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Where do the children play?

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Re: Where do the children play?

#31

Post by Arainach »

AndrewDavis wrote: post #25
CalRobert wrote: post #11

In the US cars jockey for space with guns to claim the title of leading cause of dead kids. But we often forget that cars kill kids at an astonishing rate -even though kids stopped playing outside-. In that light, the bloodbath that is American suburbia becomes much more clear. When pedestrian deaths go up even as miles walked (in aggregate) goes down, the situation is even more dire than it seems. My kids play outsi…

This is an aside. Yesterday I was in a shopping centre (ie a mall) and a bunch of kids ran through the food court, maybe 10 of them all around the 9-12 A grumpy lady shouted at them "kids you shouldnt be running!" I turned to whom I was eating with and our discussion could be summarised as "kids should be running. The problem isn't they're running, the problem isn't even directly where they're running. Where they're…

Sorry, but no. You shouldn't be running in crowded areas like food courts (or indoor areas not specifically created for athletics), and playing smug semantic arguments like that doesn't help.

The kids aren't running because they're unable to go outside. They're running because no one's been enforcing that they act within the standards of basic decency.

Kids should be screaming and singing sometimes, but you wouldn't tell someone in the library not to hush them.

Re: Where do the children play?

#32

Post by gwd »

emil-lp wrote: post #6

> Consider some statistics on the American childhood, drawn from children aged 8-12: 62% have not walked/biked somewhere (a store, park, school) without an adult This is really not representative for other Western countries. Where I'm from, I would say that 75% of 6 year olds walk/bike to school alone, and 100% of older kids do. > In physical space, Western children are almost comically sheltered. I think the author…

> Where I'm from, I would say that 75% of 6 year olds walk/bike to school alone, and 100% of older kids do.

When I was growing up in the 80's in the US, I walked to school alone; but there was institutional support for that. There were adults paid to help kids cross major roads, and there were older children ("safetys") who wore an orange sash, trained and assigned to help younger kids walk to school.

I don't see that same infrastructure here in England. I'd be happy to let my 5-year-old walk to a local school if it were present.

EDIT: To be clear, I said "I don't see...", not "There are no...". It's possible I just haven't noticed, or that it's a quirk of my locality. And, my son doesn't go to a local school, so it's a bit moot; he can cycle to his school when he's older.

Re: Where do the children play?

#33

Post by reeredfdfdf »

retube wrote: post #19

As a parent, I relate to all this. Great piece. When the kids were babies we had the standard debate of move to the countryside for fresh air and gambolling in the fields etc. But so glad we stayed in London, the kids have so much freedom with public transport they can organise their own meet ups and activities and go running around all over town without any parental assistance or intervention at all. Whereas elsewhe…

There's a middle-ground between a big city and full countryside.

I lived my childhood in a place with about 4000 people in it. School, friends and everything else I needed was within walking, or at least biking distance. My parents didn't have to drive me everywhere. Obviously there weren't as many possible hobbies and events as in big cities, but mobility wasn't an issue.

Re: Where do the children play?

#34

Post by paxiongmap »

retube wrote: post #19

As a parent, I relate to all this. Great piece. When the kids were babies we had the standard debate of move to the countryside for fresh air and gambolling in the fields etc. But so glad we stayed in London, the kids have so much freedom with public transport they can organise their own meet ups and activities and go running around all over town without any parental assistance or intervention at all. Whereas elsewhe…

I have just done the opposite - left London for the countryside and am currently very much enjoying it. As our toddler gets older it will interesting to see how we deal with the challenges of letting them find their own space.

Re: Where do the children play?

#35

Post by b112 »

AndrewDavis wrote: post #25
CalRobert wrote: post #11

In the US cars jockey for space with guns to claim the title of leading cause of dead kids. But we often forget that cars kill kids at an astonishing rate -even though kids stopped playing outside-. In that light, the bloodbath that is American suburbia becomes much more clear. When pedestrian deaths go up even as miles walked (in aggregate) goes down, the situation is even more dire than it seems. My kids play outsi…

This is an aside. Yesterday I was in a shopping centre (ie a mall) and a bunch of kids ran through the food court, maybe 10 of them all around the 9-12 A grumpy lady shouted at them "kids you shouldnt be running!" I turned to whom I was eating with and our discussion could be summarised as "kids should be running. The problem isn't they're running, the problem isn't even directly where they're running. Where they're…

No? I grew up in a rural area, with fields and places to run... and run I did.

