27 ms·

Kids need freedom, too

• kbelder 5y ago
  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 happen, it would destroy us if it did. We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone.
  • spywaregorilla 5y ago
    I would be much more concerned about some well intentioned rando calling the cops on you because there's a child unattended.
    • grahamburger 5y ago
      This really is a great thing about living in Utah with young kids (one of the states mentioned in the article with laws explicitly protecting parents from these randos.) In my neighborhood the street is literally full of neighborhood kids almost every day, ranging from 2-3 years old to teens, out riding bikes and playing games. There's a park a few blocks away that my kids (3yo-10yo) walk or bike to unsupervised. Obviously as a parent you still worry - for me I worry more about someone getting hit by a car than being abducted - but it's nice to know at least that child services isn't going to show up just because the kids are out playing.
    • germinalphrase 5y ago
      I live in the Midwest. I am a teacher. My wife is a social worker. I hear this fear about being charged Or having your kids taken by CPS because you let them walk alone to the grocery store or something, but I’ve literally never heard of it happening. I even have known a couple CPS workers in the past. The stuff they deal with day to day is wildly more intense than what people are suggesting here. My instinct is that it’s a straw man, but clue me in. How common could this possibly be?
  • nikolay 5y ago
    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 today than when I was a kid. Also, my parents would send me to the store to buy them beer or cigarettes - all you needed back then to either bring a handwritten note from your parent or for the salesperson to know you and know your parents - I don't drink, I don't smoke. We always underestimate the power of the forbidden fruit! Leaving kids on their own makes them more responsible and independent. I highly recommend Free-Range Kids [0]! [0]: https://www.freerangekids.com/ https://www.freerangekids.com/
    • akomtu 5y ago
      So in essence, the overprotective parents trade their kids' freedom for personal (and egoistical, tbh) peace of mind.
      • MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        Which begs the question, why have kids at that point? They're human beings, not instinct driven pets.
        • afarviral 5y ago
          Why have pets? They're not JUST instinct driven beings, either.
        • chairmanwow1 5y ago
          I think the way people view pets is pretty inhumane. It just seems so thoroughly selfish to purchase an animal bred to be provide you joy.
          • MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
            I am in the same camp. There was this girl I met on tinder that I always noticed the irony of her rescuing a dog from somewhere only for her to lock it up in a cage for 8-12 hours a day while she is working or partying. It's not right at all.
  • willcipriano 5y ago
    Given what we have learned regarding the catholic church, boy scouts and penn state athletics program. I'd say young boys have just as much to fear if not more. That said I'm with you on her walking to the park.
  • goldenchrome 5y ago
    My mom used to take the bus into the city when she was 8, spend the day wandering around, and come back on her own time. This was in the 70s with no smartphones. If there was an issue, she could use a pay phone. Her own mother sent her out of the house to get some free time for herself. When I was growing up, I did similar things, taking my 5 year old sister on the public bus with me to get to school when I was 10. If I had some pocket change we’d get ice creams from McDonald’s on the way home. It depends on what neighborhood you live in, but the world is very safe today and if you’re on HN I assume you’re in a decent area. I think parents have too much time and energy today to spend worrying about their frankly very competent kids. The smartphone thing is a good idea but I really think it’s best to push your kid out of the nest to discover the world themself, lest you end up with a grown up daughter who’s afraid of the world.
    • gambiting 5y ago
      In the 90s I walked to school(two busy streets and one market Square with stalls away) on my own at the age of 7, I was expected to leave the house and lock the door behind me on my own(my parents both left to work by that time), make it back at the end of school and let myself in and wait at home for their return. Nowadays just leaving a 7 year old at home alone would be a crime.
    • jbay808 5y ago
      Sounds like your grandmother would be getting letters from a social worker if she were a parent today. https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/07/06/vancouver-bus-dad-kids-court/ https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/07/06/vancouver-bus-dad-ki...
      • goldenchrome 5y ago
        I’d rather fight the battle than cripple my own child so they can fit into a pathetic society.
  • UncleEntity 5y ago
    Even back when us kids were 'free range' there were more restrictions placed on the girls, my older sister couldn't get up to as many shenanigans as I could at the same or younger age -- cultural norms and whatnot.
  • rhema 5y ago
    You might try to get longish distance walkie-talkies. They are cheap and probably go far enough. I let my (similar age) kids free range a block or two, especially if they go together and bring a walkie talkie.
    • SilverRed 5y ago
      Why not just give them a real phone?. That way they are never at risk of being out of range. Parental control it so it can't install apps if you are super paranoid.
  • asciimov 5y ago
    > We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone. Might I suggest looking into one of those cell phone watches for kids. They allow you to lock down who they can send and receive calls/messages from and have gps and geofencing so you can keep an eye on them. It basically allows you to give them the advantages of a phone, without having to give them a phone.
    • Nullabillity 5y ago
      The irony in making this suggestion in this thread...
      • asciimov 5y ago
        It's a good compromise for mom. Let kids run free, and give mom the reassurance they can call someone if they need help. I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today.
        • yupper32 5y ago
          > I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today. The future is technology. You're holding them back, socially and technology skills wise, if you wait until they're 13 to give them a cell phone. I was fixing computers and was generally the house technology expert well before I was 13. To get to that point required unrestricted access to tech and the internet. If I was locked down until 13, I would not be as successful as I am today in tech, if I was in tech at all.
