13 ms·

The Overprotected Kid (2014)

114 points by shalmanese 12y ago

spiritplumber 12y ago
Keywords being "without making it safer". Security theater, safety theater, everyone too afraid to point out the obvious because they don't want to make it easy for others to accuse them of callousness in a way that's hard to defend against. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- anon4 12y ago
  I'm not sure that's really the Abilene paradox. In that, every member of the group would agree to taking the counter action if everyone else did. What we have is, I think, more like The Emperor's New Clothes. Most of the collective is in private agreement that he's naked, but would never dare speak against the misguided interest of a powerful minority.
  - kirsebaer 12y ago
    A lot of people actually believe that kids have to be "protected from dangers". They are not just playing along to please the neighbors. However, popular opinions can also change quickly.
jgrahamc 12y ago
The opening of this reminded me of the hours I spent in an "adventure playground" as a child in the UK. Now at least I know that I need to thank Lady Marjory Allen of Hurtwood for so much fun. I do remember thinking that the adventure playground was 'dangerous' and that was the best part.
Swizec 12y ago
My favourite words to hear as a kid were: "Go out and play" This was in the early and mid 90's. It was amazing. I had a turf around our house that I would patrol. I knew where every plant was, which neighbourhood dogs are friendly and which aren't, where each climbable tree could be found, and I knew exactly how long it took to tumble down the nearby hill. I was deathly scared of rollerblading down the paved hill. Natural aversion to pain, you see. And yes, plenty of scraped knees[1]. Many bruises. Perhaps a stitch or two. But I bloody well learned my limits and could spend hours upon hours entertaining myself with everything from random hammers to pitchforks and planks that I made bike jumps out of. It used to be so cool to be a kid. My sister is 8 years younger. She no longer went to the playground without my mum. Not because my mum wouldn't let her, but because she didn't want to. Somewhere somehow she got the idea that she needs to be constantly supervised. [1] Apparently there was a particular summer where both my knees and both elbows essentially had a permanent scrape. I'd always replace it with a new one before the old one healed.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  Just thinking of the stuff we did when we grew up. The traumas that we endured. The crazy stuff in the chemistry labs. All the stupid dares, the dangerous games, the fights. We somehow plowed trough the whole coming of age thing, without fatalities and permanent damage. And my father was kicked out of his home to a nearby town when he was 14, to be able to attend high school and had to work. Right now we are joking that kids are stupid, and that is the reason they heal so fast ;) The modern sterile parenting excels in increasing the survival chances until adulthood (and with the sterile hypothesis for allergies and autoimmune disorders, may not even that), but at what price.
- e40 12y ago
  My favourite words to hear as a kid were: "Go out and play" Indeed. It was the mantra when I was a kid. In my neighborhood, if I said that to my kid, he'd be the only one out there. The rest of the kids are inside, playing video games or studying. Last summer, my 13 yr old didn't see one of his friends face-to-face, but had a summer of playing with them and talking while doing so over Skype. He went to a bunch of camps, and saw kids his own age there, and spent a week with his cousins, but saw none of his school friends in person. Yeah, it was very disturbing to me, and I tried many times to insist "wouldn't you like to have some friends over?" only to hear "no, I'm good"... several times I thought about forcing him outside, but really, the playgrounds have only young kids with parents hovering over them. He would have been alone out there. I'm been saying to anyone that would listen that there will be unintended consequences for this shift. Dramatic ones. I hope they aren't too bad for our kids and society, and that I'm overstating it. I would love to be wrong here.
reminiscentplay 12y ago
(Throwaway... Not sure why, yet. Something to discuss with my therapist I'm sure. ~89-94) Before fifth grade, we would build fires to roast marshmallows and hot dogs in the disused sandbox, watched over by the honeysuckles (and, I'm sure, mom from a window). We would have pinecone wars, but only when the season was right - fresh 'cones hurt too much. We would climb trees to see how high we could get; we would head into the woods and build forts from branches and detritus. Once, during a slumber party, we snuck out late at night to ride our bikes through the witching hour. A neighbor called the police on us, thinking we were casing houses. Maybe it was our hoodies. We were, at most, 8 or 9. By fifth grade, the neighborhood kids my age had all moved away. The one up the street - his mom a single mom, divorced from a gay ex-minister but still active in the LDS, with three younger sisters - wasn't allowed to play with us off their property once his mother caught wind of our backyard roasts and called the fire department. She was a night shift nurse. Once, when we were riding our bikes along the busy two lane (double yellow) road that ran parallel to the train and past my back yard, we saw a squirrel dead from impact. He used the front tire of his bike to crush its head, fascinated by how its eyes bulged. I threw up. A cop pulled up and gave us a stern talking to about respecting animals - even ones that were already dead. "It may be dead, but we don't know if it can still feel pain or not," he said, and went on his way. The one down the street always had a German Shepherd that they'd give away once it got too old and untrained and relegated to a 20' length of chain. One of them had an accident in their play room once - I can't remember if it was Jupiter or Saturn (never Uranus) - and it had worms squirming in it. The stench was overwhelming. We climbed their maple trees often, we built bicycle ramps on the downslope to the coul-de-sac. Once I raced down it so fast, and the pavement was so rough, that I lost traction and