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What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

theatlantic.com

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Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#31

Post by akudha »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #9

The whole stranger danger thing in my view as an adult feels like a downward spiral. It's not like this in many countries. In the UK it's kind of like - kids don't wander about alone because they might run into baddies, and now adults are afraid to interact with kids because they might be seen as a baddy, and this kind of loops around until no-one is interacting. Basically, it's like any adult man is seen as a potent…

now adults are afraid to interact with kids because they might be seen as a baddy

This only applies to men though, as if all men are predators by default. There are cases where a single adult man was refused entry into a park, mom calling the cops on a single adult man in a park who was minding his own business etc. As you pointed out, this doesn't seem like an issue in Asia, at least not yet.

No wonder men do not want to become teachers. Why risk your freedom, reputation?

I'd blame the media (especially right wing media) whose entire business model is fear mongering about everything/everyone

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#32

Post by CalRobert »

erikerikson wrote: post #11
jeffbee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it either, especially because I don't know any parents who act like this. All the kids in my neighborhood just roam around, including mine. I wonder if this is another coastal/inland, liberal/conservative rift where the conservatives are for some reason afraid of everything.

Our experience of Seattle, conservative hotbed that it is, is that everything is as described in the article. We've been discussing moving somewhere else for this exact reason. Doesn't matter if we would let our kid out if there's no one to play with.

This is why we moved to the Netherlands. It’s great. Some kids even bike themselves to and from daycare.

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#33

Post by throw0101a »

gambiting wrote: post #26
mtalantikite wrote: post #23

> ...we asked parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-olds played in a local park without adults around. Sixty percent thought the children would likely get injured. Half thought they would likely get abducted. During summer vacation when I was 10 (early 90s) I'd leave the house in the morning and head down to the local park to play basketball or roam the neighborhood with the other kids. We'd ride our…

At 7 years old my parents would leave for work before I had to go to school, so I had to eat breakfast, dress myself and go to school, locking the door behind me - the walk was across few busy streets which I was told how to cross. Then I would come back before they were home so likewise, I had to let myself in and just wait for them to come back. I think nowadays if I did that with my son I would have child services…

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latchkey_kid

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#34

Post by x187463 »

kasperni wrote: post #4

> Fewer than half of the 8- and 9-year-olds have gone down a grocery-store aisle alone; Really? Is this just an American thing?

Worth considering how car-centric America is. An 8-year-old is unlikely to have access to a grocery store to which they can independently travel. Once they're at the store with a parent, they'll just travel the aisles together. It's not as though many young children have the funds to make purchasing decisions, anyway.

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#35

Post by bryanlarsen »

zabzonk wrote: post #28

Anyone know when this all changed? At the age of 5 I used to walk to school alone without me or my parents worrying. That would have been about 1958/9.

It was a fairly continuous change since WW2, I think.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/v8cyi7/map_compar...

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#36

Post by mtalantikite »

Jyaif wrote: post #30
mtalantikite wrote: post #23

> ...we asked parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-olds played in a local park without adults around. Sixty percent thought the children would likely get injured. Half thought they would likely get abducted. During summer vacation when I was 10 (early 90s) I'd leave the house in the morning and head down to the local park to play basketball or roam the neighborhood with the other kids. We'd ride our…

Your testimony is quite literally survivor bias. What would not be survivor bias is you telling us what happened to the kids around you.

> What would not be survivor bias is you telling us what happened to the kids around you.

Oh they all died because adults weren't around.

No but seriously, everyone was fine. Kids died drunk driving in high school, but not playing soccer at the local park.

Edit: I misremembered. The kid I'm thinking of who died drunk driving got into that accident our sophomore year of college. So he would have been around 19 or 20 at the time.

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#37

Post by amanaplanacanal »

Jyaif wrote: post #30
mtalantikite wrote: post #23

> ...we asked parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-olds played in a local park without adults around. Sixty percent thought the children would likely get injured. Half thought they would likely get abducted. During summer vacation when I was 10 (early 90s) I'd leave the house in the morning and head down to the local park to play basketball or roam the neighborhood with the other kids. We'd ride our…

Your testimony is quite literally survivor bias. What would not be survivor bias is you telling us what happened to the kids around you.

I grew up the the 60s and 70s, and all the kids lived like this. Stranger danger hadn't been invented yet.

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#38

Post by thefaux »

mtalantikite wrote: post #23

> ...we asked parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-olds played in a local park without adults around. Sixty percent thought the children would likely get injured. Half thought they would likely get abducted. During summer vacation when I was 10 (early 90s) I'd leave the house in the morning and head down to the local park to play basketball or roam the neighborhood with the other kids. We'd ride our…

I had a similar experience and sadly the culture seemed to shift during the 90s so that children were stripped of most of their autonomy. Having not experienced it themselves, many struggle to even imagine the possibilities or benefits.

I will also mention I experienced periods of absolutely crushing boredom at times during the summer when I did not have friends or parents around and had nothing to do but watch daytime television. But I learned from the boredom. It is sad to me that so many today are instead being fed from the drip of constant personalized entertainment that makes it harder to get to the place of complete boredom that ultimately can spark creativity instead of succumbing to learned helplessness.

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#39

Post by hydrogen7800 »

mtalantikite wrote: post #23

> ...we asked parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-olds played in a local park without adults around. Sixty percent thought the children would likely get injured. Half thought they would likely get abducted. During summer vacation when I was 10 (early 90s) I'd leave the house in the morning and head down to the local park to play basketball or roam the neighborhood with the other kids. We'd ride our…

I guess I'm about your age, and I remember doing much of the same. Lots of time on my bike with friends, playing hockey or football in the street, "manhunt" at night around the neighborhood (we were too cool to call it hide-and-seek at that age). But I also remember playing video games indoors, and my mother reminding us about how her mother kicked her out of the house when she was young, and how they were outside until the streetlights came on.

Today, I hear a lot of complaining about kids being inside all the time as opposed to prior generations. However, this is anecdotal and maybe my neighborhood is unique, I always see kids out on bikes with basketballs, fishing rods, etc. We are slowly letting our kid on their bike around the neighborhood with friends, and my big fear is getting hit by a car, especially while in a group and everyone pays less attention.

Re: What kids told us about how to get them off their phones

#40

Post by colechristensen »

zabzonk wrote: post #28

Anyone know when this all changed? At the age of 5 I used to walk to school alone without me or my parents worrying. That would have been about 1958/9.

It became a thing with advertisements and the evening news prompting parents "Do you know where your children are?" from the late 60s to the 90s. It became the mission of television news and similar to make parents afraid because fear gets attention so horror stories about abducted and abused children were everywhere which resulted in the current situation in America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_you_know_where_your_childre...

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