181–190 of 201 posts
> All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. —BP
--not DXP
If you open the window some flies will get in
--DXP
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You could argue by providing those things you’re forcing them into perpetual stimulation. It’s a matter of perspective. The difference is that like sugar, unless we’re using our rationality to override the impulse, we’ll always pick stimulation though that’s not necessarily healthy.
I’m a geek. My kids are geeks. To not provide them access to a computer because there’s bad addictive things on computers is like not teaching kids to read because there’s harmful books. In reality, things are never so black and white. When I tell my kids “no youtube, no gaming, but you’re allowed to use Scratch” there’s a risk they’re just browse scratch’s endless catalog of games made by others, plenty of which are…
I feel the destructive behaviour of bored kids is forgotten a bit. Growing up in the late 70s early 80s we were kicked out of the house until dinner. We did a lot of really dangerous things exploring. Among these, -Playing in storm drains. Inside the narrow tunnels I might add. -Abandoned construction sites. -Railway tracks. Putting things o the rails waiting for the train to see what happened. Everything from rocks…
Reminds me of finding a portapotty and using it to tumble down a hill, or visiting the local quarry when I was 8 and playing around near huge deep pools of strangely coloured liquids. Mid 80s were like the wild wild west.
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We’re also looking at strong survivor bias. My grandfather played in the fields after WW2 (Eastern Europe) and had friends who died or had limbs blown off by undetonated mines from the war (preschool/school age). You likely never heard their stories since they didn’t make it to present day. There are definitely many benefits to socialization outside, but let’s not forget the tradeoffs. Mental health can be repaired (…
> the risks of playing outside today are equivalent In Ukraine they are / will be for many years.
I feel the destructive behaviour of bored kids is forgotten a bit. Growing up in the late 70s early 80s we were kicked out of the house until dinner. We did a lot of really dangerous things exploring. Among these, -Playing in storm drains. Inside the narrow tunnels I might add. -Abandoned construction sites. -Railway tracks. Putting things o the rails waiting for the train to see what happened. Everything from rocks…
Ehem - sounds like a normal childhood? Compare that to the sheltered, all-wishes-granted and no minute spent w/o distractions like social media, kids. Started with Gen Z who get all angsty, with panic attacks, when they have to start performing, i.e., during final exams and the like. And never learned to deal with emotions and free-floating thoughts, handling themself, keeping calm. (all observed from multiple cowork…
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Yeah, that's intuitively not a fate I would want to wish on my own kids. I'm just old enough to have spent the first ~14 years of my life without any personal computing devices, and I remember the boredom being agonizing . Now, the kind of device I would provide is another story. Unfettered access to the Internet at large, including social media, is probably not well advised - access to Wikipedia probably is. Questio…
Boredom can be filled with... books! I think that going for a "personal computing device" first is in general a bad idea and I'm really glad for the first ~14 years of my life I also didn't have any because I'm not sure I would have had the self control to avoid just getting suckered in, and I feel lucky I developed a reading habit instead.
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My band of miscreants had two female members, let’s not assume that only boys run around in mini-not-so-evil gangs.
I shudder to think of my kids doing the stuff I did as a kid, and sometimes wonder what angel was looking over me that I made it to adulthood. I don’t worry at all about my 8yo boy however, as he’s very cautious and risk averse. My 6yo girl though already scares me to death with the stuff she does when she slips out of sight. I can’t wait for the teenage years!
During all of this ordeal, I thought the issue was that I went in the forest and got dirty. The "disappeared for a long time" and the "holding and using a rusty machete" did not register as issues.
Goold luck with your daughter, it did not become better for my parents until I was...Until they stopped knowing what I did. And just as you they were unprepared because my older brother is mostly into being alive and safe.
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I would argue that what you were doing was actually good though because you were going maximum risk in an environment that was definitely dangerous but not to the level of adult life. When you got hurt it informed your learning brain and you likely adjusted your risk taking going forward. I see this skill missing a lot in the kids that grew up in the 2000's and later vs the early millenials/gen x. It's way better to…
> The way I usually describe this is a lot of the younger people I talk to weren't punched in the face enough by their peers growing up because that's the other social risk side of this equation. You forgot school shooters exist.
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> The way I usually describe this is a lot of the younger people I talk to weren't punched in the face enough by their peers growing up because that's the other social risk side of this equation. You forgot school shooters exist.
Exactly. Punching someone in the face in high school is a good way to get shot, stabbed, poisoned, or run over.
Large portions of globe functions with fights at school that don't escalate to death or injury with a weapon.
>such as talking to elderly neighbours No no no, that's dangerous!!! Don't ever let your kids talk to strangers, duh. /s Same thing applies to adults imo. Embracing boredom was one of the best things I did in the past years. Boredom is fun!