At what age should children play outside without supervision?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > At what age should children play outside without supervision?

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Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Child rearing isn't always seen as a political issue, and when it is it's often treated as the ultimate example of frivolous and stupid knee jerk politics of the Helen Lovejoy variety. When I hear children and politics in the same sentence my first thought is typically of politicians arguing for GPS' on school buses or restrictions on internet browsing.

On the other hand parenting and child rearing say a lot about our society and values, and presumably the way we raise children influences the future shape of society.

So on that note I've become increasingly curious in the political and psychological implications of letting children play unsupervised, and in particular the question of when and how far children should be allowed to range outside the physical boundaries of their home.

It's become a bit of a cliche to point out that middle class or wealthy kids don't have as much free and unstructured time as they did in the past. They're shipped off to sports practices, language lessons, music classes, etc. There are rumblings about whether rich kids are being given an unfair advantage by their helicopter parents, and you're also hearing people complaining that the joy and spontaneity of make believe play is being crowded out by structured activities. All of this dovetails neatly with concerns that computer games, smart phones and social media are corrupting childhood.

My particular interest, though, is this question of when kids should be given free reign to explore their physical surroundings. I have pretty vivid memories of ranging around my neighborhood and nearby areas from what now seems like a pretty young age, and I would be inclined to say that if anything my parents (or at least my mother) were more protective and paranoid than average. Yet I was walking home or taking public transit by the time I was 9 years old and playing unsupervised with other kids in downtown public parks a few blocks from my house without any parental oversight.

Here's a child rearing "expert" showing up on some Fox News program in 2014 suggesting that the appropriate age for children to go out for even a short, half hour period would be 12 or 13, with the entire reasoning amounting to little more than "child molesters exist". On the other end of the spectrum you have the so called 'free range kids' movement essentially arguing that these generational changes are killing childhood.

Since, in some level, community rearing ends up being a political issue, I thought it'd be interesting to debate this from that perspective. What are the pros and cons of letting children roam free, are there serious dangers to to unsupervised young children wandering the streets at an earlier age, and at what point does it become appropriate for state authorities to intervene?

# ? Mar 22, 2016 20:38

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 01:29

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I'm glad you made this thread because this is one of my pet issues, and one thing that I think doesn't get enough discussion. In the course of the last couple generations it does seem that we've moved quite drastically towards sheltering children. My dad (born 1955, grew up in a lower-middle class area of Southern California), talks about how when he was growing up, after school, the kids would just be all playing in the general neighborhood essentially unsupervised, and then at dinnertime, all the moms would just come out into their front yards and yell for their kids to come in. That's something that's almost unfathomable today, except for maybe very poor neighborhoods where kids wandering around seems more common (at least, I noticed this when I was a missionary in Alabama).

I'm planning on moving to Germany later this year, and one of the reasons I like the idea of living in Germany is that kids there are pretty clearly more independent than kids in the states. For example, I saw plenty of kids around ~10 or so biking around town by themselves, something you don't see that much of in the US, especially since biking here is usually dangerous. Kids here might bike themselves through low-traffic residential streets to get to a friend's house, but that's about it. Another example (original article from WSJ) - http://pastebin.com/T3fv3N7w

quote:

Tilda Geyer got away from her parents on a trip to a lake last summer. She and 10 friends slept in tents, rode horses, picked berries and flew on a rope swing over the water. At night, they sang around a campfire.

Tilda was just 4 years old. The campout was for kindergarten.

German kindergartens aren�t for crybabies. While U.S. preschoolers practice their ABCs, their counterparts in German kindergarten, age 3 to 6, head into the outdoors to learn to get dressed, prepare meals and go to bed�all without their parents.

There are no pencils or paper on the trips. Children in Germany aren�t taught to read and write until they are 6. That leaves time for such tasks as using knives to whittle sticks for roasting sausages.
...
Another Berlin mom is still torn about sending her then 2-year-old on a three-night excursion in 2012. Her daughter, who was still in diapers, fed geese, picked blueberries in the forest and played in the muck by a lake.

But homesickness set in. There were tears and, on the second night, the girl crawled into her teacher�s bed. Her mother says the teacher never called.

Pretty hard to imagine people doing that in the US.

