I've talked about this with friends before and many of them were amazed at the amount of freedom I was given as a child. From about age 6 or 7, I was allowed to roam with local children until the street lights came on and as long as we stayed in a group. If I was late I would not be allowed out the next day, or longer depending on how late. Most of the other neighbourhood parents didn't really pay much attention to what their kids got up to (it wasn't an affluent area) unless it was illegal or ridiculously dangerous (bamboo blackpowder cannons fits into that category). We would go into forests, creeks and occasionally get all the way to the beach (about 5 kilometers from our neighbourhood). Most afternoons would be spent building things or planning something. I even taught other children how to fix computers so we could play games. I'm only in my mid-twenties so this isn't one of those, "back in my day..." stories but I rarely hear of similar experiences from anyone under 30. Has anyone else had a similar upbringing or have you raised your children with actual free time /and/ personal accountability for their actions?
In my day - I'm 37 - I remember being VERY free in my play time. We didn't do bamboo blackpowder cannons, but we did tin foil blackpowder rockets, and no adult complained - because they didn't need to know. But I was raised up in smallish, very safe cities. Now I live in a big city (Rome), I have a little daughter and I would be worried to let her go around as freely when the time will come.
One of the reasons I'm using almost all my free time to work on my bootstrapped startup ideas is to be able to move to a little city and still be able to do what I like while earning enough money, so that I could hopefully give my daughter that same freedom that I got - if my wife allows that!
But do you think that moving to a small village to give children the opportunity to play outside will outweigh the disadvantages of living in such a village? I grew up in a small village and I feel like I missed out on a lot because of it:
- Only limited access to like-minded children (i.e., rather nerdy people who like to actually design and properly build tree houses rather than putting together some old sheets and then move into 'let's attack the tree hut' mode)
- Access to intellectually stimulating activities
- A proper library (maybe less important with the internet nowadays)
- Role models who aren't factory workers or construction workers (nothing wrong with them, but being exposed to a variety of role models is the key - I didn't really get the concept of an office job until I was in my early teens).
I have no desire to move back to such an environment, and even less desire to let my daughter grow up in it. Not saying that cities are perfect either, just that I don't think the advantages of villages outweigh the disadvantages.
I'm not talking about a small village, but a small city: The cities where I grew up were 100k and 30k residents respectively, and very quiet.
It's true that it is more difficult to find like-minded friends and more intellectually stimulating activities there, but I think that that would only become a concern when you're over 13 or something, and there's a lot of time for that. Big libraries (which I missed back in the day) wouldn't be a problem today, and as for role models, that wouldn't be a problem in that kind of city I'm talking about.
Of course, there is no perfect choice, but in my opinion a small city would be the best compromise. Then, only time will tell...
I think smallish university cities are a good bet. They have enough going on to make them interesting, but aren't full-on big cities with all of their problems.
In Italy, places like Padova, Pavia and Pisa - back in the US, places like Eugene, Oregon or Boulder, Colorado (although I've never been there) may qualify.
Agreed. Another nice example is new paltz, new york (has a small university there). It's easy to walk to from the university through the neighborhood to the main street for a slice of pizza.
I also recall where rensellaer poly is to be a nice little town next to the university.
I can't think of many towns in Texas that offer a small university town without being so spread out parents don't have to worry about cars though.
Boulder is also really nice near campus (getting sprawlish outside it), mountain hikes are a bike ride away.
Oh OK, yeah that makes sense - I was actually comparing village with medium-sized university city (in which I live now - but I guess that city size is relative, most Chinese would find my city (120k) a village I suppose).
I did a variation on the bamboo blackpowder cannon, and it was the plastic pipe blackpowder pistol. It didn't end well, my friend had blackpowder speckles all over his face and eyes, and I had not much skin left on my lower right arm.
There was also the hot summer, midday trek when we got lost in the hills. Well, we found out the way back at last, but it could have been serious :)
I'm not mentioning the bad habit to illegally ( 12 y. o. aren't supposed to) drive regularly motorcycles without helmets. Fortunately nobody ever got seriously hurt.
