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Don't think you can speak of the west in general here. In Norway kids are physically loose much earlier than in the US. And I could see when studying in the US

Don't think you can speak of the west in general here. In Norway kids are physically loose much earlier than in the US. And I could see when studying in the US that American college students are a lot less mature than northern European ones e.g. They were not used to being away from home or managing their own life in any way. But if you come from say Scandinavia or the Netherlands which I know best you would have biked of taken the bus to downtown a lot yourself and roamed around the neighborhoods to friends from early age. American kids are driven by their parents to all sorts of activities. Everything is organized. One clear contrast I can see is e.g. American elementary schools have clear fences. Norwegian schools are usually adjacent to a forrest. There are no fences anywhere. Kids can roam quite far into the woods. But kids are taught the imaginary fences they should respect. American upbringing seems saturated with organized activity to the point that while Americans might have their own strong opinions about everything they have a very low reflection level because they are not used to being alone with their own thoughts, the way you are when you venture into the woods on exploration without your parents.

cesarbs 10y ago
> Everything is organized. My wife and I are immigrants from Brazil and this is one of the few culture shocks we've suffered here in America. We moved here when our daughter was 4 (she's 8 now) and comparing her ongoing upbringing to ours back home can be interesting. Birthday parties in America have an exact start time and an end time. Not only that, those parties are almost always organized around planned activities which also have a start and an end time (e.g. first 45 minutes they'll play in the playground, next 45 minutes they'll play some game, final 45 minutes they'll have pizza and cake). This is the case even when parties are at home. But the party stuff is fine. It's just how it is. What bothers me somewhat is how my daughter's day-to-day activities are a bit too organized. Both at school and at her after-school care place, every minute of her day has some kind of label attached to it (e.g. "Power Hour" in after-school is homework time). Everything they do at school has a quirky label attached to it to too, instead of just being called what it is. Every activity has a name and a time and a specific method to how it's supposed to be carried out. If they're going to learn values such as respect, focus, etc., there has to be a label attached to it (e.g. "Reflections" or "Values Initiative" or whatever) instead of those things just being taught for what they are. Her teacher sends us weekly emails to keep us up to date with what's been going on in class, and I feel overwhelmed trying to learn all the labels and names and whatnot. Of course my daughter gets super upset when I don't remember what one of them is about. It doesn't help that some have similar names, like they have both Reading Club and Reading Partners for reading, and I'm supposed to remember the difference :) While there's a good side to everything being neat and organized, I've seen this lead to some level of anxiety. My daughter sometimes expects the same kind of organization at home, like there should be a specific time and label for everything she does. She gets upset if we eat a meal outside its normal time (e.g. late lunch on a weekend) because she then she says can't call that meal by its name because it wasn't at the right time. This leaves me a little apprehensive that she will grow up to be a schedule-follower, with such schedules always being defined by other people. That's basically the opposite of how my wife and I are.

cesarbs 10y ago

> Everything is organized. My wife and I are immigrants from Brazil and this is one of the few culture shocks we've suffered here in America. We moved here when our daughter was 4 (she's 8 now) and comparing her ongoing upbringing to ours back home can be interesting. Birthday parties in America have an exact start time and an end time. Not only that, those parties are almost always organized around planned activities which also have a start and an end time (e.g. first 45 minutes they'll play in the playground, next 45 minutes they'll play some game, final 45 minutes they'll have pizza and cake). This is the case even when parties are at home. But the party stuff is fine. It's just how it is. What bothers me somewhat is how my daughter's day-to-day activities are a bit too organized. Both at school and at her after-school care place, every minute of her day has some kind of label attached to it (e.g. "Power Hour" in after-school is homework time). Everything they do at school has a quirky label attached to it to too, instead of just being called what it is. Every activity has a name and a time and a specific method to how it's supposed to be carried out. If they're going to learn values such as respect, focus, etc., there has to be a label attached to it (e.g. "Reflections" or "Values Initiative" or whatever) instead of those things just being taught for what they are. Her teacher sends us weekly emails to keep us up to date with what's been going on in class, and I feel overwhelmed trying to learn all the labels and names and whatnot. Of course my daughter gets super upset when I don't remember what one of them is about. It doesn't help that some have similar names, like they have both Reading Club and Reading Partners for reading, and I'm supposed to remember the difference :) While there's a good side to everything being neat and organized, I've seen this lead to some level of anxiety. My daughter sometimes expects the same kind of organization at home, like there should be a specific time and label for everything she does. She gets upset if we eat a meal outside its normal time (e.g. late lunch on a weekend) because she then she says can't call that meal by its name because it wasn't at the right time. This leaves me a little apprehensive that she will grow up to be a schedule-follower, with such schedules always being defined by other people. That's basically the opposite of how my wife and I are.