Some other resources on this subject that I like:

(from the Daily Mail, but still an interesting image)

The Overprotected Kid

quote:

The Land is an �adventure playground,� although that term is maybe a little too reminiscent of theme parks to capture the vibe. In the U.K., such playgrounds arose and became popular in the 1940s, as a result of the efforts of Lady Marjory Allen of Hurtwood, a landscape architect and children�s advocate. Allen was disappointed by what she described in a documentary as �asphalt square� playgrounds with �a few pieces of mechanical equipment.� She wanted to design playgrounds with loose parts that kids could move around and manipulate, to create their own makeshift structures. But more important, she wanted to encourage a �free and permissive atmosphere� with as little adult supervision as possible. The idea was that kids should face what to them seem like �really dangerous risks� and then conquer them alone. That, she said, is what builds self-confidence and courage.

The playgrounds were novel, but they were in tune with the cultural expectations of London in the aftermath of World War II. Children who might grow up to fight wars were not shielded from danger; they were expected to meet it with assertiveness and even bravado. Today, these playgrounds are so out of sync with affluent and middle-class parenting norms that when I showed fellow parents back home a video of kids crouched in the dark lighting fires, the most common sentence I heard from them was �This is insane.� (Working-class parents hold at least some of the same ideals, but are generally less controlling�out of necessity, and maybe greater respect for toughness.) That might explain why there are so few adventure playgrounds left around the world, and why a newly established one, such as the Land, feels like an act of defiance.

If a 10-year-old lit a fire at an American playground, someone would call the police and the kid would be taken for counseling. At the Land, spontaneous fires are a frequent occurrence. The park is staffed by professionally trained �playworkers,� who keep a close eye on the kids but don�t intervene all that much. Claire Griffiths, the manager of the Land, describes her job as �loitering with intent.� Although the playworkers almost never stop the kids from what they�re doing, before the playground had even opened they�d filled binders with �risk benefits assessments� for nearly every activity. (In the two years since it opened, no one has been injured outside of the occasional scraped knee.) Here�s the list of benefits for fire: �It can be a social experience to sit around with friends, make friends, to sing songs to dance around, to stare at, it can be a co-operative experience where everyone has jobs. It can be something to experiment with, to take risks, to test its properties, its heat, its power, to re-live our evolutionary past.� The risks? �Burns from fire or fire pit� and �children accidentally burning each other with flaming cardboard or wood.� In this case, the benefits win, because a playworker is always nearby, watching for impending accidents but otherwise letting the children figure out lessons about fire on their own.

Risky Play: Why Children Love It And Need It

quote:

From an evolutionary perspective, the obvious question about risky play is this: Why does it exist? It can cause injury (though serious injury is rare) and even (very rarely) death, so why hasn�t natural selection weeded it out? The fact that it hasn�t been weeded out is evidence that the benefits must outweigh the risks. What are the benefits? Laboratory studies with animals give us some clues.

Researchers have devised ways to deprive young rats of play, during a critical phase of their development, without depriving them of other social experiences. Rats raised in this way grow up emotionally crippled.[3, 4] When placed in a novel environment, they overact with fear and fail to adapt and explore as a normal rat would. When placed with an unfamiliar peer, they may alternate between freezing in fear and lashing out with inappropriate, ineffective, aggression. In earlier experiments, similar findings occurred when young monkeys were deprived of play (though the controls in those experiments were not as good as in the subsequent rat experiments).

Such findings have contributed to the emotion regulation theory of play�the theory that one of play�s major functions is to teach young mammals how to regulate fear and anger.[4] In risky play, youngsters dose themselves with manageable quantities of fear and practice keeping their heads and behaving adaptively while experiencing that fear. They learn that they can manage their fear, overcome it, and come out alive. In rough and tumble play they may also experience anger, as one player may accidentally hurt another. But to continue playing, to continue the fun, they must overcome that anger. If they lash out, the play is over. Thus, according to the emotion regulation theory, play is, among other things, the way that young mammals learn to control their fear and anger so they can encounter real-life dangers, and interact in close quarters with others, without succumbing to negative emotions.

On the basis of such research, Sandseter[1] wrote, in a 2011 article in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, �We may observe an increased neuroticism or psychopathology in society if children are hindered from partaking in age adequate risky play.� She wrote this as if it were a prediction for the future, but I've reviewed data�in Free to Learn (link is external) and elsewhere[5]--indicating that this future is here already and has been for awhile.