          • colinmhayes 5y ago
            Hard disagree. Children with phones don't socialize face to face with other children. That's pretty much the most important skill taught in elementary school and you're taking it away from them. You can still let your child use computers at home, but they should have to interact face to face in order to socialize. Yes, the future is technology, but not being able to interact with people without anxiety is not a path to happiness, and that's what you get when you give children phones.
  • mikepurvis 5y ago
    My eldest is also a daughter of a similar age. What my partner and I have said is "yes you're old enough to go do things, as long as you're going with friends." She's not old enough to go places alone, or to go places where she'll be supervising her younger sibs. But she's old enough to be in a setting where peers are watching out for each other and know how to find help if needed. I know that's still a walk-back from what previous generations enjoyed, but it's not that different from what we both experienced at this age in the 90s. And in parallel to this, we've put a fair bit into teaching our kids to navigate on foot, use public transportation, and safely ride their bikes on the road— all of it an investment in pre-car/non-car teenage autonomy.
  • HarryHirsch 5y ago
    The bigger risk is getting run over by an inattentive driver, and yet most parents are worrying about pedophiles. How would a phone guard against distracted driving?
  • handrous 5y ago
    We let our very-capable son and his less-capable-but-bright and more-experienced older sister freely wander the neighborhood on bicycles when they were 5.5 and 7, respectively. Worked out fine so far. Varies by neighborhood, though. Our current one's busy-body and kids-only-play-with-parental-escort enough that we had a couple neighbors stop by to warn us that they'd seen our kids several streets over, thinking they'd gotten away from us. Not quite busy-body enough that anyone called the cops (I suspect we were right on the edge of that happening, and maybe just got lucky). Our last neighborhood had wonderful mixed-age "gangs" of kids wandering around playing all the time, and it would have been entirely safe there. That was a much younger neighborhood (in terms of both the ages of the houses and the average age of residents) than this one (not sure whether that's related), and, I suspect, there were some class issues at play (the other had a very high-prole character to it, in Fussellian terms, while this one's 100%, gratingly, middle-class as hell) As for chances of assault, your main worry by a country mile should be cars, not predators. All forms of attacks on kids by strangers are incredibly rare. Leaving your kid in the company of a specific adult or set of adults is far riskier than letting them walk to the park (yet people do that all the time). Shit, statistically siblings or cousins are far "scarier" and worthy of concern, in that regard, than the risk of regular walks to a park 2 blocks away.
    • ryukafalz 5y ago
      > your main worry by a country mile should be cars, not predators 100%, and cars are a reasonable worry that we should do something about. There are well known traffic calming measures that we know slow down traffic substantially (speed being one of the greatest causes of pedestrian fatalities) and even in my very walkable city we're largely not using them.
      • clairity 5y ago
        speed doesn’t cause fatalities, or even cause collisions, it increases severity in the case of a collision. collisions cause (pedestrian) fatalities, and distracted driving is the leading cause of collisions.
        • 5y ago
  • rsync 5y ago
    "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." ... "We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone." I hesitate to enter into child rearing discussions but ... May I suggest a slightly different approach: satisfy your wife by following, secretly, your child at a distance the first few times. All the benefits of independence and self-reliance, etc., for your child - and a gradual, baby steps approach for your wife as she gets comfortable with this routine. May I also suggest that a phone is unnecessary due to the fact that every single other person already has a phone. Further, bad actors will likely assume your daughter has a phone. It's classically selfish behavior but you can piggyback on the (telephone) safety net that everyone else has already constructed. I know from voluminous personal experience that everyone, everywhere, is happy to use their phone to help your child. Just make sure she memorizes your phone numbers :)
    • tux1968 5y ago
      > May I suggest a slightly different approach: satisfy your wife by following, secretly, your child Suspect they already trust their child enough to not need to follow her at all. She's capable. The concern is unforeseen events outside the child's control such as irresponsible drivers, bullies, or worse. None of which is any less likely to happen after you stop following the child. They're not likely to ever happen, and the child's independence is probably worth the risk, but there's no way to ever completely eliminate those risks or put your mind completely at ease about it.
      • rsync 5y ago
        I agree with your analysis - but this suggestion is for his wife, not the child. It's a way to become comfortable - in a slow and controlled manner - with expanding the range of the child, etc.
    • unanswered 5y ago
      I have to disagree with both points here. Following the child after apparently granting freedom would be a massive breach of trust: bad enough on its own, but potentially very scarring if discovered. Don't add that risk! As for the phone, you're right if you only think of the phone as somehow protecting against stranger danger. But as someone who lives alone with health problems I think of the phone entirely differently: it's a lifeline to all kinds of potential help, from a medical emergency to being locked out of my car or apartment building. And of course not only in that direction; it works the other way too where having my phone means I can be a point of contact for help for others. This is obviously a somewhat new aspect of our society in the past 20 years, and I'm certainly not saying we couldn't get along without it; but I am asking, "why would you want to go back to a time before these universal lifelines?".
  • ska 5y ago
    It’s a conversation being had by parents all the time. The mistake is to think that not letting the kids do things doesn’t have an effect. More realistically you are often balancing a high harm, low risk (sometime tiny, eg abduction) event against a low harm, high risk one. This is inherently difficult, but easier I think when framed this way.
  • tester89 5y ago
    I was against Apple Watch for kids, but honestly if I were in this situation, it seems like a decent compromise.
    • jonny_eh 5y ago
      Maybe even just an Air Tag?
