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And this overprotection of children is now beginning to stretch into their college years too: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/opinion/nature-students-risk
by erentz 8y ago
And this overprotection of children is now beginning to stretch into their college years too: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/opinion/nature-students-risk.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/opinion/nature-student...
- agumonkey 8y agoI live near a forest, we were unattended.. we all survived. Sometimes I laugh.
- matte_black 8y agoIsn’t this survivor bias? Plenty of kids were killed or died gruesome deaths in older days.
- saagarjha 8y ago> Plenty of kids were killed or died gruesome deaths in older days. How "old" are you talking about here?
- carlivar 8y agoProbably referring to the Black Forest of medieval Germany.
- paublyrne 8y agoSome, sure, but there was hardly an epidemic.
- PrimHelios 8y agoMeanwhile, there were literal epidemics of children dying when my mother was a kid.
- rco8786 8y agoYes, accidents happen. But this is precisely the type of thinking that got us where we are today. Millions of kids playing in the forest and a few get hurt so we keep them inside now.
- matte_black 8y agoSimilar to how millions of kids go to school without being shot or killed yet people want to pull back as many guns as possible.
- acct1771 8y agoWith guns on all the racks in the trucks in the lot. It's a tired trope, but it's true. This should be fun.
- rco8786 8y agoI think the other ~100k deaths and injuries sustained by firearms every year might also come into play there. The deaths you're speaking of are also not accidental.
- watwut 8y agoSurvival rates are higher now. Rates of serious injuries and deaths due to accident are lower now. Much lower. Not saying that right now is necessary the ideal equilibrum, but kids in past died of accidents and it was not unusual event. It was not mere theoretical construction that might happen to someone else.
- reneherse 8y agoHansel and Gretel, for instance.
- agumonkey 8y agoprobably. Note that my laugh goes bothways. I'm annoyed by the over paranoid life of today, but I realize that we were too candid back in the days. Society oscillates/
- DamnYuppie 8y agoPlease provide evidence of this. The overwhelming, staggering, majority, didn't die gruesome deaths because they played unsupervised.
- AmVess 8y agoWhen I was 9, parents moved from a suburb to the country. There was a large dangerous canyon not 4 minutes walk from my house. At the bottom was a fast, dangerous river. I never tempted fate. I did get all manner of small injuries from doing things that kids used to do, though.
- agumonkey 8y agoI think that most serious dangers are pre-wired into us, most kids will avoid them.
- aidenn0 8y agoFrom my perspective of raising kids, they aren't pre-wired but learned, with most kids learning them somewhere between the ages of 5 and 10.
- Johnny555 8y agoWhen I was 10 (decades ago), a classmate drowned in our neighborhood park (he was playing in a drainage ditch after a rainstorm and the flow of water trapped him against an intake screen covering a pipe). The park wasn't closed, no one was banned from the park, us kids were all strongly warned by our parents from playing near the ditch in the rain. Problem solved, no one died there in the remaining decade we lived near the park. They did put up bigger warning signs, but other than that, no changes were made until quite recently when the park was redeveloped and the drainage was moved completely underground. Though I guess this is an argument both for and against "free range parenting" -- kids will do stupid stuff when they are not supervised and sometimes that stuff can get them killed or injured, but also they are able to look after themselves if they know the dangers out there. I only remember 2 other deaths in my school classmates - one died in a traffic accident on vacation with his parents, the other died after complications during wisdom tooth extraction (that one happened 2 weeks before my own wisdom tooth extraction, I was pretty worried). In contrast to today's risk adverse society, a couple years ago a child injured himself on a wooden play structure (cut his arm on some split wood badly enough to need stitches). The city fenced off the structure for a year until they replaced it with a "safe" plastic structure.
- 8y ago
- tarr11 8y agoYou survived, but others didn't. Deaths from accidents are decreasing over time (data from 2012). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-kids-accidental-death-rates-down-30-but-we-can-do-more/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-kids-accidental-death-rates...
- linkmotif 8y agoBut mental illness is skyrocketing.
- picsao 8y agoIf you are in the rubber bin jewing psycho candy you are statistically irrelevant
- willbw 8y agoWhat do you mean?
- linkmotif 8y agoI mean death from accidents may have declined, but childhood (and adult) mental illness is prevalent at heretofore unknown levels, and not just because of an awakening to diagnosis. So 10 children are alive but 100,000 are anxious, depressed, etc. Was it worth it?