Briefly, the evidence is this. Over the past 60 years we have witnessed, in our culture, a continuous, gradual, but ultimately dramatic decline in children�s opportunities to play freely, without adult control, and especially in their opportunities to play in risky ways. Over the same 60 years we have also witnessed a continuous, gradual, but ultimately dramatic increase in all sorts of childhood mental disorders, especially emotional disorders.

# ? Mar 22, 2016 22:18

foobardog: Apr 19, 2007; There, now I can tell when you're posting.

-- A friend

My personal opinion would be that if they are old enough to sent out to go to school, they are old enough to play unsupervised. Basically, childhood could be seen as an increasing set of worlds opening up for children. First, they pretty much are at home, or never far from their parents. Then it expands to the neighborhood and school, and then it expands further as they learn to drive, and then college, and then they're out in the "real world", theoretically free to do whatever. This is tied to increasing ability to self-define as well as experience and knowledge and desire to do so.

However, that's assuming the perfect suburban upbringing. On one hand, there is a disturbing lack of thought in what kids are exposed to, but also a disturbing lack of trust in kids' own abilities to take care of themselves or have a rich mental life, even if it's not as subtle or deep as an adults.

I think a lot of the helicopter parenting is a result of parents' own sheltered lives, where they basically just exist at home, in their car, work, or at a store. A result of the general lack of civic engagement across America. I don't have easy answers.

# ? Mar 22, 2016 22:37

Vienna Circlejerk: Jan 28, 2003; The great science sausage party!

The history of childhood play is something I've been interested in reading about but haven't really gotten around to yet. I do recall reading that there's been a bit of a historical pendulum for children's playtime, and that in the 19th century and in the colonial period in America, children's unsupervised playtime was substantially more restricted than it was in the mid to late 20th century even among the privileged classes of those eras. I don't have much doubt that more unsupervised playtime is better, but I wonder what the historical and cultural norms are once you expand the scope beyond 20th and 21st century Western countries. If anyone has any recommendations for reading on the subject, I'd love to take a look.

Here's one thing I ran across that looks kind of interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/books/Chudacoffchapter1.pdf

# ? Mar 22, 2016 23:06

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Given how often kids get molested and abused by people they know, like priests, hockey coaches, parents, relatives, etc., I find it very odd that parents are scared that strangers will grab their kids off the street and gently caress them. Being "unsupervised" would seem to offer the least opportunity to be molested or otherwise abused.

Not to mention, if kids stick to public places, they're never entirely unsupervised. I've been to cities where it's common to see kids not under direct supervision, and you better believe that I'd step in, as most people would, if I saw a kid being abducted or assaulted or anything like that. On the other hand, I've seen parents spanking their child in public, and the truth is that there's not much you can do about that kind of abuse, as much as you might want to.

Children are safest when not directly supervised, IMO :v:

# ? Mar 22, 2016 23:23

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

Unless the change literally happened in the last 20 years or so, I don't think that children playing outside is exactly rare, at least in more suburban or rural areas. I lived in an area that was definitely suburban and not remotely rural, and just doing whatever outside (usually this just meant biking around) with my nearby friends was very normal around the mid-90s. While I guess I could be wrong, I did not feel like this experience was out of the ordinary. While my younger cousin had a much different experience (the only excursions he ever had were "play-dates" set up by my aunt), he also lived in a more urban, wealthy area and that seemed to be a (dumb, because his neighborhood is super safe) cultural norm of sorts in the neighborhood. My aunt is also abnormally overprotective. So I guess that the culture that is really weird and overprotective about kids definitely exists, but I'm not sure if it's so common it applies to the majority of children.

# ? Mar 23, 2016 00:29

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Ytlaya posted:

Unless the change literally happened in the last 20 years or so, I don't think that children playing outside is exactly rare, at least in more suburban or rural areas. I lived in an area that was definitely suburban and not remotely rural, and just doing whatever outside (usually this just meant biking around) with my nearby friends was very normal around the mid-90s. While I guess I could be wrong, I did not feel like this experience was out of the ordinary. While my younger cousin had a much different experience (the only excursions he ever had were "play-dates" set up by my aunt), he also lived in a more urban, wealthy area and that seemed to be a (dumb, because his neighborhood is super safe) cultural norm of sorts in the neighborhood. My aunt is also abnormally overprotective. So I guess that the culture that is really weird and overprotective about kids definitely exists, but I'm not sure if it's so common it applies to the majority of children.