  • aantix 5y ago
    Get her a Gizmo pal watch. You can call her. The watch auto-answers, so she can't ignore it. She can call 5 pre-programmed numbers. And you can see her location in an app.
  • comeonseriously 5y ago
    It's the "John Walsh" effect. His son's kidnapping was all over the news and then later he had "America's Most Wanted" and he literally started scaring people from allowing their kids out of their sight. To this day, people still think their kid is going to be abducted if they let them go play. I remember being 9 and riding my bike miles away to the mall and back. Kids can't do that anymore.
  • tomc1985 5y ago
    Stories like this make me so sad. We've turned ourselves into wusses in just 20 years...
• version_five 5y ago
  Large businesses have the biggest lobbying groups so their agendas get the most attention, though editorial campaigns, laws, etc. There are a few groups concerned with personal freedom, and so personal freedom is not forgotten, but is deprioritized over what business wants. Children have almost no advocates I would argue. The only people lobbying "on their behalf" are trying to gain power in some way, using fear, etc (similar tactics are used to restrict business and personal feedom). So it's no surprise kids get the short end of the stick.
  • jrochkind1 5y ago
    Why don't large businesses want children walking to the park by themselves? What's the large business interest here?
    • quadrangle 5y ago
      I think the argument in this case is simply that there isn't a business interest in getting kids to go to the park themselves, so it just doesn't get the attention that business-interest issues do. But we could also describe how kids being independent and walking to the park bypasses all the market activity they could be doing otherwise: social media, video games, other commercial activities, etc. But that's not the primary argument.
    • bitcurious 5y ago
      I don’t know if any business has actively engaged in that sort of lobbying, but if I had to imagine a business interest it would be from schools, daycare, tutoring centers, sports programs, etc. If kids can’t be alone, they have to be with someone. A case where we do have evidence of lobbying is remote schooling, where the education and well-being of children was sacrificed for the well-being of union affiliated teachers.
    • closeparen 5y ago
      A number of malls and small retail stores have policies banning or severely limiting unaccompanied minors. The idea is minors are disproportionately likely to cause disturbances. Even if that risk is very small, it’s not really worth accepting any amount of risk there, because minors don’t really spend money either.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• username90 5y ago
  Removing the freedom for kids to move around alone is a huge social inefficiency. Where kids just walk to school alone or walk to a park to play with friends alone kids are not that expensive to maintain. But with constant supervision needed then parents need to drive the kids to their destinations and either stay with them there or drop them of at some paid event where the organizer supervises the kids.
• jlos 5y ago
  I think the problem "de-risking" childhood is only an instance of the bigger problem of what Roger Scruton calls "Risk De-aggregation". Risk Deaggregation is taking a single point of risk (and its associated metric), and optimizing to reduce that risk as if it exists in isolation from other risks. I.e. Risk occurs in aggregate, not as individual threats. Risk deaggregation happens everywhere from Climate Change policy, to Covid, to children. I think this type of risk deaggregation arises from the fact that in a sufficiently complicated space (climate, economy, children, etc) there are really only two heuristics: 1) Ignore all but a manageable number of variables and optimize for them 2) Recognize a larger number of necessary variable, acknowledge there is no optimal solution, and balance the trade offs between those variables. [0] Heuristic 1 is the easiest, requires no nuance, and seems the type of thing our political and media class love to latch onto. Heuristic 2 actually requires admitting you don't get everything you want, or at least the things you want will cost you something you dont. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing
  • ssivark 5y ago
    “Risk de-aggregation” sounds like it edifies an implicit perspective that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Is there a specific reference you might recommend looking at, for Roger Scruton’s take?
    • jlos 5y ago
      It's in his book "How to think seriously about the planet: a case for environmental conservatism" The book itself is worth the read on its own. He has a very specific meaning of conservatism that doesn't map well to political landscapes. The book doesn't dispute climate change, and seems to basically accept it, but creates a framework for dealing with it from a grassroots bottom up perspective rather than an international top down perspective.
  • dalbasal 5y ago
    A related way of thinking of these might be legible Vs illegible. Legible risks are mostly "heuristic 1." They can be measured, quantified, discussed in discrete terms. You can be yelled at over legible things, like ignoring stranger danger on a subway. It's harder to yell about nuance. Illegible things are less discrete. The consequences, some hard to describe, many unknown, of growing up without freedom and self reliance. There are dangers here too, but they're more nebulous. It's hard to justify, externally, a trade-off between illegible gains like building a personality and legible dangers like kidnapping. Hard, but not impossible.
• mothsonasloth 5y ago
  I went back to my old school for a tour/"try and get Alumni to donate money" event. I was shocked at the changes, especially in the "Elf and Safety" (Health and Safety). Pupils are required to wear body and head padding for Rugby. Junior pupils in primary school cannot do full contact tackles until they are older in high school. I wasn't the most sporty at school, but I appreciated the rough and tumble of rugby, football and military cadets. Coupled with the digitisation and removal of old whiteboards/blackboards, made the place seem less-tangible and some sort of controlled environment.. Changed times I guess...
  • rundevilrun 5y ago
    "old man yells at cloud"
  • _Microft 5y ago
    Repeated concussions are suspected of increasing the risk of developing mental health problems one day by several times. This might be the correct term: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalop...
  • quadrangle 5y ago
    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 every change today is bad.
    • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      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).
• atty 5y ago
  Does anyone else feel like the current climate is partly a by-product of the lazy “think of the children!” Rhetoric that so many law enforcement agencies and politicians use to get their legislation and budgets passed? It’s hard to let kids be unsupervised if the only thing you hear from politicians, police and others is that kids are in so much danger we need to pass otherwise ridiculous laws just to protect them.
