America Needs More "Free Range Kids"

[Malarky]

People used to place bets on what color and style DD's hair would be next.  It's never been a sword I was willing to fall on. Hair grows.  Nothing you do to it is permanent. 

I do draw the line at piercings and tattoos. She may have up to 5 holes in each ear, but no other piercings.  No tattoos, no discussion.  The penalty for ignoring my wishes is no college funds.  As I have a reputation for following through on punishments, she has complied with my wishes.  If she is still inclined to piercings and tattoos in her early 20's so be it.  It won't be the name of her high school boyfriend or some other transient thing forever etched upon her body. 

So even though I give my kids a lot of freedom, they still have rules they must live by. 

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 20, 2013 14:38:23 GMT -5 Spellbound454 said:

The single greatest success lesson I've learned in my life is to decide precisely what you want, and then ASK for it in a clear an unambiguous way. If you do not, it is safe to say you will NEVER get anything you want. Live doesn't lend itself to people who stand there looking stupid as it passes them by and then complain about it later.

Exactly.....Which is why helicopter parents really aren't doing their kids any favours.
Let them find a way...even if its only in the playground.

I'm also a believer in letting them get bored without thinking you have to provide all the entertainment.
They will learn how to make their own amusement and appreciate the little things in life.

The more they appreciate, the more satisfied they will be as adults....

Nothing worse than spoilt kids who think the world owes them a living.

We were at a play area at EPCOT a few weeks back and my daughter- who is a little over 3 years old- was waiting for the slide when another kid cut her off and went down the slide ahead of her.  Instead of going down the slide, she came back and complained to me that the other kids wouldn't let her go and she was crying about it.  I told her to stop crying about it, and take her turn.  If someone tries to go ahead of you, you say, "Excuse me, but it's my turn".  Not 10 minutes later, the same kid tried the same thing, and my just-over-3-year-old stood up for herself, and politely- but firmly- said just what I told her to say.  It worked.  She turned, gave me a big smile and yelled from the top of the slide, "I SAID EXCUSE ME BECAUSE IT'S MY TURN!!!" and went down the slide.  She didn't need me to butt in, she needed to be coached- she needed to have the tools to deal with the situation herself.  I see MOST of what my kids need "help" with the same way.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 20, 2013 15:11:56 GMT -5 Malarky said:

People used to place bets on what color and style DD's hair would be next.  It's never been a sword I was willing to fall on. Hair grows.  Nothing you do to it is permanent. 

I do draw the line at piercings and tattoos. She may have up to 5 holes in each ear, but no other piercings.  No tattoos, no discussion.  The penalty for ignoring my wishes is no college funds.  As I have a reputation for following through on punishments, she has complied with my wishes.  If she is still inclined to piercings and tattoos in her early 20's so be it.  It won't be the name of her high school boyfriend or some other transient thing forever etched upon her body. 

So even though I give my kids a lot of freedom, they still have rules they must live by. 

Yeah, we have friends with older kids- teens- that want tatoos.  Their 14 year old daughter babysits for us and she wants "ink".  They were over the other night and they aren't at all inclined to let her do it.  She was hoping to find a friend in my wife, and my wife said something brilliant.  She asked her what she wanted to get, and the girl and her friends all wanted to get their names tatooed onto each other with something about friendship being forever, blah blah blah.  And my wife said, friends are for facebook posts, not for your body.  She then proceeded to pull out her yearbook, found a pic of her on the pom pom squad with four other friends and explained that she's glad she never got them tatooed on because she hasn't spoken to a one of them since graduation.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

I had control over my own hair, too, btw. I kinda wish I didn't. I'd like to go back and kick my own ass.

[djAdvocate]

my son has as much responsibility as he has shown me he can handle.

[Wisconsin Beth]

We just whacked about 5 inches of hair off my 5 year DD this last weekend.  I told her if she wanted it long, she needed to comb and brush it daily - something she hates.  So she said cut it.  My stylist and I made sure she was ok with the choice before the first cut was made.  She loves it short right now.  But yeah, I'm not willing to die on haircuts, as long as they're not peering like a sheepdog out from behind their bangs.  Been there, done that. 