Except it probably has changed. I'll have more of a window into this as my infant daughter gets older but my impression is that it's increasingly uncommon for kids to walk to school or ride bikes around afterward.

I was walking over a mile to elementry school circa 1990 and spending afterschool riding anywhere I wanted with friends on our bikes by about age 12 (which was sometimes many miles away). By 13 I could go anywhere I wanted in the family boat (an inflatable with an outboard) on our summer vacations on a very large lake. My wife lead herself and her younger sister on public transit downtown at about age 10 and spent after school .

As far as I know those things are all pretty rare today.

The saddest thing about this trend (though I do want to be a little cautious because I'm not sure what data there is to quantify it) is that it's probably based on complete ignorance - the "these days' notion that things are less safe when actually they're not.

Chidren are not at greater risk in any way that I'm aware than they have been at any time in the past and the notable ones like kidnapping and violence are generally down in the last couple decades. Meanwhile cell phones and better medical care should reduce risks of things people used to do (you can't get lost anymore and can always call for help with a phone).

Meanwhile most parents are still going to let their kids get behind the wheel at age 16 or 17 which is by far the most dangerous thing they're going to do and more so if driving is the first time they have real freedom.

The most interesting question, besides the existence of the trend is why? Is it media, and how does it relate to other political and social issues that have similarly shifted.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/

The Atlantic posted:

One very thorough study of �children�s independent mobility,� conducted in urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods in the U.K., shows that in 1971, 80 percent of third-graders walked to school alone. By 1990, that measure had dropped to 9 percent, and now it�s even lower. When you ask parents why they are more protective than their parents were, they might answer that the world is more dangerous than it was when they were growing up. But this isn�t true, or at least not in the way that we think. For example, parents now routinely tell their children never to talk to strangers, even though all available evidence suggests that children have about the same (very slim) chance of being abducted by a stranger as they did a generation ago. Maybe the real question is, how did these fears come to have such a hold over us? And what have our children lost�and gained�as we�ve succumbed to them?

# ? Mar 23, 2016 01:31

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

asdf32 posted:

Chidren are not at greater risk in any way that I'm aware than they have been at any time in the past and the notable ones like kidnapping and violence are generally down in the last couple decades. Meanwhile cell phones and better medical care should reduce risks of things people used to do (you can't get lost anymore and can always call for help with a phone).

from what i've found a pretty common cause of pediatric injury/death is being hit by a car, and this is increasing - typically tweens or older children jaywalking in twilight

# ? Mar 23, 2016 01:43

WhiskeyJuvenile: Feb 15, 2002; by Nyc_Tattoo

The kids in my neighborhood, about 6-8, play outside on our street unsupervised

There's a few kids probably around 8-10 playing in the park a few blocks away unsupervised.

# ? Mar 23, 2016 01:48

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

quote:

Cycling in the Netherlands declined sharply in the post-second world war period. In the 1950s and 1960s, existing cycle paths were in many cases removed in order to make space for more cars. "From 1950 to 1975, the bicycle was almost entirely excluded from the government's vision"(Dutch Bicycle Master Plan 1999). The number of deaths on the roads rose, especially amongst children on their way to and from school. In 1972, a total of 3264 people were killed on Dutch roads, and at around the same time, in 1973, 450 road deaths were of children.

1973 was also the year that the pressure group "Stop de Kindermoord" ("Stop the Child Murder") started. The object of this group was to point out the number of deaths caused to children and to campaign to reduce them. They successfully influenced the Dutch government to re-emphasize building of segregated cycle paths, and to make money available to pay for them. This resulted in both a rise in cycling and a reduction in cyclist deaths, reversing the previous trend. It has been a success not only for child cyclists, but for all cyclists, and indeed for the population as a whole.