  • jrochkind1 5y ago
    which, taken to an extreme, also makes me think of "pizzagate" and obsessive conspiracy theories about imaginary pedophilia.
  • asciimov 5y ago
    It's between that, the zero tolerance policies that many places have, and the unwalkable suburban residential nightmares we have built. I know for several of my minority friends, they won't let their kids go anywhere alone due to run-ins with law enforcement.
    • slownews45 5y ago
      At least your friends will be able to let their kids go places once the police are defunded. I know of communities where they won't let kids go anywhere because the lack of law enforcement (this includes minority communities). So this concern about law enforcement presence is not universal though white allies are big on focusing on that area.
    • BitwiseFool 5y ago
      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?
      • dragonwriter 5y ago
        > 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); excessive restrictions, like insufficient ones, are sources of lawsuits, if schools were concerned about maximum mitigation of legal risk they would have more carefully tailored policies. EDIT: It’s worth noting that zero-tolerance policies are sold as necessary for mitigating legal risk, but that's because that’s a more palatable sales pitch than “we want neither to permit subordinates to exercise judgement nor to have to consider details of individual cases ourselves”.
• legerdemain 5y ago
  The author might ridicule the notion of children being raised "like veal," but calling them "free-range kids" just makes me think I'll be paying a hefty premium for cub scout sirloin.
  • crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
    Holding out for the wagyu gamer kids. "Gamers, not gamey."
• recursivedoubts 5y ago
  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.”
  • minikites 5y ago
    >all our major institutions: both political parties as well as the permanent bureocracy, corporations, churches, the media and so on These things have been dysfunctional for decades. What's different now compared to when things were "good"?
    • tw04 5y ago
      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-time job, there was far more time for them to hang out during the (potential) afternoon lull. Or when kids were at school during the school-year.
      • caturopath 5y ago
        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 it.
        • hahajk 5y ago
          So would you say the times when "things were good" was before modern suburbanism, or in other words the 1940s and earlier?
• caturopath 5y ago
  A 14 year old article that hints at how long this trend has been going this direction some places https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children... Part of me is glad I grew up on the poorer side for the US, which put me ten years behind a lot of social changes. My same-age peers in middle class households had so much less freedom, I came to learn.
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The poors having more freedom on a day to day level is not new. Orwell touched on it in 1940-something when he wrote 1984.
• jseliger 5y ago
  The Anthropology of Childhood: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/05/thoughts-on-the-anthropology-of-childhood-by-david-lancy/ https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/05/thoughts-on-the-anthropol... makes a good companion to this essays.
  • chrisweekly 5y ago
    See also "Free-range Kids" https://www.freerangekids.com/ https://www.freerangekids.com/
• vlunkr 5y ago
  I think this debate is too often a false dichotomy. There's a huge range of choices between never letting kids leave your sight until they're 18, and letting them ride a subway by themselves at age 9. Parents are currently leaning on the cautious side, there may be downsides, but I don't think it's some great tragedy.
  • caturopath 5y ago
    It's striking to me that the extreme end of 'freedom' here is letting a 9 year old ride a train alone. I must be getting old. I realize it's relevant because Skenazy wrote and talked about doing so, but it's also just so non-extreme.
    • semitones 5y ago
      I agree, it doesn't seem that extreme to me. Maybe something like letting your 9 year old get on a bus to another state, without a phone, and telling them "come back when you're done having fun!" would be extreme.
      • bell-cot 5y ago
        My grandfather did this with my father - though with specific marching orders. Regularly, maybe starting when dad was 7. It was the 1920's (s/bus/train/g). So far as I can tell from old family stories, it was considered pretty normal for an extended family with farms that were hundreds of miles apart. When school was out, the "free" young farm labor could be sent to where there was work that needed doing.
      • sjg007 5y ago
        We stick kids on the plane unaccompanied to be minded by a flight attendant.
    • vlunkr 5y ago
      That may be because myself and many others here live in areas where we never rode trains or subways at all.
• gilbetron 5y ago
  Much as we are finding about obesity being caused by the "food environment", there's an unhealthy "kid environment" in many places these days. I have a 12 year old, and he barely would go run around our neighborhood growing up because there weren't any other kids doing it. We tried to get him to do it, but none of his friends would join him. Other neighborhoods achieve a critical mass and have tons of kids that run around playing. It bums me out a bit, but I've compensated by getting him involved in lots of camps and activities, which I think are more interesting anyway. Growing up, sure we ran around and did some things, but it was usually pretty boring. My son would get to spend summers fishing, learning different sports, kayaking, running through different parks, and many other activities that I never go to experience. It's a difficult balance, and just excruciating during the pandemic to figure out. And now that my son is 12 and vaccinated, it turns out most of his friends think playing outside is a "dumb little kids thing". And there are hardly any camps, and the few that exist filled up instantly. So I'm acting as a bit of a camp counselor this summer and working more in the evenings so I can bring him places with friends.
  • semitones 5y ago
    I'm sorry to hear that, it does sound like a bummer. I grew up in a small residential community, and running around with my friends through the neighborhood from the age of 8-15 was a huge part of my development. Really can't imagine who I would be today if it wasn't for those super fun times.