slid fifteen feet on my side and knee. I was fascinated when the gravel wormed its way up through my skin; I still have the scar. We would find hollows between the lawn and the curb, or make them in the woods or in the stacked square logs that held erosion at bay and place GI Joes in battle stance, squared against Cobra in their pretend pillboxes. They had Beastmaster I and II on laserdisc, his parents smoked like a coal plant, and they moved. The other one down the street, his dad would beat him with a belt. Once we were in their front yard and I shinnied up a tree. Misjudged. Slipped, tore the skin off my shin. I was pretty high up. Never climbed a tree after that. Never saw that one again, either. I can't remember his name. I hope he didn't continue the cycle of abuse. I couldn't figure out, for the life of me, why we weren't allowed to cross the gentle slope that formed a lip round one side of the playground in fifth grade. I got in trouble for wandering down there several times. A boy showed me a playboy magazine there; I thought the distended breasts were gross; I tattled. He had gotten rid of the evidence in the toilet trash can, but still got in trouble. It flurried one day, and my math teacher had us stay indoors while she went outside and frolicked in it, gloating at us. She made me feel stupid for not knowing long division - when I insisted that fractions were clearly better: .3 repeating made less sense to me than 1/3. By middle school, recess turned into "socialization time": 200 sixth graders standing for half their lunch period in sweltering heat or shivering cold, milling around bleachers and prohibited from going on the football field below by the panopticonic gym teacher with his comical shorts and puffed out chest and bulging belly and Kenny G hair, forced to interact with no context but that which came as visual, auditory, olfactory baggage. That's when the bullying started.
jschulenklopper 12y ago
The initiatives of Gever Tulley, especially Tinkering School [1], are very in line with this article. For the interested (quoted from Wikipedia): > Tulley delivered a talk at the TED2007 [2] conference entitled "5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do". In this talk, Tulley makes the argument that a growing trend towards over-protection of children is harming their ability to learn and think. Thus, Tulley advocates for parents to allow their children to do supervised activities that are considered to be dangerous such as driving a car or playing with fire. By doing so, Tulley believes children will learn concepts that they may not learn in more structured and conventional activities. Later, he published a book "50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)" [1] http://www.tinkeringschool.com http://www.tinkeringschool.com [2] http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_...
- jschulenklopper 12y ago
  TL;DR, some of the 'dangerous' things are: * play with fire * own a pocket knife * throw a spear * deconstruct appliances * break the DMCA * drive a car BTW, Gever mentions that Tinkering School is also about being creative, confident and in control of these things, learning to handle them safely.
  - rthomas6 12y ago
    Sounds like I should get my son in Boy Scouts, even though our family is becoming increasingly less religious. My experience with Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts included the following things I wouldn't have got to do otherwise: * Building a fire * Training to use a pocket knife (and being allowed to own one thereafter) * Shooting a rifle without my parents present I quit early on, and they teach you way more self-sufficiency and survival skills than I learned. I recall that there's a merit badge that involves blindfolding you and dropping you off in an unknown wooded location with nothing but a tarp, and you have to "survive" for 24 hours by building a shelter, making a fire, looking for food and water, etc.
zwass 12y ago
I'm surprised there's no mention of the Berkeley, CA Adventure Playground (http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/adventureplayground/ http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/adventureplayground/), in continuous operation since 1979. I have fond memories of being there as a young child. Want a hammer? Pick up 10 stray nails and trade them for a hammer. Then go smash things, attach things, whatever you like. There's a zip line and a giant cargo net to climb. It's an incredibly empowering experience for children.
- e40 12y ago
  I'm seriously disappointed that I didn't know about this while my kid grew up a few miles from it. And I've been to the Berkeley Marina dozens of times and I've never seen this. Total bummer.
nevinera 12y ago
I think the biggest improvement we made to our outlook on the topic was to separate 'getting hurt' into subcategories of 'pain', 'damage', and 'lasting harm'. Without those subcategories being explicit, it's hard to have reasonable discussions about risk. I have a two-year-old; she's allowed to play with a hammer and nails, but she can't use a real knife without supervision. That's because the potential for real damage or lasting harm are both high with a knife - she shouldn't use that on her own until she has been trained with techniques for doing it safely. Next year, she'll probably be allowed to use a knife on food, if not on wood (safe whittling takes a little more effort than safe cutting). The distinction between damage and lasting harm is especially hard for many people to grasp. Going to the hospital usually means you have damage - you need stitches, a cast, crutches. Harm is only 'lasting' if it will not totally go away in the next few years - spinal injuries or major disfiguring burns.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I agree with your distinction. Getting yourself hurt but in a way you'll be able to recover from relatively quickly is not bad, it's learning experience.
- EdwardMSmith 12y ago
