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Our society has lost a good deal of its willingness to take risks over the years. Examples include:
4) Children get driven every where and don’t ride their bicycles; and
5) Cars have “passive restraints”
Forgot to address this:
Why kids are driven everywhere and don't ride their bicycles?
This has to do with urban design, again.
Most American kids don't live in cities anymore. Most American cities and suburbs don't have well developed public transportation and smaller kids can't travel alone anyway.
Places where they go for various activities aren't close enough to places where they live. Even to schools most can't walk or bike anymore due to safety reasons and distance.
Here is a reading material for you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5682557/
Safety equipment is not a bad thing. Concussions are real. Seatbelts save lives, airbags save lives. My mother swinging her arm over across my chest in a close call vehicle incident would not have stopped me from flying thru the windshield in our 1970's Plymouth station wagon.
Our school and public playgrounds are well equipped with merry go rounds, see-saws, swings and slides, jungle gyms you name it. Our kids go outside to play in rain and snow. They are only mandated for recess inside if:
Quote:
Helena Public Schools will keep kids inside for recess if the temperature or wind chill are at zero degrees or below.
I always kind of side-eye the romanticism of the “golden age of childhood” when children roamed free until the streetlights came on. I remember some really messed up things happening; maybe nothing as extreme as kidnappings and being hit by cars, but certainly older kids bullying young ones, sexual abuse at the hands on other children, early exposure to alcohol and cigarettes, and I will never forget the kid who lost both of his arms after grabbing an electric fence (no warning sign was posted; such signs are only for wusses I guess). Despite all of the stay-at-home moms, parents were blissfully unaware of all of that (well, except for the kid who lost his arms) because there was no expectation of keeping tabs on your own kids as long as they made it home in one piece.
How prevalent do you truly think this is...locked up 24/7? C'mon.
The great debate here is the well-worn phenomenon of rose-colored glasses.
It sounds like exaggeration, but think about it. They are NEVER out of the parent's sight or away from them via communication. Kids aren't allowed to walk to or from school (which I see as a travesty of freedom), they have after school activities, homework, bed - then get up and do it again.
I would like to see candid vids of kids telling their parents, "Hey, I'm going to go out and ride my bike for awhile." (All hell would break loose). I never even told my parents I was leaving the house and there were no expectations that I should.
The intense spying and supervision is over-the-top. I bet many have cameras in their bedrooms to monitor them in their bedrooms. They have absolutely no privacy.
But...parents have even more demands on their time now, especially lower income households with 2-3 jobs. They aren't around to show their kids how to do things safely, the easiest choice is to keep them safe indoors, and that is sad. I live in a low crime middle class neighborhood, our street is cul-de-sac, some kids play in their back yards but the majority stay indoors. I assume they get their outdoor fun at school and after-school athletic events.
And in middle and upper middle income families, there is a greater expectation that you keep tabs on your children, know where they are at all times and who they are with. Added to that, there is a greater expectation of parental involvement with homework than when I was a kid, even in the space of 8 years between my oldest child and my youngest child.
I prefer the term "dependent society". We have become a dependent, entitled, society where each member must be treated the way he dictates. The independent, self sufficient American is just about extinct.
I'm over 70, so I see things through that lens. And I see a time when we were expected to repair our own bicycles, buy our own baseball gloves and stay out of the house during the summer - unless it was raining. When the street lights came on everyone went home. That was the standard. We started our own baseball games and if someone had to leave to deliver papers, he often came back to the same game when he was done. Different kids, maybe; same game.
Growing up and entering adulthood my problems were there for me to solve and I certainly wasn't alone. If I didn't have money for college I had to earn it - no one would loan it to me. We were all like that. My problem; mine to solve.
I knew how to meet my girlfriends parents because I had seen Wally Cleaver do it. We may all laugh at that show but it had some valuable lessons. And Mr Darby, my girlfriends father, was plenty impressed when I said, "Hi, you must be Mr Darby. I'm Listener. Nice to meet you" and extended my hand.
And in middle and upper middle income families, there is a greater expectation that you keep tabs on your children, know where they are at all times and who they are with. Added to that, there is a greater expectation of parental involvement with homework than when I was a kid, even in the space of 8 years between my oldest child and my youngest child.
The bolded boils my blood. I did my homework all by myself as a kid - as did everyone. When parents started butting in, it made it so much worse - the school's expectations that parents do anything other than provide a good home is WRONG.
Many parents work - why should they have to do homework? It's ridiculous.
PARENTS: PLEASE STOP DOING YOUR KIDS HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last edited by considerforamoment; 03-03-2024 at 03:23 PM..
The bolded boils my blood. I did my homework all by myself as a kid - as did everyone. When parents started butting in, it made it so much worse - the school's expectations that parents do anything other than provide a good home is WRONG.
Many parents work - why should they have to do homework? It's ridiculous.
PARENTS: PLEASE STOP DOING YOUR KIDS HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t have an issue with helping them, but I take umbrage with me being held more responsible than them. Used to be that kids would have lunch detention or after school detention for skipping out on homework. Now, they face no consequence at school. Instead, they contact the parents with the expectation that the parents need to hover over the child to make sure they do their work. Elementary school? Sure, I get it. But by junior high school, it just sends the message that everyone but the child is responsible for their education.
The bolded boils my blood. I did my homework all by myself as a kid - as did everyone. When parents started butting in, it made it so much worse - the school's expectations that parents do anything other than provide a good home is WRONG.
Many parents work - why should they have to do homework? It's ridiculous.
PARENTS: PLEASE STOP DOING YOUR KIDS HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Um- Excuse me but when our kids asked for us to proof their papers or homework we did. Today our kids proof some of our works.
My wife was a teacher and by and large the worst performing students (both educationally and behaviorally) were the ones where there was NO parental involvement. Basically feral mongrels.
Lockdown because of different playground equipment?
Too late to edit. I should have said "no fun."
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