by trevin on 7/28/23, 5:28 PM with 395 comments
by Waterluvian on 7/28/23, 6:00 PM
"they're not playing. 'Play' is a misleading term. They're testing the world. They're learning how things work. How gravity works. How friction holds lego together. How actions cause reactions. How friends and strangers behave when you do things. How to use language with make believe. How to comfortably and safely explore new ideas out loud with their action figures. How to discover what feels good and what doesn't. They're not playing. They're growing."
My kids are young. But I'm confident this is generally true for teenagers, too. One quick example: I played WoW and looking back... I learned a ton about how to work in a team. How to be social. What social behaviours work and don't work. How to deal with people you don't like. How to delay gratification. How to plan. And it was all in a low-stakes environment.
by atonse on 7/28/23, 5:50 PM
That’s been the big challenge. So then there are these magical days where they all don’t have any activities and those invariably happen to be the days ALL kids look forward to. Cuz at the end of the day, they just want to play with their friends.
But that has taken planning in the past where we coordinate with parents for those free play days.
But those days are the exception. I wish they were the rule.
We’ve actually noticed how amazing his mood is after a day full of unorganized play hanging out with friends.
by caesil on 7/28/23, 6:06 PM
In surrendering utterly to the preeminence of streets, we have essentially taken our open, free world and overlain it with an immense grid of electric fences -- thick lines all over the map that, if children wander across them, might easily lead to their deaths.
So "hold hands everywhere" and "don't let your children run free outside" become the norms. The only safe place is locked inside or behind fences; the wider world is a death trap for children.
Play inherently requires a degree of freedom, but children have none. We are just prison guards eternally transferring them from one captivity to another.
by deanmoriarty on 7/28/23, 6:09 PM
At 6 years old I was literally biking by the river or wandering in the woods with my friends after school for hours on end. Every day was an exciting adventure without any adult supervision, just random groups of 2-10 kids who would gather in the afternoon to play together. The rule was "home by dinner or there won't be any dinner for you". I never did any extracurricular activity, ever.
This did not prevent me from going to a great university in my country, get my master in Computer Engineering, graduating in the top 5% of my class, have a curriculum good enough to legally immigrate to the US, and working at several tech companies including FAANG, making high 6 figures now.
I would never give away those wonderful memories and early life experiences for some random extracurricular activity just to "stand out" later on, I do believe such freedom helped form my character to a much greater extent than any scripted activity would have.
by giantg2 on 7/28/23, 6:14 PM
We live in a society where a small mistake can ruin the rest of your life; where parents can be jailed for allowing previously common freedoms to children; where children are increasingly subject to age restrictions; where parents are under increasing threat of legal actions; surveillance is everywhere; and more.
Many of these things were done with the best intentions of protecting children. How much joy does one get out of keeping a toy sealed in a box, preserving it's "value"? How much more valuable would that toy be if one enjoyed it during their childhood? We're keeping our kids in the packaging to protect them, but we're losing the real value.
by nonethewiser on 7/28/23, 6:33 PM
Wait a minute, what?
Nearly 1 in 10 attempted suicide? So in a middle school of say 400 kids a kid would know almost 40 peers that tried to kill themselves? I wasnt in middle school in 2019 but this just doesnt seem right. Maybe im misunderstanding.
Edit: it says high school not middle school, but point stands
by legitster on 7/28/23, 6:18 PM
It's the police and CPS that I am afraid of. The ubiquity of smartphones has made tattling and "calling someone" so easy. And it's almost never from other parents! The parents are more worried about "what people will think" than they are their own kids actually being hurt!
Also, there are so many fewer kids in a neighborhood than when I was a kid (both from a declining birthrate - and also the monopoly older/kidless people have in suburban housing right now is very underreported) that there is less safety in numbers. There are only 2 other kids on our block.
by renewiltord on 7/28/23, 6:47 PM
Usually sports, but sometimes something else. I actually really enjoyed this sort of setting. Kids would get hurt accidentally, there were some harmless fights, and that sort of thing.
I'm just concerned that, independent of my own viewpoint on the subject, I will be unable to find sufficient other parents with this approach, or, should I find them they'll be clustered with other beliefs that I think are suboptimal for success.
Ultimately, if there is a place with this culture then I will try to make it so I can reasonably live there.
by clsec on 7/28/23, 7:18 PM
I took music lessons, did Cub Scouts Weeblos & Boy Scouts, played little league, played Pop Warner & high school football and ran track. All after school activities.
As for freedom.. I took SF MUNI, BART, Ferries and Golden Gate Transit starting at 7 year old. Any free time I had was spent playing with friends. And I had to be home by the time the street lights came on.
So it is possible to have a lot of after school activities and plenty of time to play with friends and explore the world.
by fnimick on 7/28/23, 5:54 PM
We ramp up the pressure younger than ever, tell people that their entire future hinges on their success and getting ahead of their peers right now, then we're surprised that people crack under the stress?
