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Where do the children play?

(unpublishablepapers.substack.com)
409 points casca | 2 comments | 16 Nov 25 13:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source
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pseudonymcoward ◴[17 Nov 25 08:11 UTC] No.45951724[source]▶
As a society we find violence or harm against children to be extremely shocking and tragic. As a society we would do almost anything to prevent it.

Giving children the kinds of freedoms discussed in this article would lead to some harm coming to them. Accidents, violence, kidnap, etc.

Therefore, society won't give them those freedoms.

This tendency has been exagerated by mass media in the modern era. Every single case, every piece of anecdata, makes massive headlines and instills the fear into parents everywhere.

It's impossible for society to reverse course because that would mean acknowledging, implicitly or explicitly, that some level of harm for some children is justified by the developmental benefits to all children of increased freedom.

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cpursley ◴[17 Nov 25 10:01 UTC] No.45952261[source]▶
Well, this doesn’t exactly check out when you compare to countries and cultures who already give children these freedoms and have the built environment to support it (transport, walkability, parks/spaces to play, etc). They are not only “just fine”, but their children are generally much more mature and confident (as in skilled), than their Anglo counterparts.
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1. mlrtime ◴[17 Nov 25 11:58 UTC] No.45952850[source]▶
Care to list a few examples that aren't Anglo?
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2. cpursley ◴[17 Nov 25 12:37 UTC] No.45953048[source]▶
France, Netherlands, Denmark, former commie block come to mind. It was one of the things that really stuck out to me: how mature/well behaved and independent/confident the children were there (for the most part). There's even books on the topic (Raising Bebe, The Danish Secret to Happy Kids) which I was not aware of until after spending a lot of time in those places. At lot of it has to due with the built environment - kids can literally walk out the front door to parks and stuff unlike in suburban places, but also culture.