[Deleted]

May 20, 2013 21:44:10 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

I had control over my own hair, too, btw. I kinda wish I didn't. I'd like to go back and kick my own ass.

I think you looked GREAT! 

[Malarky]

as long as they're not peering like a sheepdog out from behind their bangs. Been there, done that.

So Beth,

Like me, you know that you can actually see through it and it's done simply to annoy.  

DD went through that stage, I never said a word.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Actually, this was last week.   

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 21, 2013 9:30:05 GMT -5 @beerwench said:

May 20, 2013 21:44:10 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

I had control over my own hair, too, btw. I kinda wish I didn't. I'd like to go back and kick my own ass.

I think you looked GREAT! 

Aw, shoot- you found one.  I thought I got rid of these.  And sadly, my hair wasn't that different from this.  I never got into the coloring, didn't use hair spray, either.  My hair was just naturally craptastic when grown out- and I thought it looked AWESOME!  Totally.

[zdaddy]

I have a 4-year-old and worry about many of the same things. I'll also admit that at times I hover on the playground but mostly to make sure my son is behaving himself. If another kid isn't sharing, I tell my son not to get upset and go play somewhere else. About the only time I intervene is if a bigger kid totally pushes my son out of the way or hits him, which has only happened a couple of times.

I'm also struggling with getting him to entertain himself, since he either wants my total attention or wants to watch TV/play on his LeapPad.

Final thought - I think there needs to be a distinction between "grit" and growing up hard and mean. Andrew Jackson sent thousands of unarmed Cherokee civilians to their deaths on the Trail of Tears and was the architect of one of the worst atrocities in American history. IMHO Jackson's upbringing made him hard and mean, not tough. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were all tough SOBs but that doesn't mean we should admire them.

[thyme4change]

[Wisconsin Beth]

I like it Thyme. 

[zibazinski]

I think I hovered too much over my kids. Not having a partner around to help balance things out didn't help, I am sure. It was always on me so I think I over worried and therefore over protected. They seem okay now most of the time.

[Deleted]

I'm not a parent, but in the spirit of "it takes a village"...

I'm a big fan of giving kids a soft place to fall.  Literally in the sense that if we can use technology to keep kids safer we should.  I'm all for a modern recycled tires squishy play surface at the park if it means fewer scraped knees than gravel or wood chips or whatever.  Soft places are good.  Falling is good.  Kids are supposed to jump off the swings.  Kids are supposed to fall and bruise their shins and get a little hurt.  They are supposed to learn their own limits by taking reasonable risks.

Soft places to fall are important in the figurative sense too.  Kids need to get cut from a team, or be rejected by the cool kids, or otherwise fail at something when they are kids so they know how to handle it when they fail as adults.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 22, 2013 12:04:47 GMT -5 @craftysarah said:

I'm not a parent, but in the spirit of "it takes a village"...

I'm a big fan of giving kids a soft place to fall.  Literally in the sense that if we can use technology to keep kids safer we should.  I'm all for a modern recycled tires squishy play surface at the park if it means fewer scraped knees than gravel or wood chips or whatever.  Soft places are good.  Falling is good.  Kids are supposed to jump off the swings.  Kids are supposed to fall and bruise their shins and get a little hurt.  They are supposed to learn their own limits by taking reasonable risks.

Soft places to fall are important in the figurative sense too.  Kids need to get cut from a team, or be rejected by the cool kids, or otherwise fail at something when they are kids so they know how to handle it when they fail as adults.

