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Kids need freedom, too

persuasion.community

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Re: Kids need freedom, too

#71

Post by ghaff »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #50
quadrangle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's some argument for stats and science here. Padding for Rugby might actually make sense whereas the trend where kids can't go to the park or the grocery store alone is counterproductive. A world where kids playing actually risky sports use safety equipment but also have the independence to go to the park and do pick-up games with friends with no adult supervision, that sounds like the right balance. Not e…

It's not settled science but there's decent evidence that the padding and helmets contribute to the more violent nature of American football (where serious and long term injuries are more common than in rugby).

It's difficult to separate out equipment from rules and just general attitudes--at least at lower levels of the sports. (And rugby is certainly not immune from concussion issues.) I do remember long-ago undergraduate we had some major problems in a match against a team where the rugby players were basically castoffs from that school's top-tier football program. We ended up walking off the field because they were basically deliberately trying to hurt people.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#72

Post by BitwiseFool »

dragonwriter wrote: post #42
BitwiseFool wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, most zero-tolerance policies exist because getting sued is simply too expensive for the schools to deal with. Why make a nuanced judgement when you risk getting a lawsuit by trying to be fair?

> Sadly, most zero-tolerance policies exist because getting sued is simply too expensive for the schools to deal with. No, zero-tolerance policies exist because they are low-effort ways of being seen as addressing issues of political concern (and because minimizing discretion of subordinate staff while avoiding creating an incentive to kick sensitive decisions up the chain is itself desirable to decision-makers); exc…

>"zero-tolerance policies are sold as necessary for mitigating legal risk,"

I guess I fell for the marketing. In any event I detest zero-tolerance policies for just about everything.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#73

Post by wizzwizz4 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #50
quadrangle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's some argument for stats and science here. Padding for Rugby might actually make sense whereas the trend where kids can't go to the park or the grocery store alone is counterproductive. A world where kids playing actually risky sports use safety equipment but also have the independence to go to the park and do pick-up games with friends with no adult supervision, that sounds like the right balance. Not e…

It's not settled science but there's decent evidence that the padding and helmets contribute to the more violent nature of American football (where serious and long term injuries are more common than in rugby).

This seems likely; the boxing equivalent is well-known.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#74

Post by ryandrake »

caturopath wrote: post #51
tw04 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major difference is the vast, vast majority of households were single income. "Working mother" was a non-existent thing. Men went to work, mothers stayed home. So if you let your kids roam the neighborhood in the summer SOMEONE'S mom was there to keep an eye out. I would say, in general, it also lead to more socializing in neighborhoods because while I would never claim that a stay-at-home mom isn't doing a full-…

Eyes on the street used to be provided not only by stay-at-home parents, but by other folks going about their lives: people walking through, shopkeepers, etc. Over time, modern suburbanism became more and more locked in: extreme separation of uses, strikingly non-through streets, non-street-interacting access to apartments, houses, and shops, lower density, etc. This isn't the only story, but it's certainly a part of…

Also just general breakdown of people knowing each other in the community. When I grew up, I was a "latchkey kid" with a single parent, yet I was allowed to freely roam the neighborhood on bicycle. The idea was (or at least the perception was): If I ran into a problem, I could knock on any random neighbor's door, and 1. wouldn't get kidnapped or murdered and 2. the neighbor would know my dad and either watch over me or call him. Today, nobody knows the people who live in their neighborhood. Some people don't even know their next door neighbor. Nobody answers their door anymore either, so if you're a kid your only island of familiarity is at home.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#75

Post by cuddlybacon »

Jonathan Haidt wrote a book called The Coddling of the American Mind [0]. He'd agree that adults need to give children their freedom back.

He talks about what the consequences for not doing so have been for Zoomers and it is quite worrying: escalating rates of depression and anxiety, increased rates of suicide, fewer friends, even fewer close friends, reduced social trust, more on-campus violence, increased favorability to authoritarian policies.

[0] - He starts the book with a discussion of the title. He initially resisted it because people usually use the word coddled to blame the coddlees but this book very much blames the coddlers.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#76

Post by indymike »

I've got five kids. The more I loosen up and let the kids take risks and learn for mistakes the better. The challenge is when the adults inject a ridiculous level of risk to something that should be a learning experience. For example, allowing police to arrest and charge a child for bad behavior at school (i.e. won't obey the teacher, outbursts - not for actually criminally violent behavior). Another is lifetime academic and other records. When risk is too high, learning stops and risk avoidance takes over.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#77

Post by react_burger38 »

standardUser wrote: post #67
recursivedoubts wrote: post #25

Social trust has been falling for decades, and the blame lies at the feet of nearly all our major institutions: both political parties as well as the permanent bureocracy, corporations, churches, the media and so on. If we want a healthy society, of which independent children are a part, we should work to restore social trust. "We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

I don't think many people who were not white, christian and straight felt a ton of social trust in the era you are harkening back to.

Well actually… Thomas Sowell (who is black) talks about how he felt safe going around on his own in Harlem in the 40s and 50s, and never heard a gunshot. So there actually was a fair amount of social trust / actual safety in black communities even then. With the obvious caveat of course that interracial violence was still a risk. But at least within black communities then, yes there was more social trust.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#78

Post by Kluny »

lghh wrote: post #70
standardUser wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think many people who were not white, christian and straight felt a ton of social trust in the era you are harkening back to.

Agreed. So is the solution to reduce white social trust as well or to empower non-white social trust?

I think it might be. When those who benefit from the current paradigm are forced to experience the pain that everyone else has been dealing with, they get motivated change things and they have the power to make it happen.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#79

Post by akomtu »

nikolay wrote: post #9
kbelder wrote: post #2

I'm having this issue a bit with my wife. I want my 9-yr old daughter to go to the playground a couple blocks away on her own; my wife is reluctant. My argument is that it's statistically very safe, especially in our neighborhood, and that we and her older brothers all did similar things. Her argument is that a girl needs to be more cautious than a boy, and that although she knows it's unlikely anything bad would hap…

Parents today are overprotective (this includes me!) and don't realize that it actually damages their kids. I was 5-years-old when my parents would just drop me off to the kindergarten and then I was on my own pretty much the whole day after kindergarten finishes in the afternoon. I would go to different classes kilometers away, crossing roads, etc. and it was common practice. I don't think kids get injured less toda…

So in essence, the overprotective parents trade their kids' freedom for personal (and egoistical, tbh) peace of mind.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#80

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

akomtu wrote: post #79
nikolay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents today are overprotective (this includes me!) and don't realize that it actually damages their kids. I was 5-years-old when my parents would just drop me off to the kindergarten and then I was on my own pretty much the whole day after kindergarten finishes in the afternoon. I would go to different classes kilometers away, crossing roads, etc. and it was common practice. I don't think kids get injured less toda…

So in essence, the overprotective parents trade their kids' freedom for personal (and egoistical, tbh) peace of mind.

Which begs the question, why have kids at that point? They're human beings, not instinct driven pets.
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