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

stevemagness.substack.com

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

#241

Post by krzyk »

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 had similar experiences (post-communist country), but I was a bit older, got my first computer at age of 9 (Atari 65XE, replaced with C64 2 years later).

So I got a bit of childhood before receiving those (pretty scary stuff if I think about it - exploring holes that looked like trenches, that were dig up by workers to put water pipes in them, or exploring an old, ruined house) - living in a typical communist-era block of flats community.

But a year or so after receiving computer I started spending less and less time outside and more on computers, basically making me socially isolated except my two closest colleagues. Nowadays my two daughters are more social than I am, but I like computers too much.

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

#243

Post by ekianjo »

swiftcoder wrote: post #190
ekianjo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another aspect for sure is that parents did not think as much before too. Kids were given much more freedom while parents should probably have kept an eye on them a little more. I knew of countless domestic accidents that would probably not happen nowadays. Sure that made kids experiment more and all but we ended up with more dead kids too.

The data doesn't necessarily bear that out. Yes, childhood accidents have declined, over a similar time period that childhood freedom has declined. However a hefty portion of that accident reduction is attributable to other safety improvements. Cars are far safer now than in the 70s, so are kitchen appliances, electrical outlets, playground design, etc. And at the same time, child suicide rates are way up, which rese…

> However a hefty portion of that accident reduction is attributable to other safety improvements.

very hard to differentiate between product safety improvement and attitude change of parents, because both are co-factors. There is no good way to dissociate one from the other.

> child suicide rates are way up, which research attributes directly to the decline in independence.

and brainwashing

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

#244

Post by throwawayffffas »

pjc50 wrote: post #220
throwawayffffas wrote: post #217

What happened is we learned the extend of sexual abuse of minors. Estimates in the early 90s was around 1%. Research in the late nineties revealed the actual percentage was about 9% and 10%.* Are we over-reacting maybe but maybe not. * I vaguely recall that in an episode of PsychologyInSeattle, a guest that was doing research into food addiction back then realized that over 40% of their patients had experienced some…

.. however, isn't that almost entirely from people known to the child? Authority figures, teachers, priests, step-parents? "Stranger danger" was in some ways a recoil from recognizing how bad the "system" was in secret, as it relied on abuse of trust.

I think that only reinforces the fear. The old thinking was the danger was the guy in the van snatching up children. Now we assess the danger may be the father of the kid next door.

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

#245

Post by saimiam »

TrackerFF wrote: post #213

Did we stop letting kids leave the front yard, or did they simply stop doing that themselves? I grew up in the late 80s / early to mid 90s. We were allowed the roam around until dark. But that was also a more natural thing to do, as there weren't a whole lot of things to do inside (we had to ask very nicely if we could stay inside to play). But as I got into my teens, indoor activities became more accessible. Everyon…

I blame apps and products like WhatsApp and Nextdoor. We've created these online means of connection (and conflict) which allows us to communicate without having to actually meet anyone in person.

Absent these forced meetings, parents barely know their neighbors and consequently, their kids barely know anyone even two doors down.

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

#246

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

tintor wrote: post #135
doctoboggan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Build environments where children can be independent, and they might even want to be. We _have_ built these environments, you just choose not to live in them. Move to a city or other urban center. Your house might be smaller, and you might have to take public transit sometimes, but you will be happier and there will be no shortage of places for your kid to walk.

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

>Happier? In a city?

Yes.

>Have you been to big US cities?

Whoever said anything about the US?

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

#247

Post by armchairhacker »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #139

> But the kindest thing I can do, the thing that will actually make my daughters resilient, is to let the small problems happen. I live in an average California suburb. Average priced homes, relatively quiet street, not really any disorder or even appearance of disorder. When I let my kids play in the front yard - minding themselves - neighbors call the cops. I've written about this before, and it's not simply a matt…

> When I let my kids play in the front yard - minding themselves - neighbors call the cops

> The police will not ignore it, and you or your kids will have to contend with a police encounter

What if you just kept doing it? I’ve heard about similar situations where the cops would start to ignore your neighbors.

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

#248

Post by folkrav »

doctoboggan wrote: post #133
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…

> Build environments where children can be independent, and they might even want to be. We _have_ built these environments, you just choose not to live in them. Move to a city or other urban center. Your house might be smaller, and you might have to take public transit sometimes, but you will be happier and there will be no shortage of places for your kid to walk.

I've been priced out of these areas. I'd gladly move back in town if I could afford anything closer, but I can't. I make quite higher income than the median, so I'd be extremely surprised if this was NOT the rationale for many others.

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

#249

Post by jhide »

embedding-shape wrote: post #231
Amezarak wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unloc…

> 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 Is it? I never struggled with this, been yelled at countless of times by crazy people on the street, both growing up in a very rural area and now living most of my adult life in a metropolitan area. I don't think it's much of a shock to most, we know there are mentally unwell peop…

> What? What kind of city would limit the age of who can use the bathroom? Sounds bananas.

I think this was another comment about homelessness, not an implication about the law.

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

#250

Post by BlackFly »

PantaloonFlames wrote: post #22

The article is confused. The opinion is, it's so much safer _now_ than it was in the 1970s, it makes no sense to restrict children's wanderings. But the article doesn't consider whether restricting children's wanderings is the REASON it is so much safer for children now. "We have so many fire-safety rules in the building codes in Seattle. But get this: we haven't had any major fires since 1889! It's obvious we don't…

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?

> But the article doesn't consider whether restricting children's wanderings is the REASON it is so much safer for children now.

The article considers exactly that.

> Similarly, in an international study that looked at 7 to 15 year old children across 16 different countries they found that most english-speaking countries were in the lowest autonomy tier (12th- Ireland, 13th- Australia, 16th- South Africa). Americans weren’t surveyed, but countries like Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Japan, and Denmark scored the highest on autonomy.

These countries are considered because they would generally be considered roughly as safe as one another (generally safer than America). These countries are the counterexample to your hypothesis: you can simultaneously have safe and independent children.

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