  • YeezyMode 5y ago
    Could you explain why you feel bummed about it? You've clearly exposed your child to a world of fulfilling outdoor activities that are far richer than what a group of kids could get up to in a neighborhood. I myself had the freedom as a child that many in this thread fondly remember, and yes, making friends and spending time with them was highly influential. But all my significant memories involve sleepovers, watching movies/playing video games, or family vacations. Simply being allowed to go outside didn't really do much for me, and my most defining life experiences at this point occurred in high school and the two years after graduating. I think that if you as a parent are giving your child the freedom to go outside and explore however they want, as well as a minimum amount of advice, that's really where the advantage lies. Being told that the world is dangerous and constantly being smothered definitely causes issues but I don't think there's anything inherently valuable about socializing in a very specific way.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• tootie 5y ago
  I think parents may tend to be afraid of the wrong things, but there's plenty of things to be scared of. My oldest walks herself around Brooklyn daily and my number one fear by a mile is her getting hit by a car. Also, I think every single woman I know who rode the subway regularly as a teenager was accosted or flashed by a crazy person at least once if not routinely. Certainly they grew up without permanent injury, but I don't think I'm depriving my kid of a valuable life lesson by protecting them from that.
  • dpeck 5y ago
    100% agree. Most other things I accept the risk, but cars around kids worry the hell out of me. Drivers don’t pay attention, kids don’t either. Even places with sidewalks, it doesn’t take a lot of things to go wrong before taller SUVs can easily have a tire hop onto the curb.
    • mox1 5y ago
      This. Every reasonable statistic shows drivers paying less attention and more in a hurry. I'd send my 5 year old to the park by himself, if crossing a road by himself wasn't involved. In my state multiple elderly people have been hit by cars while getting their mail! Like, if grandmas are dying somewhat often while spending 30 seconds on the side of the residential road, what chance does my kid have!?!?!
• cuddlybacon 5y ago
  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.
  • agotterer 5y ago
    I’m a big fan of this book. It’s largely about the cancel culture, over protection, and how the voice on college campuses has been changing. How we went from college being a safe place for open debate and discussion to an environment which is becoming less welcoming of differing opinions and perspectives. The authors try to identify the origins of the change and use data and statistics to back up their claims. I thought it was an interesting read and recommend it for parents and non parents alike. The last quarter of the book does talk a lot of parenting and the idea of free range kids.
  • SilverRed 5y ago
    I think it's far too complex to attribute these results to a particular cause. Almost all of our food packaging and cookware contain new and known bad chemicals which we do not understand the implications of. Social media has gone from nothing to everywhere which has nothing to do with caution and lack of freedom. Cars have become more essential and people are spaced further apart than before. As well as a better understanding of what depression and anxiety are. I suspect its much more likely a child today would be able to express what they are feeling and have it reported in a statistic instead of being told they need to stop being a girl and have a spoon full of cement.
• indymike 5y ago
  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.
  • mumblemumble 5y ago
    I am seeing this, too. Oftentimes, ostensibly in the interest of protecting children from harm, we try to control their behavior with increasingly disproportionate ultimatums, to the point where the authority's response is vastly more harmful than the situation itself. It seems that nowadays we have an extremely interventionist culture, and it leaves us ill-equipped to recognize situations where the best thing to do is nothing at all. It's not just around child-rearing. I have chronic pain from a decades-old sports injury, and well-meaning people frequently advise me to get surgery to fix it. There's a tacit assumption that, by choosing to live with it, I'm simply being complacent. (There's also, for that matter, a tacit assumption that an appropriate procedure exists in the first place.) If I point out that the surgery for my sort of thing tends to have much worse long-term outcomes than choosing not to pick at it, then I'm generally told that I just haven't found the right surgeon. Similar for my nearsightedness - I have one family member who thinks I'm crazy for not getting LASIK surgery. My take is myopia can be effectively treated with an inexpensive and non-invasive device, while LASIK comes with significant risk of causing different kinds of visual impairments that cannot be treated, so the risk/reward balance just isn't right for me. But that's not how they see it. What they see is that I'm just being weak-willed, because I'm opting not to do something when there's something that could be done. But it upsets me more when it's child-rearing, because then it's adults choosing to screw up the life of another person who doesn't have any say in the matter. Ostensibly for their own good, but, more accurately, I think, because the adult feels like this is how they need to perform their role.
    • lotsofpulp 5y ago
• swalsh 5y ago
  Anti-fragility is a concept I don't think enough people think about. This is a good clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OXI17ye9Gw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OXI17ye9Gw
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• hpoe 5y ago
  I know this is another, back in my day story but I think it is relevant. Back in the early 2000's when I wasn't even 10 my parents sent me to spend a week or two with my grandparents who owned 40 acres up in the pacific northwest. The biggest adaptation for me was after breakfast Grandma told us to go outside and that we weren't allowed back in until the temperature had hit 100. It was a little bit uggh for the time, but we had a blast running around, slipping through fences, playing in the barn and a ditch. Good times, everyone should get shipped off to 40 acres and told not to come in until the temperature hits 100 at least once in their childhood.
  • prawn 5y ago
    I think these discussions are much more useful if split into urban/rural and have/don't-have children. Because roaming a remote private property is very different from "walk solo to school in an urban environment flooded with cars". And theoretical parenting based on scenarios 30 years ago are different to now. (I have three children and my primary concern: cars.) My in-laws have a large property also, here in Australia. Beside the dams, you'd have to be unlucky/reckless to get yourself in trouble in the rest. Our 3yo was roaming around this weekend just been and it is a large enough space that she didn't get near the main driveway or up the track to the dams. But even then, it would be a different question in summer where the place is all long grass and venomous snakes are spotted.