A nearby huge city had a mall. City being 30k people. Yet left in that mall, with 10 friends, I'd run there too.. until chastised. No real difference 50 years ago, in a rural area with a mall than now.

Groups of kids running tend to bump into things, fall into people, excited kids aren't known for taking care. It's been typical for at least going back to the 50s to stop that.

It's also why kids are typically told to stop running around a house.. and to go outside.

So strongly disagree that it is a symptom of no where else to run. Of course, I find it sad if kids have no place to go run.

Local parks can help with this in urban areas.

Re: Where do the children play?

#36

Post by bell-cot »

zkmon wrote: post #15

There were reasons for the contrast with Western world. Safety and risk aversion is a major reason. City living means we don't know what the other person on the road is thinking. This was not the case in small villages or tribal settlements. Everyone knows about every move of the others. The whole community is like a single creature with many arms. The other reason is, prosperity means more affordability to avoid ris…

> City living means we don't know what the other person on the road is thinking. This was not the case in...

I'd explain it this way: City living means that we don't know the other person, and they don't know us. The affects both driver behavior - 99% of people are more careful driving around pedestrians and other drivers who they know - and our perception of driver risks. "Chris who's always lived at 3rd and Cherry" is not some random stranger, to easily stereotype as a threat. Even if we know that Chris is not a good driver. Because humans are biased to judge members of "their" social group by very different standards than non-members.

Re: Where do the children play?

#37

Post by jimnotgym »

pmontra wrote: post #26

I think that something else changed and should be added to the analysis: the number of children. There are less of them so there are less chances to reach a critical mass that lets kids play together every day. When I was little it was common to have between 10 to 30 of us within the fence of our city building. Parents and grandparents were looking at us from the windows but they were probably hearing us scream and p…

Where I grew up, Rural UK, there was a kid my age who lived a mile away. There was noone else for 5 miles. We used to cycle to see each other all of the time, go on adventures. But were always outsiders at school to the kids from areas with more kids, especially those where there was a girl! Another boy moved in once we were older and it transformed our group.

Every other house had older adults in it.

In 1940 you could imagine there would have been many more kids in the local village.

Re: Where do the children play?

#38

Post by paxiongmap »

I highly recommend Peter Gray's writing: https://petergray.substack.com/

Relevant to the discussion about online spaces and autonomy in childhood, I'd jump into this discussion about teen suicide rates: https://petergray.substack.com/p/d3-why-did-teen-suicides-es...

We have robbed our children of autonomy and freedom and then wonder why anxiety and depression are rampant.

Re: Where do the children play?

#39

Post by cpursley »

pseudonymcoward wrote: post #14

As a society we find violence or harm against children to be extremely shocking and tragic. As a society we would do almost anything to prevent it. Giving children the kinds of freedoms discussed in this article would lead to some harm coming to them. Accidents, violence, kidnap, etc. Therefore, society won't give them those freedoms. This tendency has been exagerated by mass media in the modern era. Every single cas…

Well, this doesn’t exactly check out when you compare to countries and cultures who already give children these freedoms and have the built environment to support it (transport, walkability, parks/spaces to play, etc). They are not only “just fine”, but their children are generally much more mature and confident (as in skilled), than their Anglo counterparts.

Re: Where do the children play?

#40

Post by Toutouxc »

netdevphoenix wrote: post #30
ensocode wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate. Nice article. We had that same debate and ended up moving to the countryside. Surprisingly, it worked out well. + real forests. With today’s e-bikes, even hills or longer distances aren’t really a blocker for kids anymore. In the end, it feels like the bigger factor is how you organize daily life, not whether you’re in a city or in a rural area.

>With today’s e-bikes, even hills or longer distances aren’t really a blocker for kids anymore Unlike public transport, with an e-bike, the chances of getting a puncture or a malfunctioning battery increase with usage. Plus, there is also the very common bike theft and road accidents if you live in a country where bikes need to go on the road (like the UK)

It doesn’t take much time to fix a puncture with a tiny kit the size of a matchbox. There are also tubeless tires with liquid sealant.

An e-bike with a dead battery becomes a heavy bike.

Theft and accidents, okay, but the first sentence is just fearmongering.

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