Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

stevemagness.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 632 posts

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#201

Post by internet_points »

obscurette wrote: post #13
paulmooreparks wrote: post #5

I'm 55. Growing up in Florida in the 70's and 80's, I was outside for hours at a time. I would wander in the woods, following streams to their source and actually mapping the entire forest (I still have the map). I rode my bicycle all over town, by myself and with my equally adventurous friends, getting into all sorts of dangerous things. I went fishing by myself, literally dodging moccasins and alligators. I'd clean…

I'm in my sixties and my experience is same. But now we live in the world, where my granddaughter (12) got into real trouble because a birthday present I gave her – a real Leatherman (pink of course). Of course she brought it to the school, it was confiscated, she, her parents and I was questioned by police etc.

Here in Norway, my third grader gets to take a "scout knife" on school trips, we sometimes get pictures from the teacher of the kids sitting there sharpening sticks which I guess they use as swords or something because it's always too wet to barbecue.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#202

Post by vjk800 »

graemep wrote: post #192

This bit is not supported by the quoted studies: "We live in a culture of safetyism. And it’s largely an English speaking phenomenon." If you look at page 14 of this: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/default/files/files... its far from clear. I am also very dubious of the findings. The very low level of mobility in Sri Lanka contradicts what I see - especially relative to England. Most families do not have ca…

I was wondering what the hell people here are talking about. Then I saw that my country (Finland) is number one on that list.

Indeed, my children (3 and 5 year old) run freely around the half hectare communal yard of my housing company (which includes 12 apartments). Almost all kids here go to school by themselves either by walking or by bike, starting at the age of seven. I also see kids around this age playing without adults in groups on streets and parks all the time.

City planning gets a lot of shit here, but apparently we did something correctly. It might also have something to do with cities here being generally safe. I'm probably just as concerned about my children's safety as parents in any country, but it just isn't that scary out there.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#203

Post by close04 »

skandinaff wrote: post #191
dyauspitr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the early 2000s people were forced to be outside because the inside was boring. This was supercharged in the 70s. That’s no longer the case. People have endless, on demand entertainment inside now.

This. I do remeber as a kid in the 90s, who was among the first who got a confuser at home - at age 5..6 I remember actually being pulled to my apartment, to play all those DOS games I had (didn't have game console, but a pentium PC, with windows 95/DOS). At some moment, I remember even being thrilled to spend my time playing jazz jack rabbit or something of sorts, instead of going downstairs to my apartment block ya…

I think back of my childhood and playing the usual games like hide and seek with at least 10-12 other kids around my building and occasionally I'll slip into the "kids these days" thoughts. And then I realize I had something no kid these days has: massive amounts of boredom.

There was nothing in the house to make me want to stay in. Nothing like a console or PC, best thing were books on days when going out would be deadly (exceptionally hot or cold). I was going out by necessity, initially knowing and as I grew up hoping that some other kids will be doing the same. And from that large pool of "random" kids I'd get very close to a few, become friends and then have some more on-demand negotiated fun instead of opportunistic. This lead us on hundreds of adventures anywhere we could physically go for it.

Before we even consider how walkable or dense a city is, how safe, how permissive modern laws are of letting kids just be, etc. the questions is, how many kids or parents stop short of running into any of these problems because the kids have all they think they need inside some type of electronic device?

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#205

Post by graemep »

vjk800 wrote: post #202
graemep wrote: post #192

This bit is not supported by the quoted studies: "We live in a culture of safetyism. And it’s largely an English speaking phenomenon." If you look at page 14 of this: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/default/files/files... its far from clear. I am also very dubious of the findings. The very low level of mobility in Sri Lanka contradicts what I see - especially relative to England. Most families do not have ca…

I was wondering what the hell people here are talking about. Then I saw that my country (Finland) is number one on that list. Indeed, my children (3 and 5 year old) run freely around the half hectare communal yard of my housing company (which includes 12 apartments). Almost all kids here go to school by themselves either by walking or by bike, starting at the age of seven. I also see kids around this age playing with…

> It might also have something to do with cities here being generally safe.

