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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

#41

Post by s_dev »

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…

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/north-carolina-child-kil...

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrest...

The US is seeming more bonkers day after day. These sorts of stories just don't make sense to me. We have issues in Ireland with children and teenagers going around engaging in anti-social behaviour but there is a balance to be found between these two extremes.

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

#42

Post by inglor_cz »

dcow wrote: post #14
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.

Over parenting and hyper-paranoia are liberal traits in my experience.

It might be a correlation to city size. Big cities in the US skew overwhelmingly liberal/left, and big cities are the place where trust between strangers, neighbors etc. tends to be very low.

People probably feel safer to let their kids go outside if the local drug-and-homeless community is small or nonexistent.

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

#43

Post by ARandomerDude »

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.

Guessing you were not a 10-ish year old kid in the early 90s. I had the same experience as the OP and it was very common. I've talked to numerous parents my age who have lamented that we can't let our kids have the same childhood we enjoyed.

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

#44

Post by amanaplanacanal »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #35
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...

My theory is that it has something to do with infant mortality and family size. Kids are seen as more precious now, so they are protected from every possible danger.

This is probably quite negative for the kids though.

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

#45

Post by bryanlarsen »

x187463 wrote: post #34
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.

Note that they're talking about an aisle alone, not about going to the grocery store alone. My kids were older than 8 the first time they walked to the grocery store by themselves, but I'm confident that I told them "you go grab the peanut butter you like" while I was grabbing something in a different aisle when they were around kindergarten age.

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

#46

Post by mattmanser »

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…

Unfortunately it's not a tiny, tiny fraction. I thought this too once then looked up the stats.

It's horrifying when you find out. It's 1 in 20 children get sexually abused in the UK at the moment for example, and we have loads of checks and safe guards.

And waiting until they get sectioned/locked up, that means someone else has to suffer potentially life-long trauma.

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

#47

Post by mingus88 »

techdmn wrote: post #13
kevingadd wrote: post #3

> Since the 1980s, parents have grown more and more afraid that unsupervised time will expose their kids to physical or emotional harm. In another recent Harris Poll, 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. > These intuitions don’t even beg…

I've heard a few things on this. One is that there were a few high profile but very bad cases in the 80s, kids getting kidnapped and trafficked with law enforcement not really willing to even look into it. The odds are infinitesimal, but the cost of the negative outcome is very, very high. Second is kids getting run over by cars. Comparatively that happens all the time. Third is a general breakdown of social connecti…

Adam Walsh was 7yo and abducted from a Sears. His parents left him to play Atari while they shopped.

They made a movie about it in 1983. Politicians introduced new laws around it.

His father John Walsh went on to host Americas Most Wanted on TV for 24 seasons. Prime time TV whipped up a culture of fear for that entire generation.

Kids growing up with that culture are parents now. Not surprised to see these results.

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

#48

Post by jeltz »

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?

Maybe not just but in Sweden that is not normal. There are a few crazy helicopter parents like that but not 50%.

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

#49

Post by amanaplanacanal »

jader201 wrote: post #6
kevingadd wrote: post #3

> Since the 1980s, parents have grown more and more afraid that unsupervised time will expose their kids to physical or emotional harm. In another recent Harris Poll, 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. > These intuitions don’t even beg…

> In many areas crime has been trending down but people seem to think things are more dangerous than ever, in general. I’m not saying you’re wrong, or that I disagree that Stranger Danger is overblown. But is it possible that part of the reason crime is down is because of Stranger Danger? I’m not suggesting it is, just that I can’t say with certainty that it isn’t.

Children are much more likely to be sexually assaulted by family members and trusted friends than strangers. We don't like to think about that though, so we redirect our fears to stranger danger.

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

#50

Post by bandofthehawk »

jeffbee wrote: post #5
kevingadd wrote: post #3

> Since the 1980s, parents have grown more and more afraid that unsupervised time will expose their kids to physical or emotional harm. In another recent Harris Poll, 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. > These intuitions don’t even beg…

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.

I think it might be less about left/right and more about suburban and car culture vs. urban or rural. People living in the suburbs tend to drive everywhere anyway and perceive things outside of the car as dangerous.
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