I, along with my younger bro & sis and friends, had to be back in by dark and rarely had to say where we were going. sometimes we'd go off on bike rides well out of the city or even take a small boat we found and row/motor it around the rivers(tamar/tavy) (no safety equipment, repaired it ourselves, hilariously overloaded). fires, explosions, trespass, "base"/bunker/dam building, tree-climbing, ragging my donated scrambler in wasteland, etc were all regular activities.
Now I see my other bro and sis (~10yrs younger than I) and they always have homework or are on their laptops. my youngest brother used to go with us sometimes when he was ~4 so he knows what "play" is but none of his friends want or are allowed to join him.
I think my childhood was similar. Although I recently went back to the place I used to live in, and the huge lawn behind the houses was not as big as I remembered it :-) There might have been parents watching from the windows without us realizing. But we also made bicycle trips to the lake on our own, certainly no parental watching.
It was also normal to walk or cycle to school on our own. I really hope my children will be able to do the same.
I had pretty much the same experience as a kid (I'm 22). As far back as I can remember we were pretty much outside until 'late'. I think the unofficial rule was to check in at streetlights on, and after dark be in only one yard. Most of my best childhood memories are of night games and doing really dumb things around the neighborhood. We didn't have gunpowder, but we did have sparklers and gasoline. Turns out you can make pretty impressive explosives with that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1E2cNPOnjM&feature=relat...).
It seemed most of the parents didn't pay attention to what we did, or at least condoned it. I know my one friends parent knew we got really into blowing stuff up, and just told us to "Be safe".
In the last 5-10 years I've seen a complete shift even within the families that were initially lax. My little brother and his friends got chewed out a while ago for dumpster diving a small LCD and other stuff. The "be safe" mom now watches the neighborhood for suspicious activity.
So, even though by all rights we should have had privileges restricted, that was never really an issue until highschool. All the younger kids I know are on a pretty tight leash, and they don't get into nearly the same level of mischief as we did.
My old neighborhood friends are probably some of the best people I know. We're all really close, and that's partly from all the stuff we did and still do. Taking risks with the support of a group softens failures, makes successes that more awesome, and pulls the group together.
I can say without a doubt that being able to explore and take those risks is why I understand my limits yet am always trying to push them. I almost completely agree with the article (except maybe the depression/anxiety) that free play is important, and in my opinion more valuable than early academic education.
Well, I am 30 and I had some freedom in my childhood growing up in a (European) city but mostly under some sort of "supervision", if only playing in our garden instead of at the park with the other kids. I never had this group and social thing in my play time, nor any of those big-adventure-like undertakings you described and never done any "mischief", so you could say I did not enjoy such a huge/healthy amount of freedom and I didn't take it for myself.
I have never been a group person all my life, I am mostly alone, especially since I moved to another country and city and it is hard for me to relate to other people or feel comfortable in a crowd or really enjoy going to a pub or going out. I am suffering from (at times severe) depression and anxiety.
The mothers noted that they restricted their own children's outdoor play because of safety concerns, a fact echoed in other surveys where parents mentioned child predators, road traffic, and bullies as reasons for restricting their children's outdoor play.
I've always wondered if there is any factual underpinning that would license such thinking from mothers. I am not sure the threats to children (besides road traffic) have risen so strongly over the last decades, but media coverage may have, creating the impression that the world has become a (more) dangerous place for kids.
However, the change over recent year is not as important as the actual current status, i.e., the answer to a question like: "If you allow your kid to play outdoors, what is the likelihood that it will suffer harm from any of the mentioned sources." (It doesn't matter if it was 50% percent less 50 years ago, if it's still very low today.)
Police statistics should provide the data for an initial estimation of such numbers, which of course would have to be conditioned further, e.g., for neighborhood etc.
But of course, people don't always behave rationally, so having such information - even if it should suggest that the danger is not higher than it was during their own childhood - is likely to have zero impact on parents.
I think the one of the worst things the US ever invented was the 24hour news channel. People are constantly bombarded with events that are further away and repeated more often. Producers are trying to fill a 24 hour slot with news which means they have to pump up whats there, travel further, and constantly loop the material.