[Note that this was a long struggle. The photo shows Minister Zeevalking receiving information from protestors in 1982. (wikimedia)]

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/01/stop-child-murder.html

Cicero fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Mar 23, 2016

# ? Mar 23, 2016 01:54

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

as much as parents like to accuse each other of being scared of strangers, i think the bigger factor is the built environment. never have more americans lived in automobile-dependent suburbs, which may or may not have sidewalks depending on how much money your parents make. a bunch of clusters of apartment complexes all crowded along a six lane fast moving arterial is just as much a suburb as a nice safe subdivision

when i was a kid the biggest thing my parents were worried about was me getting hit by a car, because i lived on a relatively quiet road rural exurban that had no sidewalks. i also had a gigantic forest to run around in. i dont remember when i was allowed to go out on my own but i remember walking to friends' houses at like age 6 or 7 at least

now i live in an apartment complex on an arterial with my toddler. i'd let her play outside with the neighborhood kids semi-supervised at about age 6 or so, but it's mostly just a parking lot and some people just fly through here like idiots. i wouldn't let her leave the neighborhood on her own until she was like 12 i guess. if she could prove to me that she can handle it i'd let her ride the bus then too. if i could get a place in a quieter neighborhood i'd be less restrictive because traffic would be both slower and easier to avoid

e: also in the last 12 months i've seen two different younger people, teens or young adult couldn't tell, get hit and seriously injured by cars right outside my front gates

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Mar 23, 2016

# ? Mar 23, 2016 01:59

bad news bareback: Jan 16, 2009

My dad was a hippy survivalist and my mom is a paranoid Mormon and i was raised in a very rural part of Arizona and I was allowed to go out unsupervised at ~5-6. This was in the early 80s.

# ? Mar 23, 2016 01:59

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

asdf32 posted:

Sidewalked suburban sprawl has increased and may be boring but is ideal for kids on foot or bike. Semi-urban areas you describe don't sound ideal for exploration but I'm not sure they've proportionally increased. And they have nothing to do with why parents might not let their kids explore the woods or roam in areas which are safe.

i'm arguing that there's a socioeconomic factor at play - subdivisions are pretty safe with or without sidewalks, so long as you don't leave the subdivision. a lot of kids grow up in apartment complexes though where you're naturally closer to a heavier volume of traffic. i grew up playing in backyards and the like, but the kids that i see here where i live play in a parking lot which is safe enough so long as nobody drives like a reckless rear end. and i could have never left my neighborhood, because then i'd be on a high speed arterial with no sidewalks or shoulders.

it's really dependent on exactly your neighborhood and the context of the suburb in which you live so there's no way to generalize. but there are a couple trends which lead to less safety for pedestrians, a greater proportion of people living in these areas which increases both residential density (more pedestrians) as well as traffic (more chances to hit pedestrians)

# ? Mar 23, 2016 02:20

simmyb: Sep 29, 2005

From as early as I can remember my parents let me play out front of my house or at any of the other kids homes within 5-6 houses away.

By the time I was 7 or so and had a bike I was allowed to go probably 5km from home as long as I told them roughly where I was going, especially if I was with friends. For hours at a time too.

How else are you supposed to burn poo poo and build tree forts and sweet bmx jumps???

# ? Mar 23, 2016 02:21

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

here's an example of what i'm talking about in the metro atlanta area

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8949972,-84.2813632,15.4z

this area was your typical suburb back in the 50's. since then the volume of traffic has increased tremendously on that main arterial, buford highway - and buford highway consistently ranks at the top of the most deadly streets for pedestrians in the state. there were something like 150 pedestrian fatalities there in 2013, and the state is throwing a lot of money at that road to build crosswalks that actually stop traffic because otherwise people will jaywalk all over it and get hit. coincidentally, buford highway also happens to be a popular low-income neighborhood for recent immigrants and other folks looking for the cheapest possible housing, as well as older blue collar workers who've lived there forever or immigrant families who have been citizens for a couple decades

if you look around on the map a bit to the east you'll see some spread out single family homes on moderately sized lots, which we agree are pretty safe. if you look over to the west you'll see more apartments, which have both a higher level of traffic just from more residents in the area as well as well as less wholly distinct greenspaces or other empty land for kids to play in. also notice how that area doesn't have any nearby parks outside of the apartment compexes that older kids can get to without crossing at least one major road. technically, both sides of the road are suburbs, but middle class kids are more likely to live on the eastern side

# ? Mar 23, 2016 02:37

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

asdf32 posted:

Sidewalked suburban sprawl has increased and may be boring but is ideal for kids on foot or bike. Semi-urban areas you describe don't sound ideal for exploration but I'm not sure they've proportionally increased. And they have nothing to do with why parents might not let their kids explore the woods or roam in areas which are safe.