  This is exactly how I did it with my two. For the most part, I just let "pain" happen. You knew it was going to, and it was hard not to say anything. It didn't always happen, but it usually did. This is stuff like jumping off swings, "sword fights" with sticks, snowball fights, sledding, etc. When it did happen, they always look over to see your reaction. Mostly it was a raised eyebrow or smile and a small shake of the head. Most of the time they went right back to doing what they were doing.. but generally didn't get hurt again. Progress, right? For light "damage", I'd warn them, "uh, that's not such a good idea..." or I'd force them to add some safety equipment to try to mitigate the damage (knee pads, long pants, gloves, that sort of thing). They've got a few scars, but no broken bones - probably equal parts luck and caution on the kid's part. Tree-climbing (and other forms of climbing) were the hardest things to deal with because the skill and the limit testing is so important, but the consequences can so variable. Anything over that, I'd be heavily involved - supervision, stopping them, etc. On the other hand, there were quite a number of things I tried to get them to do that were pretty dangerous, but they wouldn't do.. I tried really hard to get them into Karting, but no luck. One of the two, the older one, has taken to climbing walls, but the other hasn't. I think they've developed pretty good self confidence and risk management. They still sword fight like idiots, tho. That ALWAYS ends up in tears..
shirro 12y ago
There is a middle ground between locking your kids indoors and letting them roam feral riding on the top of trains and tagging buildings. And that is to be an active parent and go camping, hunting, fishing with kids. Geocaching, bushwalking, kayaking, long distance bike rides etc. These are some good starting lists: http://www.natureplaysa.org.au/resources/2/51-things-to-do-before-youre-12/ http://www.natureplaysa.org.au/resources/2/51-things-to-do-b... https://www.50things.org.uk/activity-list.aspx https://www.50things.org.uk/activity-list.aspx
- rayiner 12y ago
  Who has the time? When I was a kid, my over protective asian mother would let me out of the house when I got home from school, and I'd wander around the neighborhood with the neighborhood kids, and come back when it got dark. My generation's (I'm 30) ideas of "proper parenting" are too god-damn time intensive. You should be doing stuff with your kids, sure, but beyond a pretty young age, it's their job to entertain themselves.
  - ajcarpy2005 12y ago
    I don't see why in evenings, families can't spend some time in the backyard maybe grill some food or just throw a Frisbee or whatnot.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      Sure, you can do that. But kids have a tremendous amount of free time (after school on weekdays, weekends, spring, summer, and winter breaks). They should be running around the neighborhood for most of that time.
    - 67726e 12y ago
      Not for nothing, but how many kids want to spend their time doing that? Sure, playing catch with a parent is fun from time to time, but when I was a kid I wanted to spend my time roaming the woods, riding bikes, or building a tree-house with my friends, not my parents.
- 12y ago
chrisBob 12y ago
As the proud parent of a 3 month old, my concern is that exposing my daughter to small risks as she grows up could end in me going to jail. My wife and I joke that our kid isn't allowed to walk to the park alone until she can outrun the cops. Short of moving to Europe I am not sure how to make sure it is safe to let my child roam alone when she is an 8 year old. I am not concerned about her safety exactly, but some asshole calling the police is a very real and serious threat to our family. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/decision-in-free-range-case-does-not-end-debate-about-parenting-and-safety/2015/03/02/5a919454-c04d-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/decision-in-fr...
- __xtrimsky 12y ago
  Yea I'm worried about that too. I was raised in France but live in the US, as an 8 year old I used to explore lot's of things. But I'm not actually sure I want to let my kids do the same, I remember doing a lot of stupid things too and I'm not sure any of this freedom taught me anything: - touching dog poop to enter a "ninja" club - entering many private properties - climbing dangerously high trees - crossing quadruple railroad tracks with TGVs passing on them. - putting my head next to a passing TGV (about 2 feet away), just to see how it feels and be scared - jumping off high ledges to see how far I can fall without hurting myself. - walking near ledges with a 2 story drop. - playing with explosive fireworks, big enough to blow up a couple of fingers. I could just buy these as a kid in France. This is just a small list, and I was honestly a very quiet, calm kid. I just had an active friend. And as I said, I don't remember this teaching me anything. Whereas I remember spending time programming (visual programming) at 8 years old, and that was awesome and taught me a lot.
  - delinka 12y ago
    "...I'm not actually sure I want to let my kids do the same..." But you turned out OK, right? Why rob them of the experiences that shaped you into the wonderful adult human being you are today?
    - __xtrimsky 12y ago
bane 12y ago
When I was very young 6-8, I lived in a low-end, but rather large, apartment complex. It was built at the tail end of the brutalism architectural fad and we had oddities like fully concrete playgrounds built on top of concrete walking surface, surrounded by concrete planters with hard sharp corners. There was a more conventional playground at an adjacent park and then a neighboring section of townhouses with an open field up at a higher elevation, and then by a strip mall on the other side. The whole area was maybe 2km x 1km. The entire area was boxed in by 2 high-speed roads and on the other side a crazy intersection. So it formed a kind of "natural" range for us. It was in the middle of a city so it wasn't too big of a deal for my friends and I to run around all over the complex (there were three different concrete playgrounds and a pool), go over to each other's apartments, run over to the park, play around in the parking garage. Run over to the local computer store. Nobody's parents really seemed to care too much where we went inside of this box so long as we were home by dark. There was a 7-11 across one of the busy streets with a couple arcade games and they sold comic books and baseball cards, so the braver of us would head over there on occasion and spend our meager allowances on that stuff. It