Even though crime is statistically lower than it's ever been people feel less safe because of media induced paranoia.
But I'm convinced that the threat from "predators" is minimal, yet I still find it really hard to let my kids just go out and play. Luckily both myself and next door have decent sized gardens, so they get to run around outside all they want. But it's not the same as when I used to go out on my bike all day and not return home till I was hungry.
And yet, today, kids can have a cell phone and call from any location around - possibly even be monitored with a tracking signal as to their whereabouts. The ability to know where a kid is down to the meter is within almost everyone's reach, and yet we're more scared about letting kids go out and wander around.
Going out as a kid in the 70s and 80s, I usually had to tell someone what friend's house I'd be at, and was given times (either 'dinner' or '8pm' usually) to be home at, but usually had pretty free reign. I normally stayed within a mile or so of the house, but there were plenty of places to go - small arcades, shops, friends, school playgrounds, etc. My parents had no way of knowing if I was at place X, Y or Z, unless I called home. No cell phones, sms, etc. But we managed just fine.
"The researchers found that compared to 1981, children in 1997 spent less time in play and had less free time. They spent [...] 168 percent more time shopping with parents."
Wow. We're teaching our children to be good little consumers, but failing them in the areas that really matter.
Wake up, unplug your TV, and stop going to the mall. For the children.
That might be one reason, but I suspect that another point in the article might serve as an alternative explanation: parents have become more and more (over?)-protective of their children. So they won't leave them at home even for 30 minutes when they have to go shopping. But that's pure speculation.
Don't forget that both parents work in many more families between the studies. Maybe people are just getting time in with their kids when they can and that includes errands.
Agree completely. When I was a kid, my mom would be gone whole days shopping, doing errands, etc. Now, kids are more likely to be taken with parents due to safety fears.
The article's thesis is the polar opposite of my intuition on the matter: "All Play and No Work: Why Your Kids Are More Anxious, Depressed".
Knowing how to work (i.e. be proactive in their survival) allows kids to feel in control of their life. I equate ability to work with cognitive discipline, and note that depression is easy to succumb to when one is too weak for a change of attitude.
I propose such potential sources of work-shyness as: the illusory sense of accomplishment from video games; hedonism as default response to any emotional problem; escape into internet culture does not condition one's mind for what matters for survival in the real world; internet porn; last but not least, parents may not be able to communicate the appropriate wisdom. In short, too many stupefying distractions of the fast food variety, not enough structure.
It is better for kids to learn to discipline themselves as early on as possible, since it is harder to unlearn old habits as they grow older. It could make the difference between an ADHD diagnosis or not :)
Most importantly, work is a source of happiness, too.
The article mentions that without free play, kids can not develop their own interests, which (my thinking) might leave them vulnerable to taking on unpleasant and unfulfilling jobs. The ability to be docile and execute orders does not really put you in control of your life, quite the opposite really. Yes, you need some continuity to build something complicated, but who knows, if you are really interested, you might be motivated enough without discipline.
Also, you assume that free playtime by children will automatically be spent on useless activities. While I am not convinced that there is nothing to learn from video games, I think kids will choose projects by themselves, and they will learn how to execute on their ideas.
Did you even bother to read the article? It is about free play - outdoors - that kids organize for themselves. And how they can learn self disciplin and social behaviour from that. Not about video games or any of the other stuff you wrote about.
(I know, don't feed the trolls. SCNR.)
Useless and unresultative work is a source of mind boggling, crazy driving, heart breaking unhappiness.
And children are only allowed to that kinds of work.
When I was a child, my only agenda was that I wanted everybody around to stop bothering me so I would do what I wanted (and I wanted to read books and tinker with my PC).
I hated school work (which according to the article grew 145 percent), I hated school, I still loathe it and I would try and support anyone who argues its questionability, like the parent article.
(Happily for me I mostly got what I wanted, but I wasn't an american kid)
Children should be doing what they want, left mostly to themselves.
And by the way, you say ADHD as if it was something bad.