With respect to soft places to fall, the problem with the rubber room world kids live in is that they never develop a healthy fear of falling and getting hurt.  I'm sure it's not a lesson designers intentionally wanted to have happen, but I've observed it with my own two kids- until a certain age / experience level, they don't distinguish between being on the plastic padded playground, and running down the sidewalk.  My little girl took a pretty spectacular- and deliberate- jump off the top step of friend's concrete porch, when she hit the concrete instead of the padding- it visibly jolted her, and because she never really learned to land- she then fell forward, sprawled out and had two scraped knees, and a nice scrape on her forehead.  She is very much aware now.

[Deleted]

Isn't that what kids are supposed to do though?  You jump off a curb, then you jump off of one step, then you jump off of two steps?
Falling is okay.  Skinning your knees is okay.

I don't believe that your daughter had been exposed to exclusively padded surfaces up until this point in her childhood.  She was just due for a fall.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 22, 2013 15:11:46 GMT -5 @craftysarah said:

Isn't that what kids are supposed to do though?  You jump off a curb, then you jump off of one step, then you jump off of two steps?
Falling is okay.  Skinning your knees is okay.

I don't believe that your daughter had been exposed to exclusively padded surfaces up until this point in her childhood.  She was just due for a fall.

Exclusively? No.  But I still think she was overdue for the fall.  The other day, I let her do a belly flop into the deep end, and sink a little bit before grabbing her.  A friend said I grabbed her too soon.  The good news- I've got a three year old that can swim now- but still has a healthy fear of the water.  Something she really needed after basically being in a floatie or floating life vest her whole life.

[Deleted]

The mortality of hens in cages over usually a 52-week laying period was 5.39 per cent and the mortality in free-range hens was 9.52 per cent, 77 per cent higher. The variability in flock mortality or standard deviation (sd) was also higher, with cages at 3.05 per cent and free range at 7.41 per cent, a 143 per cent increase.
This should not be of any great surprise, because the reasons hens were moved into cages were first, to facilitate intensification of production but also to remove the hens from direct faecal-oral contact. Chicken-sick land could be infected with a variety of bacteria, such as Salmonella, Clostridium and Brachyspira species, protozoa such as Eimeria species and helminth eggs.
Free-range hens have a propensity to drink from potentially contaminated puddles, continues Mr Burch, aiding the transmission of infections.

www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/2793/laying-hen-mortality-by-system-a-welfare-guide

 

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Jun 19, 2013 1:23:04 GMT -5 @patiencetried said:

The mortality of hens in cages over usually a 52-week laying period was 5.39 per cent and the mortality in free-range hens was 9.52 per cent, 77 per cent higher. The variability in flock mortality or standard deviation (sd) was also higher, with cages at 3.05 per cent and free range at 7.41 per cent, a 143 per cent increase.
This should not be of any great surprise, because the reasons hens were moved into cages were first, to facilitate intensification of production but also to remove the hens from direct faecal-oral contact. Chicken-sick land could be infected with a variety of bacteria, such as Salmonella, Clostridium and Brachyspira species, protozoa such as Eimeria species and helminth eggs.
Free-range hens have a propensity to drink from potentially contaminated puddles, continues Mr Burch, aiding the transmission of infections.

www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/2793/laying-hen-mortality-by-system-a-welfare-guide

 

And your point would be that you think this translates to children in some way?

[Deleted]

Jun 20, 2013 12:30:29 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

Jun 19, 2013 1:23:04 GMT -5 @patiencetried said:

www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/2793/laying-hen-mortality-by-system-a-welfare-guide

 

And your point would be that you think this translates to children in some way?

 The article compares mortality rates of "Free range" poultry operations to caged bird operations. 
"Free Range Kids" is the term used in the topic header.
 I didn't write the topic header, YOU did. 

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Jun 20, 2013 13:35:14 GMT -5 @patiencetried said:

Jun 20, 2013 12:30:29 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

And your point would be that you think this translates to children in some way?

 The article compares mortality rates of "Free range" poultry operations to caged bird operations. 
"Free Range Kids" is the term used in the topic header.
 I didn't write the topic header, YOU did. 

Just making sure you weren't responding substantively to the thread.  Confirmed.  We REALLY need the IGNORE button back.