was at about here I learned that different houses had different allowances on our range. Some kids would get in trouble if they came back toting comic books or candy that could have only come from the 7-11, some kids didn't. And so by consensus us kids learned where was the furthest from home we could safely stray. While most of my friends had a mother at home, I was fully latchkey, both of my parents worked, often till quite late. There was some strangeness in how this was managed: - During the school year, between getting home from school and dark, I was free to go anywhere in this box I wanted, so long as I called my parents when I got home from school. - If I was going to a friend's apartment, I had to let them know this. If I was just going to play outside it didn't matter where I went. - During the summer, my mother would hire a local mother to be my babysitter. Her sons and I were already friends, and their house rules were more or less the same as mine. So really we'd just come home for lunch and she wouldn't see us all day after that. But at least there was a "responsible adult in charge" - There was an apartment rule that if you wanted to use the pool, and were under 12, you needed a responsible child 12 or older to bring you. - If my parents decided to go out to a function by themselves at night, they'd hire in a babysitter, usually a local teen, I'd spend most of the evening outside with my friends, but within eyeshot of my house. - Once it got dark, I had to report back in at home, then I was free to go back outside so long as it was within eyeshot/holler distance from home. It seemed awesome at the time and I completely enjoyed growing up there. After this, we moved to the country, and strangely it seemed my range shrunk as there simply wasn't really any place to go so it wasn't much worth getting out of the house for. I had a couple friends that were within a couple miles, and on occasion I'd walk to their houses or they would walk to mine, but that was it, for the most part my world shrunk. I learned much later that there was a darker side to all this childhood freedom. - A known sex predator lived in our complex. My mother found out years later that many of my play friends had been abused by him. I believe one time he may have tried to get me to come to his apartment as I remember meeting a strange man at the neighboring strip mall who "wanted to buy my bike for $1000, but I had to come back to his apartment to get the money" The police never investigated any of the cases, and I rarely remember ever seeing police in the area. - The tall apartment buildings were popular spots for suicides. I think I remember at least knowing about 3 or 4 suicides while I lived there. I know that one of the bodies was found by one of my play friends. It was so traumatic that he was pulled out of school and the family moved away. - The brutalist design and the underground parking garage were extremely dangerous. Several of my play friends ended up in the hospital with broken bones and concussions from falling off of things or getting clipped by cars. A couple years ago I went back to see my old stomping grounds. Of course it was much smaller as an adult than as an 8 year old. - All of the playgrounds had been removed. - A fountain feature had also been removed. - Many of the concrete planters had also been torn up. - A high fence had been put up around the pool. - Some of the "secret" entrances into weird structural parts of the underground garage had been fenced over. - The walking path to the neighboring strip mall had been removed and replaced with another high-speed road (shrinking the safe play range). - The path to neighboring neighborhood had been completely removed. Shrinking the range more. There were other bits of "civilizing" that had occurred, but it seemed like a less interesting place overall. I don't have any kids, but I'm mixed on allowing them the measure of freedom I had. There were many instances I can think of where we had gotten ourselves into real danger, and only by dumb luck did nobody get hurt. Parents who's kids did end up in the ER very quickly put restrictions on their kids. On the flip side, it was incredibly enriching to have my world be my playground. To see or know about a place I could walk or bike to, and simply go there without any interference. However, these days, I lament that there's a bus stop outside of my house, that picks up high school kids, and takes them to a school a half-mile down the road. I would definitely let my kid walk to school instead.
vhost- 12y ago
The next generation of kids are going to be weak. I mean that. As a kid, I was causing all sorts of trouble, broke a couple bones, created scars, pissed off a neighbor or two, played hockey, and had an outlet for figuring out who I was without my parents around. I turned out fine. I was able to make it through my problems with dyslexia and except that was part of me, I knew what pain felt like, and I learned how to treat people with respect because they didn't yell at me or call the cops; they talked to me like a little human that could learn a lesson (okay, maybe a few yelled at me). Now I see certain family members completely sheltering their kids. No vaccines, play time inside, choosing the TV they watch, the books they read, the bikes they ride, home schooling. This is becoming a very popular way to raise kids and it's no fun.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  I was walking through a suburban neighborhood with a group of friends to find a better vantage point to see the 4th of July fireworks several years ago. This woman's 8 year old daughter was riding her tasseled and glitter covered "princess" bike beside us, and had to transition from the road back to the sidewalk. The closest path was over a concrete driveway, which had about a 2 inch (~5cm) "lip" where it met the road. The girl got "stuck" with her front wheel against the end of the driveway, and called for her mom! (And yes, her mom came over and helped her roll past the "obstacle.")
  - visarga 12y ago
    See? that's what we need helicopter moms for. Surpassing 5cm obstacles with bikes.
djapolinares 12y ago
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djapolinares 12y ago
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114 points by shalmanese 12y ago