Is the difference in actual safety or the perception of safety?

For example. Finland has a higher rate of traffic related deaths than the UK according to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

but kids in Finland have a lot more autonomous mobility.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#206

Post by dust-jacket »

kleiba2 wrote: post #167

> When I tell people these numbers, the usual response is some version of “the world is more dangerous now.” It certainly feels that way. The only problem is that all of the data we have shows it’s much safer than when you or I were wandering the streets. Violent crime against children has fallen steadily since the early 1990s. Stranger abductions, the thing every parent imagines when they hesitate to let a 10-year-o…

You could defintiely argue abductions and crime have reduced because there are fewer opportunities (because we keep the kids safe). But that still doesn't mean you can conclude the world is MORE dangerous.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#207

Post by AnthonyMouse »

hibikir wrote: post #101

What I see in my deep suburbia is just far less interest in wandering past the front yard, because there's nothing to do: House after house where no front yard has anything for anyone, and quite long distances before you get somewhere you might be welcome, or have a chair. When my son, a pre-teen at the time went to Spain with me, things were quite different: A small town that even had stores targeting kids, places t…

> But it's amazing how much modern-ish suburbia just has no place for you to even exist without a car.

It's trendy to blame cars for this but the problem is fundamentally zoning. It's not that there is nowhere for you to exist without a car, it's that there is nowhere for you to exist there at all, and you thereby need a car to leave the vicinity in order to get anywhere you can.

If you want to build a cafe or an arcade or a hackerspace out in suburbia, can you? That's not even about density. If you could put those things there then people would and there would be something kids could walk to. But everything other than residences is banned, so of course there is nothing else there.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#208

Post by vibekoter »

hibikir wrote: post #101

What I see in my deep suburbia is just far less interest in wandering past the front yard, because there's nothing to do: House after house where no front yard has anything for anyone, and quite long distances before you get somewhere you might be welcome, or have a chair. When my son, a pre-teen at the time went to Spain with me, things were quite different: A small town that even had stores targeting kids, places t…

[dead]

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#209

Post by skandinaff »

close04 wrote: post #203
skandinaff wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I do remeber as a kid in the 90s, who was among the first who got a confuser at home - at age 5..6 I remember actually being pulled to my apartment, to play all those DOS games I had (didn't have game console, but a pentium PC, with windows 95/DOS). At some moment, I remember even being thrilled to spend my time playing jazz jack rabbit or something of sorts, instead of going downstairs to my apartment block ya…

I think back of my childhood and playing the usual games like hide and seek with at least 10-12 other kids around my building and occasionally I'll slip into the "kids these days" thoughts. And then I realize I had something no kid these days has: massive amounts of boredom. There was nothing in the house to make me want to stay in. Nothing like a console or PC, best thing were books on days when going out would be d…

So how do we get out of this mess? Because now, as an adult, I see no value in those electronic gadgets, videogames, especially at ages <16yo. Do we create laws and ban all of this? The democrats among us will scream and shout. Leave it to "each family's consideration" and we'll get the lowest common denominator scenario.

Re: What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard

#210

Post by Amezarak »

rob74 wrote: post #149
tintor wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happier? In a city? Have you been to big US cities? Angry people, crime, homeless, mentally ill people, lack of police.

Yes, it's exactly these (not necessarily wrong, but exaggerated) preconceptions about big cities that drive people to not let their kids outside. Thanks for providing a sample that supports the article's point!

It's hard to understate how shocking it is for someone who grew up in a more rural area it is to be yelled at by a crazy homeless person. I think urban people are just so desensitized to it its hard to understand how big a deal it is to people who have never experienced that.

There's lots of other major culture shock moments too, like finding out public bathrooms in parks are NOT for kids or the general lack of unlocked freely available clean bathrooms in businesses.

Post reply on HN