The overprotected kid

[Bunk]

There's a 3 yr old thread on a similar topic, but I thought I'd resurrect the conversation with this great article from The Atlantic.

This really rings true for me - I was totally one of those free range children - getting into all sorts of mischief. I barely saw my parents outside of dinner and bed time.

This generation of kids...not going to be so good.

I have a 15 month old - want to make sure we don't become these helicopter parents.

The article is really worth the read:

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/...-alone/358631/

The Overprotected Kid

A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery—without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.

By
Hanna Rosin
March 19, 2014



Some Excerpts:

More and more, the standards are set by engineers and technical experts and lawyers, with little meaningful input from “people who know anything about children’s play,”

“In the real world, life is filled with risks—financial, physical, emotional, social—and reasonable risks are essential for children’s healthy development.”

At the core of the safety obsession is a view of children that is the exact opposite of Lady Allen’s, “an idea that children are too fragile or unintelligent to assess the risk of any given situation,” argues Tim Gill, the author of No Fear, a critique of our risk-averse society. “Now our working assumption is that children cannot be trusted to find their way around tricky physical or social and emotional situations.”

What’s lost amid all this protection? In the mid-1990s, Norway passed a law that required playgrounds to meet certain safety standards. Ellen Sandseter, a professor of early-childhood education at Queen Maud University College in Trondheim, had just had her first child, and she watched as one by one the playgrounds in her neighborhood were transformed into sterile, boring places. Sandseter had written her master’s dissertation on young teens and their need for sensation and risk; she’d noticed that if they couldn’t feed that desire in some socially acceptable way, some would turn to more-reckless behavior. She wondered whether a similar dynamic might take hold among younger kids as playgrounds started to become safer and less interesting.

In his essay, Gray highlights the work of Kyung-Hee Kim, an educational psychologist at the College of William and Mary and the author of the 2011 paper “The Creativity Crisis.” Kim has analyzed results from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and found that American children’s scores have declined steadily across the past decade or more. The data show that children have become:

less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.

The largest drop, Kim noted, has been in the measure of “elaboration,” or the ability to take an idea and expand on it in a novel way.

Discuss

[PsYcNeT]

Kids these days, amirite.

[burn_this_city]

I read this article a couple days ago, it's true in pretty much every regard. People are so terrified of the unknown that they suffocate their children. I hope my wife don't end up like that but I can see it happening.

[Hack&Lube]

It's difficult to walk the fine line between ensure your kid is exposed to enough risk and environmental factors (including disease to boost their immune systems), etc. but also keeping them safe.

I don't have much to add to this except for the fact that I'm still quite sad that my childhood playground jungle gym of death (I have a scar to the left of my eye, a fractured ankle, and several other injuries from our vicious recess play) was converted to some plastic sanitized soft rubbery feel-good area.

I remember the good times we had putting kids on a tire swing and turning it into a massive medieval catapult by having like 15 other kids swing it back and forth until the hapless passenger was thrown off 10 feet into the air. I remember climbing to the roof of the jungle gym which was quite high for a kid, probably 3-4 meters and jumping off for fun over and over again and learning to ninja roll the fall because I liked the thrill. I remember racing across a tire bridge where falling through the tire would mean slamming your jaw into cold, hard rubber and potentially knocking out some teeth. Good times but none of us died or suffered any catastrophic injury. The worst playground accidents were when the jungle gym was closed for repairs and kids resorted to other things like throwing rocks at each other which ended up fracturing a skull.

[Daradon]

I don't really know what to add other than I agree. I once read an article that stated that a large part of the reason kids don't go to playgrounds anymore is simply because they aren't as much fun as they used to be. They've made them too safe.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

It's difficult to walk the fine line between ensure your kid is exposed to enough risk and environmental factors (including disease to boost their immune systems), etc. but also keeping them safe.

I don't have much to add to this except for the fact that I'm still quite sad that my childhood playground jungle gym of death (I have a scar to the left of my eye, a fractured ankle, and several other injuries from our vicious recess play) was converted to some plastic sanitized soft rubbery feel-good area.

The day they tore down my school's awesome 3 tier wooden playground is the day part of my childhood died.