Keywords being "without making it safer". Security theater, safety theater, everyone too afraid to point out the obvious because they don't want to make it easy for others to accuse them of callousness in a way that's hard to defend against. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
anon4 12y ago
I'm not sure that's really the Abilene paradox. In that, every member of the group would agree to taking the counter action if everyone else did. What we have is, I think, more like The Emperor's New Clothes. Most of the collective is in private agreement that he's naked, but would never dare speak against the misguided interest of a powerful minority.
- kirsebaer 12y ago
  A lot of people actually believe that kids have to be "protected from dangers". They are not just playing along to please the neighbors. However, popular opinions can also change quickly.

jgrahamc 12y ago

The opening of this reminded me of the hours I spent in an "adventure playground" as a child in the UK. Now at least I know that I need to thank Lady Marjory Allen of Hurtwood for so much fun. I do remember thinking that the adventure playground was 'dangerous' and that was the best part.

Swizec 12y ago

My favourite words to hear as a kid were: "Go out and play" This was in the early and mid 90's. It was amazing. I had a turf around our house that I would patrol. I knew where every plant was, which neighbourhood dogs are friendly and which aren't, where each climbable tree could be found, and I knew exactly how long it took to tumble down the nearby hill. I was deathly scared of rollerblading down the paved hill. Natural aversion to pain, you see. And yes, plenty of scraped knees[1]. Many bruises. Perhaps a stitch or two. But I bloody well learned my limits and could spend hours upon hours entertaining myself with everything from random hammers to pitchforks and planks that I made bike jumps out of. It used to be so cool to be a kid. My sister is 8 years younger. She no longer went to the playground without my mum. Not because my mum wouldn't let her, but because she didn't want to. Somewhere somehow she got the idea that she needs to be constantly supervised. [1] Apparently there was a particular summer where both my knees and both elbows essentially had a permanent scrape. I'd always replace it with a new one before the old one healed.

venomsnake 12y ago
Just thinking of the stuff we did when we grew up. The traumas that we endured. The crazy stuff in the chemistry labs. All the stupid dares, the dangerous games, the fights. We somehow plowed trough the whole coming of age thing, without fatalities and permanent damage. And my father was kicked out of his home to a nearby town when he was 14, to be able to attend high school and had to work. Right now we are joking that kids are stupid, and that is the reason they heal so fast ;) The modern sterile parenting excels in increasing the survival chances until adulthood (and with the sterile hypothesis for allergies and autoimmune disorders, may not even that), but at what price.
e40 12y ago
My favourite words to hear as a kid were: "Go out and play" Indeed. It was the mantra when I was a kid. In my neighborhood, if I said that to my kid, he'd be the only one out there. The rest of the kids are inside, playing video games or studying. Last summer, my 13 yr old didn't see one of his friends face-to-face, but had a summer of playing with them and talking while doing so over Skype. He went to a bunch of camps, and saw kids his own age there, and spent a week with his cousins, but saw none of his school friends in person. Yeah, it was very disturbing to me, and I tried many times to insist "wouldn't you like to have some friends over?" only to hear "no, I'm good"... several times I thought about forcing him outside, but really, the playgrounds have only young kids with parents hovering over them. He would have been alone out there. I'm been saying to anyone that would listen that there will be unintended consequences for this shift. Dramatic ones. I hope they aren't too bad for our kids and society, and that I'm overstating it. I would love to be wrong here.

