try to organize something like a mini bike bus in my neigborhood.