My child is only one year old, but I already worry about the time he'll have to go to school all the time. I can only hope that I'll be able to make it bearable to turn it into something else. For starters I want to explore efficient learning mechanisms. Also, I see it maybe as a lesson in survival - it won't be possible to escape the "oppression" of society, so it will have to be a game to survive as unscathed as possible.
I don't think I will be able to afford alternative schools, although I will try.
If you dislike the school system you'll love reading John Taylor Gatto.
ADHD is normal in a school setting, it's one of the most boring institutions on the planet, on par with a city jail.
I met the criteria for ADHD. However, when you have to give children the same class of drugs that cause people to find credit fraud interesting you know something is wrong with the school system and not the kids.
"A meth user can stay awake for several days at a time, and is often content to perform repetitive tasks -- even having the patience to stitch together shredded documents."
I don't know what you mean by "work-shyness". My observation is that it's a bimodal setup. Kids who want (or, more appropriately, whose parents want for them) to have a future work a lot harder than they did 25 years ago. Those who have given up don't seem to be doing any school work.
I know a 6th-grade teacher who complains about kids not having any time for homework because they participate in non-school sports. This is someone who coaches football/wrestling and has had a least one child play in the majors. The level of emphasis put on activities like these is ridiculous.
>"Individuals suffering from anxiety disorders describe losing emotional control as one of their greatest fears. They are afraid of their own fear, and therefore small degrees of fear generated by mildly threatening situations lead to high degrees of fear generated by the person's fear of losing control."
This is absolutely correct.
Finally, I wonder how much parental social lives relate to the issue of isolation. My parents did not have any local friends when I was growing up and I feel this may have contributed to my social isolation during that time.
I take it you're from the US? I lived in Germany a while ago where they reduced the high school years from 9 to 8 in some states. Here, parents complain about the opposite of what you observe, namely that the kids don't have the time anymore to participate in extra-curricular activities such as sport clubs, because the kids spend more time in school or doing homework.
So in both cases it seems that there's not enough time for both school work and sports. But the focus of what is considered more important seems to be different between the two countries.
The environment we're in affects us a lot. As young kids, very few consciously choose to pursue social situations, as our minds are not that developed. A lot of it happens due to our life situation.. ie we live near a park, we live near lots of kids our age, or our parents hang out with other parents who have kids our age, etc.
Free form play is so critical to building up the imagination and creativity as well. This shouldn't just include the amount of time given to this activity but should even encompass the toys that we give kids.
An observation from the article that I can confirm is, "It is hard to find groups of children outdoors at all, and, if you do find them, they are likely to be wearing uniforms and following the directions of coaches while their parents dutifully watch and cheer." Yes. For a few years I actually wondered if the townhouse neighborhood in which I live had any children living in it besides my own. It seemed the kids would come home from school and immediately stay inside their houses, no matter how good the weather, and that they must have been at daycare during the school holidays and not outdoors in the neighborhood after that either. Only recently are there quite a few neighbor children (typical age four or five) who play together regularly--usually on my patch of lawn or on my driveway, oddly enough--in view of their parents' homes but somewhat independently from their parents. Playing outside is very good for children, and I have encouraged my children to play outside every day for their whole lives. Our neighborhood is crime free, and my children walk to the local public library whenever they like. (They can really go whenever they like because they are homeschooled. My second son volunteers at the library at an hour when most other teenagers are in school.) Perhaps my children's free-range lifestyle is beginning to influence the neighbors. I hope so.
From your post:
This shouldn't just include the amount of time given to this activity but should even encompass the toys that we give kids.
One word: Legos. My sister gave my oldest son a set of Duplos for his second birthday, and thus Lego mania was born in our household. We have more than 10,000 Lego pieces in our house from dozens of separately bought Lego sets, and all four of my children love to spend time putting Lego pieces together, especially when the weather doesn't make playing outside feasible, and they also like to use the Lego constructions as characters in fantasy play with one another. Recently my daughter, our youngest child, has been building elaborate Zometool
Trio's (Fisher Price) are a similar toy to legos, aimed at the 3-5 y.o. range. The lid to the box is a board that the pieces snap into to help build up fun stuff. We don't even really have than many of them (no more than 100 pieces) but the variety of thing that my kids come up with is amazing ... factories, airplanes, cargo ships, flashlight-holders, trucks, trains, farms, houses for small stuffed animals, etc etc etc.
