<story><title>The Anti-Helicopter Parent’s Plea: Let Kids Play</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/magazine/the-anti-helicopter-parents-plea-let-kids-play.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ttcbj</author><text>When I was a kid, we ran around our neighborhood as a pack every day after school, and all summer.   We would explore the woods, explore new construction houses near us after the workers left, play sports, and thousands of other activities.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the environment has changed for my kids in ways that makes this difficult to duplicate:&lt;p&gt;1. Other kids aren&amp;#x27;t home anymore, they are all at structured activities.  There is no neighborhood pack to play with.&lt;p&gt;2. Parents aren&amp;#x27;t home either, they are working.  When I was a kid, if you got a splinter or scrape, you just went to the nearest house and someone&amp;#x27;s mom patched you up.   All those houses are empty now.&lt;p&gt;3. If you keep your kid home to play freely, they miss out on all the social stuff going on in the structured activities.  Much as I dislike all the structure, it is where the other kids are.&lt;p&gt;I agree it sounds great to let your kids roam free as we did, but I think in practice the environment has changed in ways that make it difficult.</text></item><item><author>modoc</author><text>I agree with this 100%!  I grew up free to explore the woods, build forts, climb trees, jump off rocks, swim unsupervised, ride mt. bikes down steep hills, drive dirt bikes from age 10 on, drive snowmobiles, carry a pocket knife, whittle, etc...  Yes, I cut myself on occasion, even broke a couple bones, but it was completely worth it and helped me grow up to be self sufficient, self confident, and know my limits, strengths, and weaknesses.&lt;p&gt;I really do feel badly for most of the kids today, who are so hampered and restrained.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t let you kid fall into a bonfire, but DO let them burn themselves on the stove (after you tell them - that is hot).  Inform but let them learn from their own mistakes.  There&amp;#x27;s nothing wrong with a few cuts, bruises, scrapes, burns, etc...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kohanz</author><text>&amp;gt; I agree it sounds great to let your kids roam free as we did, but I think in practice the environment has changed in ways that make it difficult&lt;p&gt;I agree, both with this and the premise that overprotective parenting is a real phenomenon. You can&amp;#x27;t place all of the blame on the parents for their increased vigilance because the environment of growing up has literally changed.&lt;p&gt;Like many of you, when I was young, I played all over my neighbourhood with other kids my age, completely unsupervised. Free to wander quite far from my home with the understanding that I would be home for supper. However, I grew up in a small town (pop. ~20k).&lt;p&gt;Today, most people live in cities, and many in large ones (us included). When my kids are older, I will do my best to give them freedom to play, but there are just some realities today that are different from when I was younger. I remember reading somewhere that there are roughly 3x the amount of vehicles on the road as there were in the 80s (when I was growing up). My biggest safety fear for my kids is traffic. We live in a city. There are a lot of parks around, but getting to and from places involves navigating traffic and a lot of it. I&amp;#x27;ll do my best to educate them and give them trust to do so, but you can&amp;#x27;t help but be a bit concerned. We all know you can be involved in a traffic accident these days through no fault of your own.&lt;p&gt;To clarify: I&amp;#x27;m not saying that the world is actually more dangerous for kids today than it was a generation ago, but I think for many parents it&amp;#x27;s not difficult to see how they could have that perception (true or not) and thus parent in a more protective way. Not only has the world changed, but so has the beholder (from carefree child to responsible parent).</text></comment>
<story><title>The Anti-Helicopter Parent’s Plea: Let Kids Play</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/magazine/the-anti-helicopter-parents-plea-let-kids-play.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ttcbj</author><text>When I was a kid, we ran around our neighborhood as a pack every day after school, and all summer.   We would explore the woods, explore new construction houses near us after the workers left, play sports, and thousands of other activities.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the environment has changed for my kids in ways that makes this difficult to duplicate:&lt;p&gt;1. Other kids aren&amp;#x27;t home anymore, they are all at structured activities.  There is no neighborhood pack to play with.&lt;p&gt;2. Parents aren&amp;#x27;t home either, they are working.  When I was a kid, if you got a splinter or scrape, you just went to the nearest house and someone&amp;#x27;s mom patched you up.   All those houses are empty now.&lt;p&gt;3. If you keep your kid home to play freely, they miss out on all the social stuff going on in the structured activities.  Much as I dislike all the structure, it is where the other kids are.&lt;p&gt;I agree it sounds great to let your kids roam free as we did, but I think in practice the environment has changed in ways that make it difficult.</text></item><item><author>modoc</author><text>I agree with this 100%!  I grew up free to explore the woods, build forts, climb trees, jump off rocks, swim unsupervised, ride mt. bikes down steep hills, drive dirt bikes from age 10 on, drive snowmobiles, carry a pocket knife, whittle, etc...  Yes, I cut myself on occasion, even broke a couple bones, but it was completely worth it and helped me grow up to be self sufficient, self confident, and know my limits, strengths, and weaknesses.&lt;p&gt;I really do feel badly for most of the kids today, who are so hampered and restrained.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t let you kid fall into a bonfire, but DO let them burn themselves on the stove (after you tell them - that is hot).  Inform but let them learn from their own mistakes.  There&amp;#x27;s nothing wrong with a few cuts, bruises, scrapes, burns, etc...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>branchless</author><text>2 is a big one. Yet another consequence of high land prices as now both partners are forced to work.&lt;p&gt;Another is the break up of wider family. Before people could live locally and they would have their grandparents local too, and aunts etc. Now that land rents are so high and work is god, together with low job security, people are forced to move to other parts of urban areas or even to different cities in order to find work.&lt;p&gt;Still everyone seems pretty happy with capital gains on their home that can never be realised because all other homes also went up in price, so perhaps it&amp;#x27;s worth the utter destruction of life as we know it!</text></comment>