Not really. Often times sprawling subdivisions are near nothing of interest, not even a local park, and have extremely wide streets that encourage speeding. There are certainly nice suburban areas where this is not true, but yeah I've seen a lot of child-unfriendly burbs.

computer parts posted:

If there's a decrease in children playing outside it's because they found interesting stuff to do inside.

this is also a big factor. when i was a child the internet wasn't a thing and i could walk to my friend's house to play nintendo or whatever. when i was a tween my parents moved to a house where i couldn't walk anywhere, but we had dial up internet so i spent a hell of a lot less time outside until i got a car

computer parts posted:

There's also been a large population shift over the past 50 years towards areas that are uncomfortable outdoors in the summer time. Someone who lived in the Northeast might go out all the time, but they don't go out in winter as much as summer. Same idea, but in reverse for the SE US.

southern summers aren't that bad when you're a kid, unless you're a fat kid. then it's horrible

# ? Mar 23, 2016 03:03

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

computer parts posted:

If there's a decrease in children playing outside it's because they found interesting stuff to do inside.

There's also been a large population shift over the past 50 years towards areas that are uncomfortable outdoors in the summer time. Someone who lived in the Northeast might go out all the time, but they don't go out in winter as much as summer. Same idea, but in reverse for the SE US.

It's way more fun to do poo poo outside when it's snowy and cold compared to really loving hot and humid (unless you have a place to swim, in which case you just do that all the time). Snow forts, snowball fights, hockey, etc. Arguably it sucks much more as an adult.

# ? Mar 23, 2016 05:50

WhiskeyJuvenile: Feb 15, 2002; by Nyc_Tattoo

my morning jackass posted:

This topic has interested me long before I had a child 5 months ago, and now I find myself asking what kind of experiences my son will have growing up compared to myself?

same, but I'm thinking more about drugs than playing outside.

# ? Mar 23, 2016 12:40

Doctor Butts: May 21, 2002

I think it depends on the kid's age, how 'mature' the kid is for their age, and what neighborhood the kid lives in.

I was in Kindergarten, I think, when I was allowed to be outside and parents weren't watching me like a hawk, but I was in back yard or similar.

Once the training wheels came off my bike, I was mostly all around the neighborhood. If I was raising my daughter in that neighborhood today, I would be inclined to allow the same thing.

Elementary school was down the street from me, and I used to walk home from school since at least the 2nd grade.

The neighborhood I live in now, I'd never allow my daughter to wander beyond this street (It's not a very good neighborhood. Certainly there are worse but there are abandoned houses in a lot of places and for reference I live a half mile from where Tamir Rice was shot).

But, like the location of the neighborhood, the design of the neighborhood is important too. If its a safe older suburb, its probably safe for kids because the streets are laid out in a grid pattern and there's likely a lot more parks easily accessible and close by.

Newer style developments are just closed off to the entire world without a park or 'communal greenspace' for miles. Also, the twisty windy roads don't give kids and cars a lot of opportunity to see each other before they could collide. So, while I'd be OK with having my daughter unsupervised, I'd tell them to stay on the loving sidewalk with your bike, watch out for driveways. She's only allowed to ride bike on street until maybe 10 and where there's enough to see traffic and she's at least 100' away from the intersection of the one road leading out of the development to a main street.

Doctor Butts fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Mar 23, 2016

# ? Mar 23, 2016 15:25

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Oh yeah and as a kid I used to wander all around, maybe more than the neighborhood would have recommended. My elementary school was a couple blocks from my house so I'd just walk there every morning, mostly unattended. Occasionally there'd be meth house crackdowns though, so all the teachers would hurry people in because there were sirens a block away from school.

(Never actually saw anyone in those meth houses though, they tend to keep to themselves so they're not going to rape your kids or whatever)

# ? Mar 23, 2016 15:42

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

The kind of sad thing about the whole situation is that, even though I know the benefits likely far outweigh the extremely low chance of anything happening, if I had a child I would definitely feel nervous about letting them do a bunch outdoors unsupervised. I would probably still let them, but I can easily imagine it making you extremely nervous. Not just because of the chance something might happen to the kid, but also because of the whole "I could have prevented this" aspect. The same thing I guess applies to your child driving (which probably has a far higher chance of actually hurting/killing them).