And you'd be surprised at how much fun 3-4 years old can have with laundry baskets and small blankets. Throw in a few medium-sized cardboard boxes from U-haul and it's pandemonium.
This is what I love about our neighborhood. It's quiet and safe and there are a lot of kids between 7 and 13 (who, for the most part, all seem to be very well-behaved, kind, respectful kids) running around playing. They're usually outside, on bikes, playing ball, or some made-up game, water gun fights, etc. On rainy days, they'll end up at someone's house, which does sometimes mean movies and video games, but it's just as often LEGOs. We have about a dozen cubic feet of LEGO.
Heh, one cristmas I was given a 5' long, fairly light, coated in in varnish, stick made from some really durrable wood to replace a stick I used to play with that broke. It's still my faverate childhood toy and I have lent it to other kids to play with and they all really have a good time.
my reaction to the article: no shit! there have been books written on this subject (i.e. Last Child in the Woods). we expect children to behave like adults starting at about age 8 in the U.S. we over schedule them and expect collegiate level study discipline at about age 11.
we have built an infrastructure that serves only to make people fatter and more sedentary, moreover, we as technologists have facilitated, through such shit-shows as facebook and my_space before it, the continued decline in actual physical activity pursued by kids.
there's soo much culpability to go around on this topic that its hard to even know where to begin. as a parent i am continually disgusted by how we as adults abuse and destroy the childhood phase of life.
and we wonder why kids are so fucked these days and our obesity rates are growing in near logarithmic(ok, maybe not quite logarithmic...) fashion...
I made a decision in middle school: I would stop going outside and I would experiment in the computer lab instead. Eventually two friends started to join me.
I never really learned how to play. It's a significant challenge to get myself off the computer and out relaxing, exploring, and enjoying free time.
For you, that is play. It's something you enjoy, socially. You explored computation instead of a park or creek.
Unless coding is stressful for you I don't see how that's different than kids playing games outside. Though, it seems you implied that being on a computer was not relaxing. In that case I'm straight wrong.
My daughter is only 18 months but I noticed tat she is much more cautious when I am away (10m is a lot for her).
When she feels my physical presence she has blind faith in my ability to keepher safe so she will jump of everything because I will catch her. When she is alone she watches out for herself. I sure hope that's something we can build on.
"The researchers found that, including computer play, children in 1997 spent only about eleven hours per week at play."
I'm sure it depends on where you live. In my neighborhood, kids are out playing all the time. I don't know where the study participants lived, but given that the researcher was based out of Boston College, I wonder whether this is one of those East Coast - West Coast lifestyle differences.
I agree. I remember the day when you could drop by a friend's house to chill w/o calling beforehand, or sending a text message or IM. or the days when you could just drop by the park and have a good chance of meeting a couple of buddies there. Everything now seems so structured. Have to arrange meetups with friends. Have to arrange this or that. And lots of socializing happens after work, where the intention is to just get drunk, and forget about the day.
American society is built to tear people down, to make 10 people so sick that 9 of them die and then to crown the other one king. This isn't an accidental malfunction; it's the purpose of the damn thing. It starts with children. At least Scarface had the decency not to involve kids.
The "career game", which now begins in childhood, is a war of attrition. Look at the people running major, Fortune 500 companies? Are they the best and the brightest? Are they our society's most talented people or its most capable leaders? Fuck no, obviously not. They're the ones who didn't develop chronic puking disorders, severe panic attacks, lifelong back problems, RSIs and socially crippling misanthropy after being thrown into a "pay-your-dues" war of attrition with hundreds of other idiots and surviving the longest in it. That's how they got where they are-- not leadership, not creativity, not any kind of talent whatsoever, but making it through more years of soul-raping corporate grunt work than their competitors could survive.
We're now in a state where the constant warfare begins in fucking preschool. This is what we get. The only way out is to radically reshape society, and the problem is that there are people currently in positions of great power who will defend the status quo with everything they've got. Their problem, not ours.
