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How about Roman Candle wars? We did it like a duel - start back to back light the fuses, take 10 steps then turn and shoot them towards each other! Woo-Hoo!! Same with bottle rocket battles!
I probably shouldn't admit this, but my husband and our next-door neighbor, both grown men in their 50's, recently had a Roman Candle war in our back pasture. Us wives just sat on the porch and shook our heads.
IMO the kids have not become wimps the parents have. We buy into everything someone else tells us is bad for either us or our kids. Parents say is no longer the "last word" when it comes to the way our children our raised. There are so-called experts who influence or "advise" on how we should communicate, interact, socialize, etc. with our kids. Our children are living in a "soft" world where everyone plays team sports and no one wins, yet when they do finally keep score if one team destroys another team its now considered "poor sportsmanship". Kids don't have to do what they are told instead they "debate" the rules with their parents because some expert said we have to be more in touch with their feelings as children. Chores? As long as there is time for other social activity. In my kids school district they frown on giving homework on Fridays to elementary school because it cuts in on their possible activities during the weekends. This kind of accomodation bites us as a productive society in the rear because these children grow up with a false sense of entitlement when they enter the job market (What do you mean I have to work weekends?).
SKP440 I agree to a certain extent. I raised my kids to question things, but respect those that earn it. Just because you're older doesn't automatically make you wiser. I also think that the big thing kids are missing today is respect and yes, I will say it, FEAR. We used to fear our parents and that gave us a healthy respect for them.
Stupid shyte that we did;
Lighting the woods on fire (starting a campfire in the fall)
jumping from rooftop to rooftop of the vacation cabins
climbing saplings to the top, 20 or 30 feet high, and making them sway back and forth until you could jump off.
during the summer we would leave the house with the tide schedule. PB&J sandwiches in empty bread bags. Our only rule? We had to be home before 5:00 pm or no dinner. After dinner? come home when the street lights came on.
After school you dropped your stuff off at home and again, out the door until 5:00 pm. Granted we didn't have the ridiculous amount of homework kids get now.
Raising my kids they had one rule while outside, No blood, no foul. This meant that if they wanted to horse around, fine. Don't come whining to me unless there was blood or broken bones involved. It worked too!
Knives, lots of knives!! I still have a bunch and collect them.
OMG yes, knives. I always had at least one knife on me as a kid. I remember one time when I was about six, just after we'd moved to a different house, I got an empty packing box and a filleting knife from the kitchen (without permission of course) and I sat on the steps, holding the box down with my bare feet, and stabbing into it between my feet with the butcher knife. Reason? It made a really cool noise.
Well, you guessed it, I stabbed my foot just below the juncture of my big toe and second toe. Fortunately I missed all the important bits, and the knife blade went between all the bones and out the sole of my foot. I looked at it, my first thought being "mom is going to be really mad and beat me for this". I pulled it out, hid the box, cleaned up the knife and my foot in the backyard, and hobbled into the house where I managed to get it wrapped up in paper towels and scotch tape and put on shoes to hide it.
My parents never did find out about that one, and I was a smart enough kid to keep it washed up so it did not end up getting infected. There were many instances with knives and cutting myself (or another child) where stitches were probably needed, but the wound got hidden or left long enough that it couldn't be stitched.
I also had a friend throw a knife into the top of my bare foot when we were playing mumbletypeg. That was fun!
I probably shouldn't get into the time when my older sister dared me to put the cat in the toilet and flush it...
ITA on both the rain/weather and the drinks/snacks posts. Good grief.
Rain is now a reason not to send a child to school.
And I've got parents in my class who come to school at recess and lunch to sit with their 5 year olds and put food in their mouths, because I guess they might starve otherwise. Or maybe they'd eat if they were used to feeding themselves rather than waiting to be handfed. I'm telling you, it's not just one kid this year!
Besides the ones whose parents come, there are the kids who bring the huge bag of some kind of snack and proceed to spend the entire recess period sitting on the bench eating it. So much for running around and getting some energy out so that you can come back inside and concentrate again.
Anyway... kids are only as wimpy as the adults around them encourage them to be.
...There were many instances with knives and cutting myself (or another child) where stitches were probably needed, but the wound got hidden or left long enough that it couldn't be stitched.
Oh yeah....ditto on that. Even when my parents knew about it usually the response was just to go get some disinfectant and a band-aid. I tripped and got a gash on my hand that was nearly 3 inches long (you could see the bone). ER? HA! We just cleaned it and patched it up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury Cougar
I probably shouldn't get into the time when my older sister dared me to put the cat in the toilet and flush it...
Oh god...this is like a car accident...
...I don't want to know but I can't help but ask...
More of a humorous nostalgia thread than anything, but someone at work mentioned CFL bulbs and mercury hazards...and it just made me laugh.
When I was a kid, mercury was an occasional toy to be rolled about in our hands and picked up off the tabletop with a piece of paper.
We had cool toys like Lawn Darts -- those forearm-length heavy missiles with the sharpened metal tip -- meant to be tossed high in the air and land near the feet of the opposing team.
We had Clackers -- heavy balls on a cord, which occasionally got used as a bolo instead of a toy.
We played with nunchucks and throwing stars.
We rode bikes without helmets, and skateboards without knee, elbow, and wrist protection.
We stayed outdoors all day, most of the time nowhere near mom and home, for most of the summer hours.
Our houses had lead paint inside.
I could go on and on...it is just amusing to me that we were so less protective back then, and so many of us are still alive and kicking even after doing so many things that would horrify today's bubble-wrap parent.
There were many instances with knives and cutting myself (or another child) where stitches were probably needed, but the wound got hidden or left long enough that it couldn't be stitched.
My mother had to special order those "butterfly stitches" (glorified bandaids... we couldn't buy them on our island when I was young..apparently not all the other kids were in need of them so it was a special order item!) for all of my various wounds during the summer so she wouldn't have to be running me off-island to the emergency room (45 minutes away) every time I split myself open. She was pretty good at assessing where to put those strips! Oddly enough, I still made it there for real stitches at least once a year!
Wow... this thread brings back memories... I was such an idiot. My mother and stepdad worked. We were on our own for 12-16 hours at a time during the summer - setting fires, sneaking into pools, playing around in vacant homes ... and lots of stuff I don't want to admit to!
During the school year we got ourselves up, dressed, fed and off to school on our own. Came home to an empty house and did our chores, fed ourselves and no one checked homework (which each of the 4 of us did about once a quarter - the week before report cards went home). We went to bed when we were supposed to. Everyone held everything over everyone else's heads so we did it together or not at all (most of the time)
Honestly though, I was jealous of my friends/neighbors who had parents that gave a rat's a** whether or not they had lunch or clean underwear, or watched too much TV, played with fire or went into the "snake man's house" (the neighborhood pedofile - before we knew the word existed).
So, I try to be the mom I always wished I had.
And our kids still do stuff like that - I catch my 7 & 9 year olds whispering every once in awhile. But I give them the "illusion of privacy"... not everything I did or experienced was bad. Unless there's something I can do about it or they didn't learn the RIGHT lesson, I try to give them some space.
Recently, I asked my ds about something he journalled about... no, this wasn't a diary, it is a school journal that is kept inside the binder he hands me every night after school. He was shocked and seemed a bit scared - he didn't think I was reading it. He'd been BRUTALLY honest about some things. I reminded him of my views on childhood privacy. He nodded slowly. For a week or so, all the entries were about what a wonderful mom I am and what kind of things he'd like to get me for my birthday. But now his writing is "middle of the road" and he often asks me what I thought about what he wrote... that said, he asked for a "Private" journal for Christmas.
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