reminiscentplay 12y ago

(Throwaway... Not sure why, yet. Something to discuss with my therapist I'm sure. ~89-94) Before fifth grade, we would build fires to roast marshmallows and hot dogs in the disused sandbox, watched over by the honeysuckles (and, I'm sure, mom from a window). We would have pinecone wars, but only when the season was right - fresh 'cones hurt too much. We would climb trees to see how high we could get; we would head into the woods and build forts from branches and detritus. Once, during a slumber party, we snuck out late at night to ride our bikes through the witching hour. A neighbor called the police on us, thinking we were casing houses. Maybe it was our hoodies. We were, at most, 8 or 9. By fifth grade, the neighborhood kids my age had all moved away. The one up the street - his mom a single mom, divorced from a gay ex-minister but still active in the LDS, with three younger sisters - wasn't allowed to play with us off their property once his mother caught wind of our backyard roasts and called the fire department. She was a night shift nurse. Once, when we were riding our bikes along the busy two lane (double yellow) road that ran parallel to the train and past my back yard, we saw a squirrel dead from impact. He used the front tire of his bike to crush its head, fascinated by how its eyes bulged. I threw up. A cop pulled up and gave us a stern talking to about respecting animals - even ones that were already dead. "It may be dead, but we don't know if it can still feel pain or not," he said, and went on his way. The one down the street always had a German Shepherd that they'd give away once it got too old and untrained and relegated to a 20' length of chain. One of them had an accident in their play room once - I can't remember if it was Jupiter or Saturn (never Uranus) - and it had worms squirming in it. The stench was overwhelming. We climbed their maple trees often, we built bicycle ramps on the downslope to the coul-de-sac. Once I raced down it so fast, and the pavement was so rough, that I lost traction and slid fifteen feet on my side and knee. I was fascinated when the gravel wormed its way up through my skin; I still have the scar. We would find hollows between the lawn and the curb, or make them in the woods or in the stacked square logs that held erosion at bay and place GI Joes in battle stance, squared against Cobra in their pretend pillboxes. They had Beastmaster I and II on laserdisc, his parents smoked like a coal plant, and they moved. The other one down the street, his dad would beat him with a belt. Once we were in their front yard and I shinnied up a tree. Misjudged. Slipped, tore the skin off my shin. I was pretty high up. Never climbed a tree after that. Never saw that one again, either. I can't remember his name. I hope he didn't continue the cycle of abuse. I couldn't figure out, for the life of me, why we weren't allowed to cross the gentle slope that formed a lip round one side of the playground in fifth grade. I got in trouble for wandering down there several times. A boy showed me a playboy magazine there; I thought the distended breasts were gross; I tattled. He had gotten rid of the evidence in the toilet trash can, but still got in trouble. It flurried one day, and my math teacher had us stay indoors while she went outside and frolicked in it, gloating at us. She made me feel stupid for not knowing long division - when I insisted that fractions were clearly better: .3 repeating made less sense to me than 1/3. By middle school, recess turned into "socialization time": 200 sixth graders standing for half their lunch period in sweltering heat or shivering cold, milling around bleachers and prohibited from going on the football field below by the panopticonic gym teacher with his comical shorts and puffed out chest and bulging belly and Kenny G hair, forced to interact with no context but that which came as visual, auditory, olfactory baggage. That's when the bullying started.

jschulenklopper 12y ago

The initiatives of Gever Tulley, especially Tinkering School [1], are very in line with this article. For the interested (quoted from Wikipedia): > Tulley delivered a talk at the TED2007 [2] conference entitled "5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do". In this talk, Tulley makes the argument that a growing trend towards over-protection of children is harming their ability to learn and think. Thus, Tulley advocates for parents to allow their children to do supervised activities that are considered to be dangerous such as driving a car or playing with fire. By doing so, Tulley believes children will learn concepts that they may not learn in more structured and conventional activities. Later, he published a book "50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)" [1] http://www.tinkeringschool.com http://www.tinkeringschool.com [2] http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_...

jschulenklopper 12y ago
TL;DR, some of the 'dangerous' things are: * play with fire * own a pocket knife * throw a spear * deconstruct appliances * break the DMCA * drive a car BTW, Gever mentions that Tinkering School is also about being creative, confident and in control of these things, learning to handle them safely.
- rthomas6 12y ago
  Sounds like I should get my son in Boy Scouts, even though our family is becoming increasingly less religious. My experience with Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts included the following things I wouldn't have got to do otherwise: * Building a fire * Training to use a pocket knife (and being allowed to own one thereafter) * Shooting a rifle without my parents present I quit early on, and they teach you way more self-sufficiency and survival skills than I learned. I recall that there's a merit badge that involves blindfolding you and dropping you off in an unknown wooded location with nothing but a tarp, and you have to "survive" for 24 hours by building a shelter, making a fire, looking for food and water, etc.

zwass 12y ago

I'm surprised there's no mention of the Berkeley, CA Adventure Playground (http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/adventureplayground/ http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/adventureplayground/), in continuous operation since 1979. I have fond memories of being there as a young child. Want a hammer? Pick up 10 stray nails and trade them for a hammer. Then go smash things, attach things, whatever you like. There's a zip line and a giant cargo net to climb. It's an incredibly empowering experience for children.

e40 12y ago
I'm seriously disappointed that I didn't know about this while my kid grew up a few miles from it. And I've been to the Berkeley Marina dozens of times and I've never seen this. Total bummer.

nevinera 12y ago

I think the biggest improvement we made to our outlook on the topic was to separate 'getting hurt' into subcategories of 'pain', 'damage', and 'lasting harm'. Without those subcategories being explicit, it's hard to have reasonable discussions about risk. I have a two-year-old; she's allowed to play with a hammer and nails, but she can't use a real knife without supervision. That's because the potential for real damage or lasting harm are both high with a knife - she shouldn't use that on her own until she has been trained with techniques for doing it safely. Next year, she'll probably be allowed to use a knife on food, if not on wood (safe whittling takes a little more effort than safe cutting). The distinction between damage and lasting harm is especially hard for many people to grasp. Going to the hospital usually means you have damage - you need stitches, a cast, crutches. Harm is only 'lasting' if it will not totally go away in the next few years - spinal injuries or major disfiguring burns.