- maxxxxx 8y agoI like that article. I have had concussions, broken bones and a lot of other injuries in my youth, probably almost died a few times. I wouldn't want to miss any of them. I find it sad that a lot of today's parents try avoid any kind of physical displeasure for their kinds while at the same time putting a lot of psychological displeasure on them in the form of school and job anxiety.
- WalterSear 8y agoIt's all about the parents' lack of tolerance for displeasure.
- prawn 8y agoNot all. I don't think parents worry about mild injuries to their children (many are learning experiences, after all) as much as they worry about the death of something that, to them, is priceless.
- WalterSear 8y agohttps://youtu.be/gGuZVuUBeiQ?t=3m57s https://youtu.be/gGuZVuUBeiQ?t=3m57s
- mrfusion 8y agoHonestly a lot of it is the cost of medical care these days. I don’t mind if my kid is in a cast but I’m out 15k + if they break a bone.
- majewsky 8y agoThat can't be all of it. The same change has been taking place in Germany (a country with quite comprehensive healthcare insurance), although probably not as pronounced as in the US.
- watwut 8y agoThe Germany attitude toward freedom for children is completely different then American one. In Germany, first graders are expected to walk to and from school by themselves. They play outside alone, and slide on giant slides while nobody cares about posted 10+ sign. They are not overprotective the way Americans are.
- maxerickson 8y agoThank the lawyers.
- timmytokyo 8y agoOr the people who hire the lawyers.
- DamnYuppie 8y agoI wouldn't even go that far. We are a fear based society. Anything that could cause harm is bad. This is as far removed from being natural as one can get, imho.
- Harvey-Specter 8y ago> Anything that could cause harm is bad. Unless the thing is guns, then it doesn't matter how many children are killed.
- maxxxxx 8y ago" Anything that could cause harm is bad. " I assume we are speaking about the US. Only immediate physical harm is considered bad. On the other hand long term harmful conditions like the oversupply of junk food, overworking, lack of vacation or the health care situation are considered normal.
- prawn 8y agoCompanies have financial incentives to put out huge amounts of marketing and lobbying for those other things.
- kardianos 8y agoNope. Leaving kids unsupervised (under 10, depending on the state) is often a crime now.
- joejerryronnie 8y agoYou can't even leave your elementary school aged kids in the car while you run into a convenience store for 90 seconds without risking being arrested for child endangerment.
- bg4 8y agoIf I let my kids roam free the police get called. It's a lose/lose and it's very sad.
- gambiting 8y agoI am genuinely upset at the thought of a university telling adults what they can or can't do with their own time. Yes, they are young adults, but they are adults nonetheless. Or is America treating its university students as children still?
- namibj 8y agoIt's college. It's basically senior boarding school that is "cool", in contrast with non-senior boarding school, which is "lame".
- ghaff 8y agoTo be fair, it's a New York Times story because it's so unusual and bizarre. (And the fact that it's happening at a school known for its Big Ten football team makes it even more so.) I can pretty much guarantee that this would be pretty much unheard of with the outing clubs where I attended school. One of those schools even has a freshman (outdoor) trip enshrined in its freshman orientation before classes.
- throwawayjava 8y agoIMO everyone gets this story wrong. All of the activities that Penn State's Outing Club used to organize are still available to students through the university-run Outdoor Adventure program [1]. The only difference is that now instead of a student club (cost center), the activities are organized by a university-run office (revenue generator). So it's not about coddling. It's about money (and not even insurance) [1] http://sites.psu.edu/adventurerec/ http://sites.psu.edu/adventurerec/
- sundvor 8y agoMy 7y kid has ASD, and managing his behaviour is a constant battle. I'm by no means a perfect dad (when exhausted, I'll give in to his requests for screen time just to get some peace and quiet..) but at least I am able to take him mountain bike riding on a semi regular basis - since a very early age (2 .. on balance bike) Learning to fall off the bike, get hurt a bit but then to brush it off and get back on has been f*g invaluable. He's able to make judgments on physical risks at a very impressive level. His skill levels are steadily increasing, which is great for his confidence. And he's also learnt to push past comfort points sometimes, when those legs are dead tired. There's obviously a balance here, but I certainly think a little bit of hardening up can't hurt.