• fungiblecog 5y ago
  Back in the day local kids would meet up and roam together. Now even if a kid wants to go out and explore they can't find someone to do it with. Kids used to look out for each other and develop valuable skills. Trying to teach "resilience" and "teamwork" in a class is a nonsense. These skills used to develop naturally.
• endymi0n 5y ago
  I can‘t find the link anymore, but in the prologue of (I think) a German norm for building playgrounds it said something along these lines that resonated a lot with me: „Kids have the right to hurt themselves and test their boundaries in a safe and limited way“ That‘s just so important for kids I think. US playgrounds all look sad to no end compared to the 15 meter high rope pyramids you see here in a lot of schools. First time you see them, you tell yourself: No way I‘m going to let my kids play on that thingy. But when you take a close look, all ways down you‘d bump into a rope, there‘s no direct free fall and there‘s usually thick rubber or sand below. Sure it‘s going to hurt and maybe break a bone in the very worst case if you miss, but that is just super rare. But what it adds in developing courage, resilience and risk awareness is just priceless. Then again, having your kids break a bone won‘t bankrupt your family for life over here…
  • jedberg 5y ago
    > Then again, having your kids break a bone won‘t bankrupt your family for life over here… That's the key. I've noticed in places with universal health care, they tend to have more fun playgrounds. Because the owner knows they won't get sued for medical expenses. That applies in general in places with universal healthcare. My friends who live in those places told me their car and home insurance are much cheaper than when they lived in the USA, because there is no risk of getting sued for medical expenses.
    • vinay427 5y ago
      To be fair, in many places with universal coverage of health insurance, the owner doesn't know they won't get sued for medical expenses. The European countries that have often been mentioned here (Germany, Switzerland, etc.) most often use a system of private insurers with deductibles and co-pays that patients must pay, although the minimum level of coverage tends to be far more protective than in the US. Medical expenses wouldn't cost tens of thousands (USD/EUR/CHF/...) but would still cost hundreds or somewhere north of a thousand in a place like Switzerland.
      • jedberg 5y ago
• betwixthewires 5y ago
  I thought this article would be about other things judging from the title, but these are good points. I'm not that old, and I remember "be home before dark" when I was in the single digits. I was going outside, by myself, since about the age of 5. As soon as I could ride a bike that was it. Basically my parents made dinner and paid the rent, the rest was all me in my own life. There was a phase in my childhood where I was actually in a very dangerous environment, and as a result my freedom was restricted. I can compare the two. I think it damaged me quite a bit. I wonder about kids who never knew the freedom to be human beings. Again as a teenager I experienced that freedom and the good fitness that comes with having a wide range and only feet to get around. And there was trouble (exposure to drugs, etc). But all in all the trouble didn't affect me negatively in the long term, I think it was less harmful than if I'd otherwise been restricted, and most adults don't avoid those sorts of troubles either way. There is a network effect reinforcing this trend. Kids don't go outside because there's no kids outside. Also I think that while the fear of abduction or a terrible accident is there, I think we downplay other factors in the trend now, particularly the increased demand for creature comforts over the last 2 decades (and longer, but more pronounced more recently) and the availability of stimulation indoors. I remember the middle of the summer and going outside every day not once thinking it was too hot to go outside, then spending the entire day out there. People think I'm weird now for not using the AC in my car. I remember waking up in the morning and there was no inkling to check a phone. People can be immensely stimulated laying in bed now, with phones and videogames and such, and there are positives that come with these new tools but there are negative changes as well, and many people are beginning to come to the conclusion that the negatives outweigh the positives.
  • nomel 5y ago
    > Kids don't go outside because there's no kids outside. I don't think it's that simple. If you let your kids outside, away from your supervision, there's a very real (absolutely certain, where I live) risk of the police getting involved.
    • bamboozled 5y ago
      Maybe we need to talk about what’s wrong with adults being so freaking creepy !
• stakkur 5y ago
  The omitted part, of course, is the stunning increase in children being fed a steady diet of indoor technology, social media, computer games, and other generally passive, low-action activities. And of course, it would be interesting to ask what role that diet has played in the lives of both children and parents attitudes about 'independence'.
• rcpt 5y ago
  Trucks are a lot bigger now and traffic is worse. I'd love to let my 6 year old wander the neighborhood freely but there's a good chance he wouldn't see 7 simply because he's shorter than the grill of most SUVs (let alone the lifted bro dozers that are so popular now)
  • rossdavidh 5y ago
    Traffic and lack of walkability is definitely an issue (and not only for kids, btw). I am wondering if the idea that children must always be within arm's reach of an adult, has in a way contributed to building cities in a way such that there is no (safe) walkability in many places?
  • prawn 5y ago
    This is why I think that "when I was a kid I roamed the woods for decades at a time" comments are largely irrelevant in these discussions if we're talking about an urban environment that has changed. "When I was a kid", my street was pretty much empty of cars and we'd skateboard and ride and kick balls around. If a car entered that same street now, the visibility has completely changed, given it has cars parked both sides all up and down. Bigger cars, more traffic, poorer visibility, everyone rushing.
• joelbondurant 5y ago
  Young tax cattle need to know their place under the violent yoke of the state.