[troutman]

Recent study suggests that too many extracurricular activities can be harmful

http://www.guidetoschools.ca/blog/re...can_be_harmful

A recent study by Connecticut College warns that enrolling your children in too many extracurricular activities can actually be harmful to their academic performance. The study looked at 10 000 students between the ages of 15 and 16, and based on the results, experts involved advise that no more than 13 hours of lessons, clubs and classes outside of school should be attempted by children or adolescents. Students partaking in more than 17 hours of extracurricular activities saw a noticeable drop in both their grades and overall well-being.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/artic...-kids-too-hard

"Parents need to relax. Slow down. Activities are fine, but don't go over the top. Research says that what children need most are relationships, not activities," says Rosenfeld. "Focus on building meaningful relationships with your children, not becoming their chauffeur."

THE OVER-SCHEDULING MYTH
http://www.childtrends.org/wp-conten...02_27_Myth.pdf

[Hack&Lube]

So

Study shows that studies show what studies show...

I think parents need to stop paying attention to studies and pay attention to the particulars and characteristics of their child. Everybody is born differently and we all have behavioural and learning affinities/capabilities/proficiencies that are different from one and another. You can see the stark difference in personalities even between siblings and we are all adept in and adapt to different things.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

The day they tore down my school's awesome 3 tier wooden playground is the day part of my childhood died.

We had one of those too, tore it down a few years after I left, went to visit it and was saddened.

St. Wilfred?

[GP_Matt]

Do they still have piles of dirt?
The best playgrounds ever were the dirt farms in new communities with all that sifted topsoil that cushioned every fall no matter where you jumped from.

[kevman]

Oh man so true! All kids need is some dirt to play in.

Every spring when the ice rink melted all the kids in my community used to play and ride bikes in the dirt that made the berms. As soon as the city would take the dirt away the playground would be empty for the rest of the summer until they dumped the dirt off in the fall for the ice rink again.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by fotze

This study assumes that academic performance is the end all and be all. Why use that as the barometer?

I know folks whose children's extra-curricular activities do not include sports but are Kumon and math/school related. These are not because the child is struggling either. That makes me want to vomit. Something tells me this study would be confirmation of that behavior.

I don't think it would. The study states academic performance and well being were both reduced so at least it recognizes that well being is a part of it and from what I can tell on a brief perusal of the article it doesn't seem to differentiate between whether it is a sport or a music lesson or additional tutoring.

As a parent my thought when I see how crazy my kids can be when doing activities or just reckless on bikes or jumping off stuff is that I hope they hurt themselves a little and learn before they hurt themselves a lot.

So my practice in managing risk is to prevent permenant damage so wear things like helments and padding but always do the activity. Rarely are things to dangerous for kids and rarely are kids too young to do it. You just need to mitigate the risk a little and we have gone to far in that regard.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Daradon

We had one of those too, tore it down a few years after I left, went to visit it and was saddened.

St. Wilfred?

Mother Teresa

[V]

Where the heck is CC? I figured he'd be all over this thread.

My wife is a helicopter parent, and I'm the exact opposite. I can almost guarantee that something is going to happen to one of the kids, and it'll be my fault because I'm not as careful with them.

At my kids age I was all over the neighbourhood, and now my wife isn't comfortable if they go biking outside of our little cul-de-sac. It's a constant struggle with us.

[V]

I was reading this the other day, which ties in nicely with the thread.

New Zealand school bans playground rules and sees less bullying and vandalism

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...m-9091186.html

[Envitro]

My wife and I have been saying this from the sidelines for years now. It's interesting that this article pretty much spells out our views, and we've been watching without a stake in the game. We don't have kids yet, but I wonder if we'll feel differently once we do.

We both used to play outside all the time without supervision, built forts and what not and we couldn't imagine a childhood without those kinds of experiences.

[Jacks]

In the late 70's we were told to get the hell out of the house and don't come back until we are hungry, hurt or it gets dark.

Had tons of cuts, bruises, stitches, etc. These days they would probably be investigating for child abuse.

[Locke]

Remember when playgrounds were made of wood, steel and those small rocks? Those were the days.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by fotze

This study assumes that academic performance is the end all and be all. Why use that as the barometer?

I know folks whose children's extra-curricular activities do not include sports but are Kumon and math/school related. These are not because the child is struggling either. That makes me want to vomit. Something tells me this study would be confirmation of that behavior.

Why the strong reaction? My kids are not in those programs, but I've often thought it sounded like a good idea.

Kids doing 15 hours a week in hockey or dance or whatever are probably spending 2-3 times the amount of time on that than math, or reading or whatever. It's always felt a bit backward to me.

[undercoverbrother]

This seems like a great enviroment to raise kids.........


What happened to "everything in moderation", school, formal organized sport, informal sport, informal play?