# ? Mar 23, 2016 19:11

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Ytlaya posted:

The kind of sad thing about the whole situation is that, even though I know the benefits likely far outweigh the extremely low chance of anything happening, if I had a child I would definitely feel nervous about letting them do a bunch outdoors unsupervised. I would probably still let them, but I can easily imagine it making you extremely nervous. Not just because of the chance something might happen to the kid, but also because of the whole "I could have prevented this" aspect. The same thing I guess applies to your child driving (which probably has a far higher chance of actually hurting/killing them).

being constantly nervous is just part of being a parent, this is where "think of the children" comes from if you can't deal with the constant low grade anxiety of your kid being hit by a plane or whatever

# ? Mar 23, 2016 19:13

Bast Relief: Feb 21, 2006; by exmarx

Back when I was a kid, 80s thru the 90s, our community wasn't that close, but people still felt comfortable talking to us kids either to tell us to behave or to make sure we were okay. Many people even knew who we were, so it's not like we could get too out of line without our parents knowing. There were also a bunch of kids out there and it's not like any outsider was going to mess with a Huffy bicycle gang. Although, attempted kidnapping happened to me at least once, and questionably two other times. Like, weirdos asking me, a little girl, to come help with something, and another time a car pulled up next to me and tried to knock me off my bike by swinging his door open. He missed and then squealed away. Experiences like that make me want to never let my potential children out ever.

I feel like that's a lovely attitude though, because the free play we had was really important, but very boring for adults to chaperone. Plus, it's very hard for adults not to intervene when kids should really just work it out themselves.

I know the statistics don't line up with my anxiety either. Most abused or kidnapped kids get taken and harmed by people the family knows. The sex slave trapped in the basement of a tarped up complex is very rare. But still... It's scary!

# ? Mar 23, 2016 20:30

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

People who were killed in childhood due to a lack of parental supervision will not be posting anecdotes in this thread.

# ? Mar 23, 2016 23:56

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

The problem with that line of argument is that most kids who die due to lack of supervision do so either at an age where supervision is appropriate (see: toddlers who fall out of windows, or eat something poisonous) or do so as teenagers because they're doing properly dangerous poo poo at that point. Or it's a freak accident that can't be prevented, like falling down the stairs*. It's not 8-year-olds who are biking around the neighbourhood or something like that.

* If the argument is that an adult may have been able to render help after the fact, I think there's a difference between leaving a child completely alone and letting them not be directly supervised by a guardian at all times.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 00:02

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Arglebargle III posted:

People who were killed in childhood due to a lack of parental supervision will not be posting anecdotes in this thread.

the most common cause of parental neglect ending in a child's death is drowning, btw

# ? Mar 24, 2016 00:25

Sucrose: Dec 9, 2009

People who grew up in the '60s, '70s, '80s, whatever should ask themselves if they think that their own parents were neglectful in letting them play outside alone. If not there's no justification for not letting your own child wander outside alone, because the crime rate is just as low or lower than it was then.

You shouldn't allow your anxieties as a parent to negatively impact your child's childhood.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 00:42

Teriyaki Koinku: Nov 25, 2008; Bread! Bread! Bread!

Bread! BREAD! BREAD!

Zero. As soon as a infant child writhes free from the ectoplasm and birth matter, they should crawl and toddle into the nearest woods to fend for themselves so they may grow into burly men and strong women.

Serious response: I'm not sure if the exact age, but I strongly feel helicopter parenting is highly toxic and corrosive of children and young adults' confidence and independence building should be encouraged as early as possible. As someone with incredibly overbearing and toxically codependent parents even as a young adult, I can personally attest to how damaging helicoptering can be on children.

I think the real question to ask is: why do so many parents nowadays perceive the world as being more dangerous and thus feel the need to restrain their children even though the statistics bear the opposite conclusion, as asdf32's article shows? Is it a problem with our media and news sensationalism? Is it an issue of changing culture? What is it?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 01:37

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Arglebargle III posted:

People who were killed in childhood due to a lack of parental supervision will not be posting anecdotes in this thread.