• CalRobert 5y ago
  It's great to allow your kids to take risks, and we do this with our own as much as we can (they're 1 and 3, so "within reason" is still doing some heavy lifting. I pick ticks off of them now and then and patch up their share of bruises). But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that pretty much means the Netherlands, parts of Denmark, or perhaps Japan (more for transit than cycling). Children can't drive, which means unless you're lucky enough to live very close to your friends, and ideally on the same side of the street, your home is effectively your prison in the US and Canada. And yes, I suppose you _can_ let your kid ride a bike to school alone in the US at 7, but you would be risking arrest, and death. It's often forgotten that drivers are, by far, the leading killers of children. Far more than people with guns. I was an avid cyclist in the US for the first 30 years of my life and I still have a bruised rib and too many memories of very, very close calls with death. NotJustBikes, who moved from Canadian suburbia to the Netherlands, explores this in more depth at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98
  • mips_avatar 5y ago
    I think cycling is one of those things where it’s important to do it in spite of Canamerica being such a bad place for it, every person cycling normalizes it and pushes indirectly for positive change. Of course it’s also important to directly push for change in city government.
    • mulmen 5y ago
      I agree. Cycling needs good stewardship. The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”. My hyperlocal blog has a guy that makes me want to throw my bicycle in the bay just so I’m not associated with him. And I love riding my bike. Cycling needs a “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” moment. E-bikes are a great opportunity for Americans to rediscover motorcycles but unfortunately cities are willing to allow motorized vehicles traveling at 20mph on mixed walking/cycling paths.
      • 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
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• meristohm 5y ago
  > American parents are having their right to raise independent kids restored, so their kids can grow into confident and capable adults, ready for the world out there. The parents win, the children win—and so does America. I’m a beneficiary of childhood freedom, to injure myself (tools, fire, trees), to explore (walking for miles through the woods, along defunct railways, and biking the dirt roads), and to read whatever I found at the library. The downside was I didn’t have what I think of as healthy discussions with my parents, perhaps because it was awkward for them? As a parent now I’m trying to build on their successes, adding emotional mindfulness. For example: finger crushed in a heavy book? Yeah, that hurts, and it’ll hurt awhile yet (no asking “you okay?” because that’s too binary, and mainly to appease the parent). In the meantime, take long, slow breaths and feel the pain as it subsides and you’re ready to move on. If it doesn’t go away, let’s take another look at it. I also let my kid fall, and I tell her it’s helpful to feel what it’s like to fall. She’s learning to climb and take steps, and when I’m spotting her for safety I’ll intervene enough to prevent injury but not the initial slip. I largely credit our Early Childhood Education teachers with my own progress here. For those of you who give your children more freedom, how do you manage your concerns around risk? How do you decide how much freedom to give? What do those conversations look like?
• viro 5y ago
  she had me till "leaving her 10-and 2-year-old kids home" 2 year old is far to young to be watch by a 10 yr old.
• somethoughts 5y ago
  What is interesting is the article is mostly concerned about the instances where potentially unsupervised kids could harm themselves or adults could harm unsupervised kids. What isn't mentioned is the case where unsupervised kids could be the cause intentional or unintentional society to the community - causing anything from minor property damage (graffiti) to major property damage (arson) to bullying/violence. One parents unsupervised older kid exploring their freedoms could easily be one communities source of over $36M of arson damage or be considered a member of gang of shoplifters. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/05/22/teen-started-oregon-wildfire-must-pay-millions/631872002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/05/22/teen-s...
• fleddr 5y ago
  The perfect article for this 80s kid to rant about good old times. My dad gave me a tiny bicycle at the age of 6, and basically said "good luck". I could go anywhere I want for as long as I'm back home in time for dinner. They had no idea where I was, with whom, or what I was doing. One day, an older kid hit me in the playground. I came home crying, assuming I'd get some support. I was told to just hit him back, preferably harder. I explained that the kid was much older and far bigger. "Get a piece of wood then". Standard equipment for every kid everywhere were thick knee pads, as mothers grew tired of fixing bloody knees and probably more important: the jeans. On any day, we'd come home looking like pigs, and almost always with fresh wounds. Throughout this entire period, outside of formal family moments, not a single photo, audio or video recording exists of me. Not only was it a fantastic childhood, it has helped me become a robust character. I can handle setbacks with ease and instead of complaining, solve things myself. By today's standards, it would be neglectful or even child abuse. It wasn't. It was paradise. Child abuse is imprisoning your own child. Not only obsessing over their security, also micro managing their day as if production units. As for children "performing", my deal was pretty simple and enjoyable. "Come home with good grades or there will be hell". Zero oversight, only the outcome counts. A fair deal if you ask me. No daily nagging about doing homework, none at all. They couldn't care less. I was fully free to deliver the desired outcome in any way I see fit. Maximum freedom, whilst also instilling responsibility from the start. To sum this up, the lack of parenting has helped me tremendously.
• ping_pong 5y ago
  I recently watched E.T. by Steven Spielberg, and was shocked at how different life was in the 80s. The mom left Elliott at home alone, sick with a fever, at the age of 9. She also left the daughter who was 3.5 alone while she went to the supermarket. Their only instructions were "don't get into trouble." Those would both get you in a lot of trouble in 2021, but I'm not sure I understand why. It's even easier these days to contact your parents, since everyone has cell phones. My son has contacted me via Facebook Messenger through his iPad, so it's not that difficult anymore unlike the 80s. You didn't have a way to contact people except by calling, and if the parent wasn't there sitting by the phone there wasn't even answering machines! I think people just gave more credit to kids back then and nowadays we just keep them as kids much much longer.
