<story><title>How Japan Prepares Its Children for Independence</title><url>http://savvytokyo.com/japan-prepares-children-independence/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jernfrost</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t so much the Japanese being weird and different as the American&amp;#x27;s being the odd ones.&lt;p&gt;I am Norwegian, and little of these descriptions would seem odd to me. My kids go on trips every week with their pre-school, and I have never keep track of where.&lt;p&gt;My oldest son has walked to school himself since he has been 6 years old. I walked to school when I was a kid from 7 (we started school later). And I had to walk about 30 minutes to get to school crossing many roads.&lt;p&gt;From early childhood I roamed around all my neighborhood walking into forests or as I got a bit older I&amp;#x27;d go with friends to big abandoned ship yards.&lt;p&gt;When I later emailed a distant American relative of similar age, I was confused when she didn&amp;#x27;t understand why I didn&amp;#x27;t have a drivers license. She was like &amp;quot;doesn&amp;#x27;t your parent&amp;#x27;s get tired of driving you everywhere?&amp;quot;. A question that made no sense to me until I visited the US. I was of course going everywhere and I didn&amp;#x27;t need parents or a car to do that. I could take the train, bus or subway myself or bike.&lt;p&gt;In America however it is simply sad how dependent children are on their parents. Parents take them to every sort of activity and thing they got to do. In so many American cities you can&amp;#x27;t have a life without a car. There is nothing to do without a car.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>usmeteora</author><text>Seriously, the amount of helicopter parenting in this country is ridiculous. 21 year old men at my top ranked engineering school had their mothers checking their school emails for homework (I&amp;#x27;m not making this up).&lt;p&gt;Another story: kid OD on drugs, his mom flew across the country to be by his bedside and paid the school from getting suspended&lt;p&gt;Another Story: child is depressed because he got a low first exam grade os his parents sent him to Europe to a GPA booster school for a semester to &amp;quot;cheer him up&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;These kids are ridiculous their parents coddle them through everything and clap joyously and the slightest acheivement which they totally positioned them for.&lt;p&gt;They are depressed and completely incapable of navigating the real world. I had to break up with the one I dated because he wanted me to be his mom. Like no kid, I have a life to live do your own laundry and no I&amp;#x27;m not going to redo your resume for you and get you a job.&lt;p&gt;This has GOT to stop. Below is an article from the Former Dean of Stanford on just this very topic: It&amp;#x27;s embarassing.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;education&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;former-stanford-dean-explains-why-helicopter-parenting-is-ruining-a-generation-of-children&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;education&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How Japan Prepares Its Children for Independence</title><url>http://savvytokyo.com/japan-prepares-children-independence/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jernfrost</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t so much the Japanese being weird and different as the American&amp;#x27;s being the odd ones.&lt;p&gt;I am Norwegian, and little of these descriptions would seem odd to me. My kids go on trips every week with their pre-school, and I have never keep track of where.&lt;p&gt;My oldest son has walked to school himself since he has been 6 years old. I walked to school when I was a kid from 7 (we started school later). And I had to walk about 30 minutes to get to school crossing many roads.&lt;p&gt;From early childhood I roamed around all my neighborhood walking into forests or as I got a bit older I&amp;#x27;d go with friends to big abandoned ship yards.&lt;p&gt;When I later emailed a distant American relative of similar age, I was confused when she didn&amp;#x27;t understand why I didn&amp;#x27;t have a drivers license. She was like &amp;quot;doesn&amp;#x27;t your parent&amp;#x27;s get tired of driving you everywhere?&amp;quot;. A question that made no sense to me until I visited the US. I was of course going everywhere and I didn&amp;#x27;t need parents or a car to do that. I could take the train, bus or subway myself or bike.&lt;p&gt;In America however it is simply sad how dependent children are on their parents. Parents take them to every sort of activity and thing they got to do. In so many American cities you can&amp;#x27;t have a life without a car. There is nothing to do without a car.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zdragnar</author><text>As a lifelong resident of a midwestern state in the US, I think it&amp;#x27;s less a matter of independence and more a matter of safety and legal issues.  I too made plenty of solo excursions through our rural countryside at a young age.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, in major cities, parents are being charged with neglect if their young children walk a a few blocks up the street to go to a park.  Not everywhere, but such stories crop up in the news every so often.&lt;p&gt;Another part of the problem is that communities in America aren&amp;#x27;t (or seem to not be) quite as tight knit as they once were.  There are plenty of explanations, from cultural shifts, family policy, excessively punitive drug policy, economic policy, decline of religion, decline of moral values, rise of the internet and easy access to excessive amounts of televised programming, cell phones and handheld video games, you name it, and someone has probably blamed something for it.</text></comment>