The Fragile Generation

[Shooby]

One day last year, a citizen on a prairie path in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst came upon a teen boy chopping wood. Not a body. Just some already-fallen branches. Nonetheless, the onlooker called the cops.



Officers interrogated the boy, who said he was trying to build a fort for himself and his friends. A local news site reports the police then "took the tools for safekeeping to be returned to the boy's parents."



Elsewhere in America, preschoolers at the Learning Collaborative in Charlotte, North Carolina, were thrilled to receive a set of gently used playground equipment. But the kids soon found out they would not be allowed to use it, because it was resting on grass, not wood chips. "It's a safety issue," explained a day care spokeswoman. Playing on grass is against local regulations.



And then there was the query that ran in Parents magazine a few years back: "Your child's old enough to stay home briefly, and often does. But is it okay to leave her and her playmate home while you dash to the dry cleaner?" Absolutely not, the magazine averred: "Take the kids with you, or save your errand for another time." After all, "you want to make sure that no one's feelings get too hurt if there's a squabble."



The principle here is simple: This generation of kids must be protected like none other. They can't use tools, they can't play on grass, and they certainly can't be expected to work through a spat with a friend.



And this, it could be argued, is why we have "safe spaces" on college campuses and millennials missing adult milestones today. We told a generation of kids that they can never be too safe—and they believed us.
reason.com/archives/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generation

[billisonboard]

Which is why I built and lead groups of kids doing this type of activity with their peers holding the other end of the rope when they jump.

And this

We do need to offer more challenges to the younger generation. 

[OldCoyote]

Jan 12, 2018 10:07:24 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Which is why I built and lead groups of kids doing this type of activity with their peers holding the other end of the rope when they jump.

And this

We do need to offer more challenges to the younger generation. 

That's great Bills!

[billisonboard]

A couple comments in line on the specifics of the OP:

Jan 12, 2018 9:49:21 GMT -5 Shooby said:

One day last year, a citizen on a prairie path in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst came upon a teen boy chopping wood. ... Officers interrogated the boy ... the police then "took the tools for safekeeping to be returned to the boy's parents."

Without details, I am not sure it is legit to find fault here. 17 year old Eagle Scout or 13 year old with limited mental capability who admits he just took things from the garage? 

... Playing on grass is against local regulations.

This is likely lawsuit driven. Parents of injured kids are frequently impossible to deal with.  

And then there was the query that ran in Parents magazine a few years back: "Your child's old enough to stay home briefly, and often does. But is it okay to leave her and her playmate home while you dash to the dry cleaner?" Absolutely not, the magazine averred: "Take the kids with you, or save your errand for another time." After all, "you want to make sure that no one's feelings get too hurt if there's a squabble."

One question is liability leaving someone other than your child alone and the word "too" should be noted.

The principle here is simple: ...

Real world application of solution, however, isn't quite as simple.

[MJ2.0]

Jan 12, 2018 10:39:40 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

A couple comments in line on the specifics of the OP:

Jan 12, 2018 9:49:21 GMT -5 Shooby said:

One day last year, a citizen on a prairie path in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst came upon a teen boy chopping wood. ... Officers interrogated the boy ... the police then "took the tools for safekeeping to be returned to the boy's parents."

Without details, I am not sure it is legit to find fault here. 17 year old Eagle Scout or 13 year old with limited mental capability who admits he just took things from the garage? 

... Playing on grass is against local regulations.

This is likely lawsuit driven. Parents of injured kids are frequently impossible to deal with.  

And then there was the query that ran in Parents magazine a few years back: "Your child's old enough to stay home briefly, and often does. But is it okay to leave her and her playmate home while you dash to the dry cleaner?" Absolutely not, the magazine averred: "Take the kids with you, or save your errand for another time." After all, "you want to make sure that no one's feelings get too hurt if there's a squabble."

One question is liability leaving someone other than your child alone and the word "too" should be noted.

The principle here is simple: ...

Real world application of solution, however, isn't quite as simple.

I am absolutely NOT leaving someone else's kid unattended in my home unless they are in their teens, I know and trust the kid, and I know and trust their parents.  Leaving a couple of 10 year olds unattended in my home?  Nope.

[happyhoix]

Mixed feelings on this kind of thing.

When I grew up, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there weren't the regs about toys. I remember I had these cute PJ's that were probably extra flammable. I remember playing this game in the car where we jumped back and forth across the back seat into the cargo area of our station wagon while racing at 65 MPH down the freeway. Then there were lawn darts, which darted all kinds of things like legs and feet, and the fact that the neighborhood kids ran wild, without adult supervision (because our moms wanted us out of the house), during the summer and after school hours, and the kind of trouble we got into. I also remember any adult could spank you, from your parents, your teachers, a neighbor, pretty much anyone. And there was the creepy maintenance guy at church who liked little girls to kiss him, but no one seemed to notice or think that was weird.

Now people do like to sue, like Bills pointed out, whenever their kid gets hurt, so not only can the daycare center not let their kids play on the swingset, I can see how, as a parent, I wouldn't leave my kid alone I the house with someone else's kid unsupervised, for fear their parents would sue me. I can see also how, in this day and age of terrorist attacks and mass shootings, someone might call the cops about a kid with an axe alone in the woods. And everyone is a lot more aware of physical, verbal and sexual abuse, which is a good thing.

It would be nice to go back to the time when kids could roam free and play at whatever they wanted, but it wasn't all that safe for kids when we did.

