Unleash our kids: Crime is at a 40-year low, but nervous parents are limiting their kids' freedom
to roam -- and it hurts urban lifevery interesting article about a fundamental shift in how children are raised - it is certainly worth reading in its entirety...
By Will Doig for salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/21/paranoid_parents_kill_cities/
(Credit: Shutterstock/Salon/Benjamin Wheelock)
When Lenore Skenazy was growing up in Wilmette, Ill., in the 1960s, she routinely walked the four blocks between her home and her kindergarten all by herself. She knew to stay safe near traffic and not go anywhere with a stranger. And to help her cross the street was a friendly crossing guard a sixth-grader named Joey. For the record, I ended up marrying him, she laughs.
In the time since Skenazy walked off to kindergarten alone, the number of children that can be found in public without supervision has only diminished. In one survey, 85 percent of mothers said they allowed their kids outside unsupervised less frequently than they themselves were allowed. In Britain, the average age of children allowed to play outside adult-free has risen by more than a year since the 70s, and 25 percent of 8- to 10-year-olds have never played outside without an adult. One study diagrammed the shrinking distances that four generations of one familys kids were allowed to stray from home: six miles in 1919, one mile in 1950, half a mile in 1979, and 300 yards today.
But the shift is also cultural. The UCLA study also details the differences between how kids get to school in Japan and the United States. Whereas half of all American kids now get dropped off by private car, that practice is banned at public schools in Japan, and even school buses are rare. Instead, the money is spent on crossing guards and an enviable pedestrian infrastructure. Children as young as 5, in a choreographed daily routine, arrive at each others homes, one by two by three. Once a critical mass has formed, they walk the route as a group (in adorable yellow hats, no less).
Compare that to the U.S., where the anecdotes about unsupervised kids being caught in the net of paranoid parenting are as laughable as they are depressing: the Davidson, N.C., school that ended its long tradition of fifth graders walking to the village green over concerns about safety; the Pittsburgh dad who was charged with child endangerment for letting his 9- and 6-year-olds play in a park; the Florida community that banned anyone under 18 from being outdoors without a chaperone.
It says something that we perceive walking down the street to be a greater risk to kids than speeding along in two tons of steel and glass, when in actuality, four-fifths of kids killed by cars are in those cars. No parent, however, is going to be accused of endangering their child by driving them to school, but the parent who lets them walk might be the fear of being judged by other parents looms large. As does the fear of liability on the part of these schools and cities. Our belief in our communities has been eroded by fears of lawsuits, insurance companies whaling on the schools, the constant din of horror story tonight at 6, says Skenazy
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/21/paranoid_parents_kill_cities/
Patiod
(11,816 posts)her girls were in a group with other kids from the city and suburbs, and she said "can you believe some parents allows kids as young as 14 to ride the train?" I said I had done that as a kid and she said "well, that was a different time" and I said "how's that?" She really didn't know, but just said that other parents where she lived (far suburbs) wouldn't have let their kids ride the train alone, whereas kids living in the city rode public transit all the time.
All I can think is that every abduction is publicized far and wide, without distinguishing whether or not the "child snatcher" is the kid's mom, dad, grandparent or other relative.
exboyfil
(17,863 posts)in our community (small town Iowa). I told my kids driving home that I thought someone in the family or close family structure was responsible. Unless it was two individuals I do not see two kids being grabbed by strangers. The father of one is on trial for meth, but it is said that he is not a suspect. We were the type of parents that never let our kids out without supervision until they reached the teen years, and we are still concerned. My 16 year old failed to call for a ride after her college Chemistry class (her cell phone battery died), and I was starting to freak.
Our kids will not ride the bus because of the discipline issues on the bus. School buses are hell and that has not changed. They get dropped off at the door of the middle and high school now. My daughter proposed driving about 200 miles away by herself this fall, and I told her in no uncertain terms it was not going to happen.
Patiod
(11,816 posts)but I worry for kids who are spending so much time sitting on their butts playing video games or watching TV inside, and not being shoo-ed out of the house like we were, and being told "go out and play".
There's stranger danger, but there's also a danger of type II diabetes and passivity.
The kids next door to me are not allowed to walk home 3 blocks from school alone from the little elementary school in the middle of a very safe suburban neighborhood near our house. Three blocks of almost zero traffic, through a safe neighborhood, at a time when lots of other kids would be around them. Not a lone 5-year-old, but three kids who would all walk together. I attended that school, and walked these three blocks myself for 6 years. No one has ever been snatched from our neighborhood then or now. I just don't understand this.
But as for buses - I'm with you 100% on that. I wasn't bullied any more then any other kid, but when I was bullied, it was almost always on the bus! They are nasty places.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)article says.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)There is absolutely no way to get to the recreation complex other than by car, no sidewalks and not even any shoulders on the road I almost never see kids playing there except in organized leagues with a parking lot full of cars..
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)She was hired as a schoolteacher in a remote village in Saskatchewan. When she arrived at the boarding house, she was given a horse and a rifle for her several-mile-daily commute to the schoolhouse where she taught.
Life was once an adventure. Now it's a guided tour.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)When I was a child in the 50's and 60's we were never home. We rode out bikes all over creation. We just had to be home by dinner.