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So, to those who ran wild as kids themselves, why do you feel that your kids can't do the same? Do you really think the world is so different today?
We live in a pretty congested area so my kids have much less freedom to roam like I did. I see some kids out on the main roads riding their bikes and believe me, my heart is in my throat with cars flying by at 50 mph. Almost hit some kids a few years ago when it was pitch black outside and they were wearing no reflectors of any type including their bikes. I came within inches and I'm not a speedy driver. It scared the hell out of me. Traffic is horrible the roads aren't bike friendly. Therefore, kids are sort of confined to their neighborhoods in our area.
I think society nowdays is also much less tolerant towards free ranging kids. When you do see kids out there roaming, you usually hear about it followed with bad parenting comments. I think that parents are also fearful of being reported. Everyone is in your business and people are quick to judge. It is such a different society nowdays.
I do think that kids are missing out on lots of things.
We'd tied a radio flyer to the back of a bike and pull someone at top speed. The guy in the wagon would cut the rope witha pocket knife and try and steer with the handle as close to a mailbox as they could without hitting it.. Not that we could actually measure how close one got but god forbid u completely misjudge.. Face first into the post! My cousin had to get her entire eye brow sewn back on. We also drank from the hose, swam in ditch water after a big storm while searching for tadpoles. Our blessing came in the form of a pool we had . We would wake up and be in by breakfast and not out again till bed. Our eyes would be so red from opening them underwater cause screw goggles, that our vision would be blurry the whole summer
Now you'd be posting pictures of all the jackass things you did for the whole world to see. It's their own fault they can't do bad things.
My son did that. U-tube videos of him and his friends doing idiotic things like riding little bros bike into the pool, shooting an arrow at a 2 litre bottle right next to their foot. etc. I think they figure old people did not know abotu u-tube or would not be able to figure it out. What I did figure out was the source of the holes in the side of the pool.
What is the term for this overprotective parenting that is so common now? It is getting so bad I feel sorry for todays kids. THey should not be running as wild and unsupervised as I did as a kid, but now things have gone way way too far the other way. Many parents will nto let kids go camping, or allow them in a boat. When I invited a bunch of my high school kids friends to come to watch the Detroit fireworks from our office on the 34th floor, many parents would not allow their kids to go, Detroit is too dangerous. (From the 34th floor of a secured office building??)
IT is wierd it seems like parents think they can (and should) eliminate all forms of risk for their kid's lives. How are they ever going to learn to weight risks and benefits and make good judgment calls>?
F on your report card? No problem, all you had to do was use a black pen and connect the open sides of the F with some curves........ and voila!
Mom & Dad were soooooo proud of that B in math!!
LOL. That would never fly today when all the grades are online, unless you could hack the system to change the grades.
My grandchildren's grades on everything is on the system, not just the report card, so we get to see the assignments with grades as well as the report cards.
Unbeknownst to our parents, and against all rules, another four-year-old and I decided to explore our neighborhood. After crossing a busy road, we found a house under construction, with a tempting sandpile in the driveway and a water hose nearby.
So we decided to create our own beach and go wading. We created a sizable ocean, which ran into the attached garage and then the basement of the house under construction.
Once home after our fun at the beach, we found our frantic mothers had been scouring the neighborhood for us, as a house fire had occurred just a block away during our absence. But what concerned me was neither the fire nor the flood nor my mother's distress at my disappearance, but that I'd taken off my sandals to go wading and couldn't buckle them completely when I put them back on, so my mother would know that I'd done the forbidden and gone barefoot!
Isn't it funny that with all this running around unsupervised not a single person was ever kidnapped and molested/murdered, so maybe it isn't that dangerous to let your kids walk to school, play outside or run around in the neighborhood. There really aren't more dangers around today than it was 20+ years ago, especially not more pedophiles. The only difference is how our media reports it. There has always been child predators but those who kidnap strange children are extremely rare.
So, to those who ran wild as kids themselves, why do you feel that your kids can't do the same? Do you really think the world is so different today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
For a time, we lived in a city that was a bit edgy. Regardless, I would not let them run freely in a city. Now we live on an island. We have only one rule - be back by 9 unless you call and do not leave the island. Of course during school they are so busy there is no time for anything. Kids are so scheduled now it is ricidulous. Our youngest even has kids parents making appointments for them to play together. We tell them, oh just bring him by anytime, if we are home drop him off, if we are not home don't. It is not that far to drive (no one lives more than 5 miles from us). They look at us like we are aliens. "How will we know if he has something scheduled" You don't if he has to go somewhere we will either bring your son along (with your permission) or drop him at home on the way out. Why does everything have to be planned?