Do you have any evidence for this? The closest thing about this I have read is in Freakanomics. Their research showed the relentlessly pushing young children with activities and extra studying, has little effect on average on where they will be after they are on their own for a while.
I don't really know enough to say any meaningful about promotion in a large company, but a simple counter example to your entire rant is that you can get ahead in those companies by politicking. You don't have to work extra hard, or push yourself, just know the right people and push the right buttons to get the promotion.
a simple counter example to your entire rant is that you can get ahead in those companies by politicking. You don't have to work extra hard, or push yourself, just know the right people and push the right buttons to get the promotion.
Speak for yourself. For me, it's more stressful to play politics and schmooze than it is to drop in and do 12 straight hours of solid work. Real work is fun. Greasing palms is a pain in the ass.
Also, it's true that these people don't "push themselves" intellectually, but you definitely have to work very hard to create the appearances of effort, performance, and (most importantly by far) shared suffering.
I disagree with your assertion that "American society is built to tear people down." In my experience, american society is built to reward entrepreneurship and creativity.
For education, we have free schooling for the first 18 years of life, an extensive community college system, and, if you live in the right state, fantastic public higher education. You can educate yourself through a BA for less than the price of a car if you're willing to consistently work hard for grades.
The private sector is similar. Those who have proven themselves exceptional rise in the ranks. Looking at Fortune 500 company CEOs, yes, there exist executives who are not the "best and brightest," but "there exist" does not mean "all are". By and large, I would say that most of the CEOs and their executive teams are working toward what they believe to be the best path forward for their company. As publicly-traded companies, those who hold stock in those companies act as a check on incompetent management, and companies incompetently managed have a tendency to be heavily penalized. See HP recently, and its stock price.
Your rant takes a very harsh and dismissive tone towards "American society" and its political nature is not what should be discussed on Hacker News. I don't think your harsh tone, your evidence-free assertions or your conclusion ("The only way out is to radically reshape society") have a place here. Please go back to the #OccupyWallSt rallies.
What is the root cause of this problem though? Is it just a natural result of overpopulation + our natural tendency to be selfish? is it overpopulation + the need to give up individual needs to support the whole? is it the natural result of our biological instincts and we're just really fucked up species?
I don't think overpopulation is the core problem in the developed world. Some developed countries have had to take on immigrants lest their populations decrease. We have great systems to generate wealth, but they come at the price of a massively skewed distribution.
Root cause? In the U.S.: bad values. Culturally speaking, the South has won the Civil War. That's why we remember Northern generals negatively and Southern ones as noble. That's also why we don't have universal healthcare (Truman proposed it in '48, and was shot down because Dixiecrats didn't want to desegregate the hospitals.) Now, the geographical distinction is not very meaningful (there are foaming-at-the-mouth racists in New England and enlightened, liberal people in Alabama) but the last bastion of the true North (the progressive, positive-sum mentality) is Silicon Valley and even that has its entrenched in-crowds. Getting access to VCs is still about connections and that's not very Northern.
I'm going to anger people by saying this, but New York (although it's still one of the best places to live in the US) is essentially a Southern city at this point. What's the first thing you do every month? Pay an enormous rent check to someone who's had real estate in the family for over 100 years. What's the first thing you are asked in "casual" conversation? "What do you do?" Or, "What is your position in society?" And "those who matter" still go to cotillions and keep to themselves and shoot quail in the Hamptons.
What do I mean by the South winning, culturally speaking? I mean that this is a society run according to position, authority, and entrenchment rather than the talent and courage to have and share the right ideas. The country is run by private-sector bureaucrats who've discovered ways to capture value generated from the labor of others.
We're not a "really fucked up species". Humans are not naturally good or evil. They're naturally unskilled-- ignorant, deluded, and often incompetent, but not evil. The purpose of civilization is to maintain the knowledge that helps people do the right thing. Unfortunately, societies become corrupt rapidly and develop elites that have defined themselves by doing the wrong thing, and then those wrong things begin to define the social tone and corruption sets in. Civilization is a storehouse of knowledge that helps people figure out what the right thing to do is, but societies are incentive systems that usually encourage doing the wrong thing.