deleted 12y ago
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TeMPOraL 12y ago
I agree with your distinction. Getting yourself hurt but in a way you'll be able to recover from relatively quickly is not bad, it's learning experience.
EdwardMSmith 12y ago
This is exactly how I did it with my two. For the most part, I just let "pain" happen. You knew it was going to, and it was hard not to say anything. It didn't always happen, but it usually did. This is stuff like jumping off swings, "sword fights" with sticks, snowball fights, sledding, etc. When it did happen, they always look over to see your reaction. Mostly it was a raised eyebrow or smile and a small shake of the head. Most of the time they went right back to doing what they were doing.. but generally didn't get hurt again. Progress, right? For light "damage", I'd warn them, "uh, that's not such a good idea..." or I'd force them to add some safety equipment to try to mitigate the damage (knee pads, long pants, gloves, that sort of thing). They've got a few scars, but no broken bones - probably equal parts luck and caution on the kid's part. Tree-climbing (and other forms of climbing) were the hardest things to deal with because the skill and the limit testing is so important, but the consequences can so variable. Anything over that, I'd be heavily involved - supervision, stopping them, etc. On the other hand, there were quite a number of things I tried to get them to do that were pretty dangerous, but they wouldn't do.. I tried really hard to get them into Karting, but no luck. One of the two, the older one, has taken to climbing walls, but the other hasn't. I think they've developed pretty good self confidence and risk management. They still sword fight like idiots, tho. That ALWAYS ends up in tears..

shirro 12y ago

There is a middle ground between locking your kids indoors and letting them roam feral riding on the top of trains and tagging buildings. And that is to be an active parent and go camping, hunting, fishing with kids. Geocaching, bushwalking, kayaking, long distance bike rides etc. These are some good starting lists: http://www.natureplaysa.org.au/resources/2/51-things-to-do-before-youre-12/ http://www.natureplaysa.org.au/resources/2/51-things-to-do-b... https://www.50things.org.uk/activity-list.aspx https://www.50things.org.uk/activity-list.aspx

rayiner 12y ago
Who has the time? When I was a kid, my over protective asian mother would let me out of the house when I got home from school, and I'd wander around the neighborhood with the neighborhood kids, and come back when it got dark. My generation's (I'm 30) ideas of "proper parenting" are too god-damn time intensive. You should be doing stuff with your kids, sure, but beyond a pretty young age, it's their job to entertain themselves.
- ajcarpy2005 12y ago
  I don't see why in evenings, families can't spend some time in the backyard maybe grill some food or just throw a Frisbee or whatnot.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Sure, you can do that. But kids have a tremendous amount of free time (after school on weekdays, weekends, spring, summer, and winter breaks). They should be running around the neighborhood for most of that time.
  - 67726e 12y ago
    Not for nothing, but how many kids want to spend their time doing that? Sure, playing catch with a parent is fun from time to time, but when I was a kid I wanted to spend my time roaming the woods, riding bikes, or building a tree-house with my friends, not my parents.
12y ago

chrisBob 12y ago

As the proud parent of a 3 month old, my concern is that exposing my daughter to small risks as she grows up could end in me going to jail. My wife and I joke that our kid isn't allowed to walk to the park alone until she can outrun the cops. Short of moving to Europe I am not sure how to make sure it is safe to let my child roam alone when she is an 8 year old. I am not concerned about her safety exactly, but some asshole calling the police is a very real and serious threat to our family. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/decision-in-free-range-case-does-not-end-debate-about-parenting-and-safety/2015/03/02/5a919454-c04d-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/decision-in-fr...

__xtrimsky 12y ago
Yea I'm worried about that too. I was raised in France but live in the US, as an 8 year old I used to explore lot's of things. But I'm not actually sure I want to let my kids do the same, I remember doing a lot of stupid things too and I'm not sure any of this freedom taught me anything: - touching dog poop to enter a "ninja" club - entering many private properties - climbing dangerously high trees - crossing quadruple railroad tracks with TGVs passing on them. - putting my head next to a passing TGV (about 2 feet away), just to see how it feels and be scared - jumping off high ledges to see how far I can fall without hurting myself. - walking near ledges with a 2 story drop. - playing with explosive fireworks, big enough to blow up a couple of fingers. I could just buy these as a kid in France. This is just a small list, and I was honestly a very quiet, calm kid. I just had an active friend. And as I said, I don't remember this teaching me anything. Whereas I remember spending time programming (visual programming) at 8 years old, and that was awesome and taught me a lot.
- delinka 12y ago
  "...I'm not actually sure I want to let my kids do the same..." But you turned out OK, right? Why rob them of the experiences that shaped you into the wonderful adult human being you are today?
  - __xtrimsky 12y ago