UGH, dont get me started. The scheduling.....all the scheduling. Nothing is spontaneous anymore. My son is a teenager and its amazing to me how kids simply dont get together or when they do the parents make a big deal about it like they are planning some major event. My son does most of his socializing over xbox. All these kids held up in their rooms. Where we live has zero crime. Im not sure why all these parents are so paranoid. Oh I take that back, last summer there was a jewelry theft. He broke into one house and then came back to the exact same subdivision. He was caught and everyone made a huge deal about it. Yes it sucks to have your stuff stolen but obviously the guy was an idiot coming back. That was our major crime spree. My neighbor has two kids that are 9 and 11. They are not allowed to play outside unless mom is out there. My son was invited to a birthday get together at one friend's house. The boy's mother asked if it was okay that she dropped the boys off at the movies. I was like ya, thats fine. She kept asking me if it was okay with me, she rambled on excuses of how the movie wasnt something she was interested in and so on and so on. The kids were 15 at the time.
Sometimes I get offended. There have been a few parents that havent allowed their kids to come to our house because they dont know what goes on over here. Seriously? Am I a drug lord and dont know about it? How about meeting me if you are so concerned? Nope, no time for that. Lets just say no. Another parent canceled a get together for our kids because he felt the saturday was much better spent "being structured". So the father drug his kid to some basketball game that the kid didnt even want to go to instead of letting him come here to have pizza and play video games. Is that somewhat structured? I feel for kids now. I get keeping an eye on your kids so they dont get into serious trouble but its just downright smothering. I dont know if its my area or just the generation of parenting.
- We used bedsheets as parachutes to jump off our 2-story hay barn. We learned quickly that parachutes are not made from bedsheets.
- Once while my mom was in back of the house hanging clothes on the line, I threw a full-sized dummy off the top of that same barn as I shouted for her to watch me. I think she almost had a heart attack. My mom never hit us but I'm guessing that time she came really close.
- My neighborhood friends and I built giant stilts out of pine poles where the steps were four or five feet off the ground. We then held contests to see who could walk the furthest. The record was about a half mile.
- The same friends and I once dammed up a local creek during the summer just to see if we could. The resulting "lake" was great to swim in until the dirt dam broke. Someone downstream was probably really shocked to see that wall of water come by.
- I built a small boat out of spare wood around the farm and sealed it with roofing tar. Then I launched it with me in it into our farm pond and "explored" some overgrown and "snaky" areas where we had always been afraid to swim. That boat actually lasted a couple of summers.
- When really young, I once ran away from home with my trusty dog Dusty. We spent the first part of the night in my tree house down in the pasture before I finally decided no one was coming to look for us. Actually, I don't think the dog cared one way or the other.
- I won't say what we used to do with fireworks...
As a teenage kid, I became even more daring:
- As I prepared to go into the service in the 1960s, I became pretty rowdy. I caught a local policeman exiting a street I was entering and I "dug out" right in front of him throwing gravel everywhere. As his lights came on and he prepared to turn around, I took off. I sped over a nearby hill, then turned into a small dirt road that went under some trees and out of sight. As I watched back up on the highway, the policeman came blasting by with his lights blazing. He never found me and I figured, if he really wanted me, he could come get me in Vietnam. BTW, I never went to Vietnam.
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Our little group was fearless. Not dumb.
The scheduling.....all the scheduling. Nothing is spontaneous anymore. My son is a teenager and its amazing to me how kids simply dont get together or when they do the parents make a big deal about it like they are planning some major event. My son does most of his socializing over xbox. All these kids held up in their rooms. Where we live has zero crime. Im not sure why all these parents are so paranoid. Oh I take that back, last summer there was a jewelry theft. He broke into one house and then came back to the exact same subdivision. He was caught and everyone made a huge deal about it. Yes it sucks to have your stuff stolen but obviously the guy was an idiot coming back. That was our major crime spree. My neighbor has two kids that are 9 and 11. They are not allowed to play outside unless mom is out there. My son was invited to a birthday get together at one friend's house. The boy's mother asked if it was okay that she dropped the boys off at the movies. I was like ya, thats fine. She kept asking me if it was okay with me, she rambled on excuses of how the movie wasnt something she was interested in and so on and so on. The kids were 15 at the time. 
Seriously? Am I a drug lord and dont know about it? How about meeting me if you are so concerned? Nope, no time for that. Lets just say no. Another parent canceled a get together for our kids because he felt the saturday was much better spent "being structured". So the father drug his kid to some basketball game that the kid didnt even want to go to instead of letting him come here to have pizza and play video games. Is that somewhat structured? I feel for kids now. I get keeping an eye on your kids so they dont get into serious trouble but its just downright smothering. I dont know if its my area or just the generation of parenting.
