I think I am just about done with Free Range Kids (the website)

[kyrielle]

It's not that I don't agree with the woman who maintains it or her points of view in general. It IS that she emphasizes the most extreme, ridiculous ways modern society (modern America, mostly) hampers our kids from growing.

And far, far more, it IS the comments. The people who are appalled that parents treat their kids as competent human beings (oh noes!) and tailor what they let the kiddos do to their actual capabilities / development. The people who are sanctimonious at everyone who is nervous about same, or about society's reaction to same.

The Perfect Moms who think that, you know, they are All That and we oughta do it their way.

The working (out of the home) moms who don't understand the social interests/needs of the stay-at-home moms and work-from-home moms. The SAHM/WFHM who don't understand, nor care to understand, the limited schedules of the ones working out of the home.

And on and on.

This gem from today really had me irritated (and it's from someone who does, I notice, tend to have that effect on me): "I want my kids to be popular and have lots of friends and party invites and the way I do that is by buddying up to the moms and I get new friends too."

...wow. You know, not every kid even WANTS lots of friends/party invites. Some people only want one or a few close friends. Some people want depth. Maybe her kids want that. Maybe not. But I also boggle that she thinks she ought to provide it. Is she going to follow them to college and try to find them friends by networking with the other mothers who follow their kids to college? Oh, wait....

Comments

[canyoncat.livejournal.com]

Well the web site has a cool name anyway. :P

[kyrielle]

And her point, and her book, are actually very good. Kids these days are not allowed to do a lot of things we were when smaller...and all for "safety". Some of these changes really are SIGNIFICANTLY safer for little loss to the kids (car seats!), but others are not much safer at all because the danger isn't that big, but the cost is huge (predator-fear meaning kids can't be outside alone, vs. couch potatoes who watch TV or have to be shuttled to/from activities all the time).

But it gets to be the same old same old after a while, and I can only take so many outrages. Of course, the biggest problem has been my failing to follow the old internet standard rule - don't read the comments! LOL.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Be careful on the "car seats are better for kids" thing. Twenty or thirty years ago, definitely: but children are safer in just a seat belt in a modern car than they were in a car seat mounted in a car from 20 years ago. Given the difficulties in hooking up car seats, confusion over whether they should face forwards or backwards, and the fact that for the majority of children they offer very little benefit, there's a reasonable argument going on today over whether we are demanding kids remain in car seats beyond the point at which they derive safety benefits from them.

There's a movement in Germany to demand all children under age 13 be in car seats, for instance. That's just crazy, if you ask me.

[kyrielle]

Point! There is such a thing as taking it too far. Though for small children, I believe the evidence is they are safer in a car seat in any car (granted a newer car is still better than an older one).

It can be taken too far, but the reverse ("we didn't ride in car seats, why should my one-month-old have to?" - and yes, I have heard someone say basically that) is maybe taking the reaction a bit far the other way. :)

13 and under? Ridiculous. At the point at which the safety belts *fit* them (or with a booster fit them) and they have reasonable head weight to neck muscle control, the benefits from a car seat (vs. booster or nothing) are minimal at best.

But for someone Drew's age? Or a newborn? I think there's still a lot of benefit there, for relatively little hassle in general.

[edited to fix a really stupid typo]

[canyoncat.livejournal.com]

Skipping the comments entirely would probably work... if you could do it.

It's hard to believe some of the things I did as a little kid growing up in a reasonably large city that no parent would even think of letting a kid do these days. The parents would probably be brought up on child endangerment charges. :)

[kyrielle]

That's not as funny as it seems - parents HAVE been at least hassled by the police, if not outright charged, for doing things that are actually pretty safe (but, alas, not 100% safe, because NOTHING IS - I mean, EATING DINNER isn't 100% safe people!).

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I think that kind of behavior would be classified as child abuse were it not for the fact so many parents subscribe to it. What this amounts to is "I'm playing popularity games so that my children can, by proxy, play those same games themselves and learn how to play them better."

There's a big difference between teaching socialization skills, which I believe is critically important, and using children as a thinly-veiled justification for your own narcissism.

[kyrielle]

Yep. Visiting friends is one thing. Finding moms with kids the same age as yours so you can visit your friends *with* your kid in tow without the kid or the parent or the friend losing it, because *you* want friends, is one thing.

Doing it "for" your kid is another, and frankly I don't know that the lessons it teaches the kids are ones you want to be teaching, really....

Kids notice more than some folks give them credit for. Including motivations like these, I suspect....