bane 12y ago

When I was very young 6-8, I lived in a low-end, but rather large, apartment complex. It was built at the tail end of the brutalism architectural fad and we had oddities like fully concrete playgrounds built on top of concrete walking surface, surrounded by concrete planters with hard sharp corners. There was a more conventional playground at an adjacent park and then a neighboring section of townhouses with an open field up at a higher elevation, and then by a strip mall on the other side. The whole area was maybe 2km x 1km. The entire area was boxed in by 2 high-speed roads and on the other side a crazy intersection. So it formed a kind of "natural" range for us. It was in the middle of a city so it wasn't too big of a deal for my friends and I to run around all over the complex (there were three different concrete playgrounds and a pool), go over to each other's apartments, run over to the park, play around in the parking garage. Run over to the local computer store. Nobody's parents really seemed to care too much where we went inside of this box so long as we were home by dark. There was a 7-11 across one of the busy streets with a couple arcade games and they sold comic books and baseball cards, so the braver of us would head over there on occasion and spend our meager allowances on that stuff. It was at about here I learned that different houses had different allowances on our range. Some kids would get in trouble if they came back toting comic books or candy that could have only come from the 7-11, some kids didn't. And so by consensus us kids learned where was the furthest from home we could safely stray. While most of my friends had a mother at home, I was fully latchkey, both of my parents worked, often till quite late. There was some strangeness in how this was managed: - During the school year, between getting home from school and dark, I was free to go anywhere in this box I wanted, so long as I called my parents when I got home from school. - If I was going to a friend's apartment, I had to let them know this. If I was just going to play outside it didn't matter where I went. - During the summer, my mother would hire a local mother to be my babysitter. Her sons and I were already friends, and their house rules were more or less the same as mine. So really we'd just come home for lunch and she wouldn't see us all day after that. But at least there was a "responsible adult in charge" - There was an apartment rule that if you wanted to use the pool, and were under 12, you needed a responsible child 12 or older to bring you. - If my parents decided to go out to a function by themselves at night, they'd hire in a babysitter, usually a local teen, I'd spend most of the evening outside with my friends, but within eyeshot of my house. - Once it got dark, I had to report back in at home, then I was free to go back outside so long as it was within eyeshot/holler distance from home. It seemed awesome at the time and I completely enjoyed growing up there. After this, we moved to the country, and strangely it seemed my range shrunk as there simply wasn't really any place to go so it wasn't much worth getting out of the house for. I had a couple friends that were within a couple miles, and on occasion I'd walk to their houses or they would walk to mine, but that was it, for the most part my world shrunk. I learned much later that there was a darker side to all this childhood freedom. - A known sex predator lived in our complex. My mother found out years later that many of my play friends had been abused by him. I believe one time he may have tried to get me to come to his apartment as I remember meeting a strange man at the neighboring strip mall who "wanted to buy my bike for $1000, but I had to come back to his apartment to get the money" The police never investigated any of the cases, and I rarely remember ever seeing police in the area. - The tall apartment buildings were popular spots for suicides. I think I remember at least knowing about 3 or 4 suicides while I lived there. I know that one of the bodies was found by one of my play friends. It was so traumatic that he was pulled out of school and the family moved away. - The brutalist design and the underground parking garage were extremely dangerous. Several of my play friends ended up in the hospital with broken bones and concussions from falling off of things or getting clipped by cars. A couple years ago I went back to see my old stomping grounds. Of course it was much smaller as an adult than as an 8 year old. - All of the playgrounds had been removed. - A fountain feature had also been removed. - Many of the concrete planters had also been torn up. - A high fence had been put up around the pool. - Some of the "secret" entrances into weird structural parts of the underground garage had been fenced over. - The walking path to the neighboring strip mall had been removed and replaced with another high-speed road (shrinking the safe play range). - The path to neighboring neighborhood had been completely removed. Shrinking the range more. There were other bits of "civilizing" that had occurred, but it seemed like a less interesting place overall. I don't have any kids, but I'm mixed on allowing them the measure of freedom I had. There were many instances I can think of where we had gotten ourselves into real danger, and only by dumb luck did nobody get hurt. Parents who's kids did end up in the ER very quickly put restrictions on their kids. On the flip side, it was incredibly enriching to have my world be my playground. To see or know about a place I could walk or bike to, and simply go there without any interference. However, these days, I lament that there's a bus stop outside of my house, that picks up high school kids, and takes them to a school a half-mile down the road. I would definitely let my kid walk to school instead.

vhost- 12y ago

The next generation of kids are going to be weak. I mean that. As a kid, I was causing all sorts of trouble, broke a couple bones, created scars, pissed off a neighbor or two, played hockey, and had an outlet for figuring out who I was without my parents around. I turned out fine. I was able to make it through my problems with dyslexia and except that was part of me, I knew what pain felt like, and I learned how to treat people with respect because they didn't yell at me or call the cops; they talked to me like a little human that could learn a lesson (okay, maybe a few yelled at me). Now I see certain family members completely sheltering their kids. No vaccines, play time inside, choosing the TV they watch, the books they read, the bikes they ride, home schooling. This is becoming a very popular way to raise kids and it's no fun.

stcredzero 12y ago
I was walking through a suburban neighborhood with a group of friends to find a better vantage point to see the 4th of July fireworks several years ago. This woman's 8 year old daughter was riding her tasseled and glitter covered "princess" bike beside us, and had to transition from the road back to the sidewalk. The closest path was over a concrete driveway, which had about a 2 inch (~5cm) "lip" where it met the road. The girl got "stuck" with her front wheel against the end of the driveway, and called for her mom! (And yes, her mom came over and helped her roll past the "obstacle.")
- visarga 12y ago
  See? that's what we need helicopter moms for. Surpassing 5cm obstacles with bikes.

djapolinares 12y ago

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djapolinares 12y ago

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