  • bhawker 5y ago
    This is a movie.
    • Cd00d 5y ago
      Not really helpful feedback, as it was a movie reflecting the standards of the time. I was a latch-key kid starting at age 7 in the 80s because I hated the daycare that we used after school and advocated for the freedom. I remember being blocks away from home at age 4 or 5 on my own until it was time to eat and heading back home. It really was a different experience. And, I say this as a parent of a 6 year old in a roughly similar neighborhood environment.
      • rashkov 5y ago
        Would you do this again for your child?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• Sophistifunk 5y ago
  It's so depressing to see this is a controversial position :(
• rajeshp1986 5y ago
  I wonder how much is this specific to US. Does kids in European countries go out and play on their own?
  • RalfWausE 5y ago
    Speaking for the kids of my sister (living in a rural area of germany): Yes, absolutely! The younger girl (10 now) is only expected to be back before a certain time (mostly dinner). As far as i can observe it is not that much different with the other parents in my social circle.
• dukeofdoom 5y ago
  The biggest benefit of Covid that I've seen where I live is that kids are out of the house and playing outdoors. I notice more parents go for walks with them too. But I think having to sit there for online school during lockdown, they really want to get outside after to see their friends.
• jollybean 5y ago
  We also don't talk about 'all those other things' that went along with freedoms. I used to buy my father cigarettes as a kid in a small town where they knew who I was buying for. We used to have 7 kids in the back of a pickup truck on the back roads. We didn't wear helmets for anything, though adults did 'mostly' on motorcycles. We'd climb way, way up high in barns and jump down into hey stacks with god knows what kind of nails and chains floating around. We ran go-karts down treacherous hills. Adults didn't usually wear life vests on the lake and definitely had beers out fishing. And I'm not that old. So it's not quite just 'helicoptor' parenting ... kids used to die at higher rates from all sorts of things though I think largely disease, but I think this made us more risk tolerant. Have a gander at this [1]. When your parents were born, infant mortality was 'pretty bad'. When your grandparents were born ... it's traumatic. Furtherback it looks almost unthinkable. Just look at what the lived trauma in that chart must represent. Basically - everyone had young children die on them. Imagine that being 'normal'. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041751/canada-all-time-child-mortality-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041751/canada-all-time-...
• foysaluix 5y ago
  It depends on what neighborhood you live in, but the world is very safe today and if you’re on HN I assume you’re in a decent area.
• theshrike79 5y ago
  I can recommend 50 Dangeous Things (you should let your children do) as an inspiration for what to do with kids: https://www.fiftydangerousthings.com https://www.fiftydangerousthings.com
• mschuster91 5y ago
  Many attribute the change in attitude to media scare. And while this undoubtedly has a large part, I think there's something different at play: the trend to have only one child. When you have three, four, five kids it's not as much a problem if one or two get seriously, long-term damaged hurt as a result of some childhood accident, somewhere on the LGBT spectrum, infertile, in physically exhausting manual labor jobs or in war as there are still other children to keep the family line alive. With only one child, the pressure on that one child to turn out "perfect" is much, much more immense - and parents will naturally helicopter around to ensure that their one and only offspring achieves the best they can, whatever the cost.
• textgel 5y ago
  Always mixed feelings when we're once again watching HN judder round to the understanding that the sky IS indeed blue decades after the rest of the world figures it out, but hey, progress is progress.
• dagw 5y ago
  Oh how I wish I had this 'problem'. I would love nothing more than for my daughter to roam freely with her friends in woods behind our house or to just hop on her bike and set off for random adventures. Unfortunately there seems to be nothing the outside world can offer her that she finds even a quarter as interesting as a computer screen.
• oldandboring 5y ago
  I've got two kids and I've been listening to, and reading, variations on this opinion since the first one popped out. "Parents these days are too protective." "Don't be a helicopter parent." "When I was a kid, we didn't even have car seats or seat belts, and my folks didn't even look at my injuries unless they were gushing blood." After eight years I've decided this is another load of Baby Boomer nostalgia, only this time it's Gen-X and Millennials joining in. My theory is two part: First: this is Baby Boomers finding any way they can to call anyone younger than them lazy and coddled, without any sense of irony that we are the way they raised us. And if you are a Gen-X or Millennial and have bought into this way of thinking: congratulations, you've been gaslit by the grand master gaslighters: Baby Boomers. Second: this is your brain playing tricks on you. The memories you have from around ages 6-11 are the golden age of your childhood. In your memory, they went on forever. Before 6 the memories are fewer and more scattered. The vast swaths of boring time you spent supervised in school, supervised in after-school care, supervised at home playing, mostly didn't stick around. But as you aged, you were given incrementally more freedom, and that novelty made the experiences feel amazing at first and so they stuck around as memories. But, your sense of time is warped. Your brain, lying, tells you that because you have a memory of riding your bike around the neighborhood (or into town), that was obviously what you were allowed to do "when you were a kid" in general. I'm not saying there hasn't been some shift. I won't let my 4 year old ride around the neighborhood unsupervised; perhaps my parents might have let me, but I kinda doubt it, and I don't trust their memories from the 80s any better than my own. Epilogue: * I'm not saying there aren't some overprotective parents who take it to extremes. I just promise you those people also existed back in the day. * Your parents did the best they could. * You are doing the best you can. * Your fellow parents who are doing it differently than you -- more protective or less protective or just differently protective of their kids -- they're also just doing the best they can.