You could say that about any social issue that involves safety. "People killed by cars will not be posting in this thread", "People killed by terrorists won't be posting in this thread", "People killed by poor workplace safety regulations won't be posting in this thread", etc. Something to keep in mind, I suppose, but by itself it doesn't mean anything.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 01:38

Volcott: Mar 30, 2010; People paying American dollars to let other people know they didn't agree with someone's position on something is the lifeblood of these forums.

Once they're old enough to articulate the concept of stranger danger.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 01:42

DeusExMachinima: Sep 2, 2012; This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!

Put this loser on ignore immediately!

TBH OP children should never be let out alone until college age because any independence before that may teach them not to be respectful non-counterrevolutionary wards of the state. Picking berries or fishing should be considered private enterprise punishable by death. Sorry.

I seriously can't imagine sending a 2 or 3 y.o. to a weekend camp, but by the time they're in primary school? Hell yeah I did sleepovers then. There was some stupid case in Maryland a year or two back where a mother got charged with child neglect for letting her kids play in the nieghborhood and woods unsupervised. IIRC a journo covering it pointed out that the kids were at greater risk of death in the cop car on the road going back to the station. That right there kinda makes the whole debate about acceptable risks pointless unless your kid isn't allowed around cars.

Good things to do that'll save lives instead of criminalizing parents would be teaching kids how to swim ASAP.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 03:34

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

At my work we deal with a lot of kids who have been properly neglected, like 7 year olds found five miles away from home wearing a t-shirt in winter and so forth. Even a situation like that makes me relatively indifferent, as it does CPS unless their subsequent investigation reveals more extreme abuse or neglect.

Here's a tip for all the helicopter parents: nobody wants your kid. In the unlikely chance they do, they won't be lurking in the bushes, they'll be your own brother and you won't believe your kid when he tells you about the touching game he played with uncle Joe.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 04:17

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Given free reign to explore their surroundings and supervised vs unsupervised are not exactly the same situation and don't have to be exclusive of each other.

But lets start with supervision, definitely the little ones under three, they'll attempt to do things that will cause them harm. But part of this is their investigation of their surroundings. It's fascinating how systematic small children can be. They'll try every object or skill in every situation they can think of. If they figure out a toy hammer, they'll hammer everything until there is nothing left that they haven't tried to hammer. If they figure out how to spit they'll try it on every object and in every social situation. I think they need both the freedom to explore in this way and immediate (or preemptive in cases of real danger ) feedback regarding the consequences and meanings of their actions.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 04:18

C. Everett Koop: Aug 18, 2008

We wouldn't have this issue if we kept kids in the work camps where they belong. If you're old enough to walk and talk you're old enough to grab a shovel and earn your keep you ungrateful little gently caress.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 04:28

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

BrandorKP posted:

Given free reign to explore their surroundings and supervised vs unsupervised are not exactly the same situation and don't have to be exclusive of each other.

But lets start with supervision, definitely the little ones under three, they'll attempt to do things that will cause them harm. But part of this is their investigation of their surroundings. It's fascinating how systematic small children can be. They'll try every object or skill in every situation they can think of. If they figure out a toy hammer, they'll hammer everything until there is nothing left that they haven't tried to hammer. If they figure out how to spit they'll try it on every object and in every social situation. I think they need both the freedom to explore in this way and immediate (or preemptive in cases of real danger ) feedback regarding the consequences and meanings of their actions.

I was at a good training about developmental trauma today and the presenter referenced the "Circle of Security" (excuse the comic sans, we don't know how to be professional in this business):

Without a secure place of safety and nurturing to return to regularly for praise, recognition and love, adventures become trauma.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 04:28

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 01:29

Paradoxish: Dec 19, 2003; Will you stop going crazy in there?

If there's actually a trend in parents being more protective (I'd be interested in seeing data supporting things one way or the other), I suspect it's at least in part due to increased media exposure and the fact that humans are generally very bad at evaluating statistically improbable risks. Basically, we're exposed to a ton of information about bad poo poo that, statistically, isn't all that common. A white kid getting kidnapped will make headlines for weeks, amber alerts are sent out via text message, pedophiles are paraded all over the news, etc. It feels right to worry about these things because we hear about them so often, even though the reality is that they're ridiculously rare and you probably can't do anything to significantly reduce the odds of something bad happening to your child since the odds are so low already.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 04:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > At what age should children play outside without supervision?

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