  

[Tiny]

Oddly enough, in the opening post I think the ones being protected are NOT children.

We let people torture, beat, starve, abuse their children on a daily basis (read the news) and no one seems overly concerned until the kid dies - and even then only if it's a particularly horrific death. We don't seem too concerned about it.

I don't think the safety of the  kid chopping wood, the playground, the kids being at home unattended is really about their safety at all.  

[billisonboard]

Jan 12, 2018 12:31:23 GMT -5 Tiny said:

Oddly enough, in the opening post I think the ones being protected are NOT children.

We let people torture, beat, starve, abuse their children on a daily basis (read the news) and no one seems overly concerned until the kid dies - and even then only if it's a particularly horrific death. We don't seem too concerned about it.

I don't think the safety of the  kid chopping wood, the playground, the kids being at home unattended is really about their safety at all.  

Great perspective to consider.

[billisonboard]

Teaching healthy risk taking is important IM(not so)HO.  An example I use is that I wanted to do a bungee jump.  I did not go out and buy a bungee cord, tie it to a bridge, and jump.  I went to a commercial site, I observed their operation for a period of time and decided that I was personally comfortable with their procedures, paid them what I considered an appropriate amount of money, got hooked up, and dove.  I like to contrast that with people who go to some individual they don't really know well or at all, who is sitting in a parked car somewhere, pay for a substance which the person says will alter their brain chemistry, and ingest the substance.  I ask, "Who is actually crazy?"

[tallguy]

Jan 12, 2018 14:22:44 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Teaching healthy risk taking is important IM(not so)HO.  An example I use is that I wanted to do a bungee jump.  I did not go out and buy a bungee cord, tie it to a bridge, and jump.  I went to a commercial site, I observed their operation for a period of time and decided that I was personally comfortable with their procedures, paid them what I considered an appropriate amount of money, got hooked up, and dove.  I like to contrast that with people who go to some individual they don't really know well or at all, who is sitting in a parked car somewhere, pay for a substance which the person says will alter their brain chemistry, and ingest the substance.  I ask, "Who is actually crazy?"

I would argue both....   

[resolution]

There is no good reason to jump off of a perfectly good bridge...

[billisonboard]

Jan 12, 2018 14:42:01 GMT -5 resolution said:

There is no good reason to jump off of a perfectly good bridge...

Try this one. I was raised risk aversive. I needed to learn how to take risks. After the bungee jump, parachute jumps which included pulling my own chute, and getting a motorcycle, I started to take some even larger leaps of faith. Those included fully committing to a monogamous relationship, taking a full time permanent job, and buying a house.

[Ryan]

Kind of a dumb article.  Millennials are hitting milestones later because college costs, home costs, and health care are way outpacing wages.  

Millenials might be raised differently, but that doesn't mean it was wrong...it was just different to how boomers were raised.  Just like before, as long as the parents are well adjusted, the kids usually turn out fine.  My parents let us run around the neighborhood without a lot of supervision and I remember people getting into a lot of trouble that I wouldn't want my kids getting into.

[Shooby]

There is good and bad.  I do think the world is more dangerous.  A lot more freaky people who have become emboldened.  So, things kids used to do really aren't such a good idea necessarily.  But, like anything seems we swing too far one way or the other. 

[Tiny]

I guess the situations in the opening post are ok as long as you are ok with your kid being the one that gets hurt (maybe severely or critically) when something bad happens while building the "club house", or while playing on playground equipment on a not particularly soft area (not all grass is cushioning or soft-ish), or if something bad happens while your kid is visiting with a friend (and they get left alone while the parents run a few errands).

I think the real problem is with adults - I'm pretty sure my parents would have been upset/grief stricken if one of us kids had died doing some 'stupid kid thing' (like jumping off the garage roof, or accidentally setting a fire in the house, or digging a hole and hitting the buried electric wiring from house to garage, or if the 10 foot deep hole that was dug by the gang of tween boys in the vacant lot had collapsed while someone was down there...)  but would have chalked it up to "that's life" or "that's God's will" or something beyond their control.   They grew up during a time when kids routinely didn't survive childhood (disease, accidents, dangerous living conditions). There's a lot of kid graves (usually 5yo or younger but some tweens)  at the cemetery when I go to visit the Dead Relatives.

I also think when you (or your kids) live thru having done something stupid you 'forget' that things could have gone terribly wrong and a different outcome could have happened.   That kind of skews your perspective. 

So, I don't think the 'fragile generation' is the Millenials - I think it is their parents who had the luxury of growing up without the specter of death (by disease or accident) around every corner who are "fragile".   They EXPECT every one of their kids to survive childhood.  And if their kid doesn't/didn't - it wasn't something that was suppose to happen and they were cheated and deserve justice for that young life that was unfairly taken.

 

[Miss Tequila]

Jan 12, 2018 17:04:32 GMT -5 Shooby said:

There is good and bad.  I do think the world is more dangerous.  A lot more freaky people who have become emboldened.  So, things kids used to do really aren't such a good idea necessarily.  But, like anything seems we swing too far one way or the other. 

I don't know that it actually is more dangerous, though. When I was a kid you had to wait until the 6 o'clock news to hear about all the bad things happening in the world and they only had an hour to cram everything in. Now we are bombarded with news 24/7.  It does feel more dangerous to me but I am not sure that isn't just because I'm constantly reading about the horrors in the world.

I do hate that we have to deal with terrorists now.  That is not something that ever crossed my mind as a child.