(FWIW, the sports that seem to come up on top are rich, exclusive sports like fencing and polo, because they serve well as class signifiers in admissions)
by ajsnigrutin on 7/28/23, 10:19 PM
"Kids these days" (at least the ones I know) have their whole days scheduled for 'stuff'... school, home, music lessons, sport practice, come back home at 8pm, homework, sleep. On weekends, they're packed in the cars and taken somewhere 'in nature/countryside', so they wouldn't spend their days at home or outside sitting on a bench for the whole day.
I'm an adult now, for quite a few years, and the thing I miss the most about childhood is the "freedom",... after school, you were free to do whatever, and during the summer, you were free for 2.5 months... no responsibilities, no timetables, schedules, no nothing... just kids and stupid (then important) kid stuff.
by 1letterunixname on 7/28/23, 6:41 PM
Perhaps the real losses of community and public commons (other countries call it "commonwealth") create a desert of human interaction. Maybe this is partly why the US has an absurd number of depressed and maladjusted young people.
by rossdavidh on 7/28/23, 7:08 PM
by j-bos on 7/28/23, 5:55 PM
by adamredwoods on 7/28/23, 6:17 PM
>> He notes that this is a correlation, not proof of causation, although experiments with animals support the claim that play deprivation causes anxiety and poor social development.
I also wonder if "playing" in Minecraft, or Roblox supports this definition of play. Or even RPGs like DnD. It's interactive, and allows children to experiment. It's not a physical world, but I don't know if these parameters were explored.
by janalsncm on 7/28/23, 8:19 PM
But I hesitate to write off teen mental health as just a result of over parenting or social media. Those are probably contributing factors, how much is not clear to me.
Another contributing factor is the economic knife hanging over everyone’s head. It’s not enough to just finish high school like it was in the 1950s. It’s not even enough to finish a bachelor’s degree now, even though only 40% of millennials have accomplished that. So just being above average isn’t enough. You need to be excellent.
If you compare pretty much any other time in American history to the post-war economy, every metric is going to look worse. Does it mean we should be letting kids play tackle pom pom [1] during recess? So I’m not convinced by the hand-wavy look how great things were back in the day analysis.
This analysis would be much stronger if it tried to account for confounding factors. For example analyzing countries where life expectancy is not decreasing.
[1] https://www.yellowbullet.com/threads/school-yard-recess-game...
by nazgulnarsil on 7/28/23, 7:05 PM
by outlace on 7/28/23, 6:10 PM
One is that cultures with highly structured time for kids like China do not have the same dramatic rises in mental illness, that I’m aware of. Two is that this seems to only apply to middle class or rich western kids (unsurprising for academic studies). You really think poor kids are spending too much time at piano lessons and not playing? No they have the opposite problem of too much lack of structure.
Overall this seems quite narrow minded to me. The only part of this that rings true is the cultural phenomenon of wanting to make feel everyone safe all the time, even from mere ideas and speech.
by dunkmaster on 7/28/23, 7:38 PM
by lgleason on 7/28/23, 6:57 PM
Obviously if the kid comes from a rich family that is willing to support and leave all of their money to the kid that changes the equation, but I have seen examples where those kids still ended up as drug addicts etc..
by chiefalchemist on 7/28/23, 6:18 PM
That said, social media aside, I wouldn't want to be a teen today. Too much fear. Too much gloom & doom. Too much adults preaching "Don't do Y and/or Z (and not offering "do this instead" alternatives).
And parents are looked down upon for not overseeing their kid's every move. So yeah, the parents live in fear as well.
This level of fear is not healthy.
We've removed agency and replaced it with a void. Is it any wonder teens are struggling?
by Animats on 7/28/23, 7:20 PM
Early Sesame Street is all about unsupervised kids in a big city.
by stainablesteel on 7/28/23, 6:59 PM
i mean, its even gotten to the point where no one is having them. other countries around the world apply all the golden rules of economics to become wealthy and successful, but it fails in 2 main areas: education/upbringing, and maintaining a stable birthrate/population
we're eating ourselves alive through a more insidious version of the soviet-era snitching system while proclaiming that cannibalism is immoral
by moffkalast on 7/28/23, 8:02 PM
Genuinely wondering where they got any data for that, given that child labour is generally illegal these days and all. What kind of part time jobs for children that pay actual money exist in the present?
I suppose you've got the rare ones like acting, modelling, toy testing, but those come with a lot of other factors that are probably hard to control for and in most cases I doubt the kids are paid directly. Maybe they counted getting $5 from your parents for mowing the lawn.
by 2-718-281-828 on 7/28/23, 8:22 PM
current selection:
- skat
- gin rummy
- german whist
- spite and malice
i found playing cards to be an amazing catalyst and temporary distraction while having a drink with a friend. it relieves the pressure of having to talk more or less nonstop. and shifting attention to the game away from conversation tends to engage the subconscious producing new interesting subjects to discuss. similar to that effect of ideas popping up during having a shower.
any standard card game enthusiasts here? what's your game of choice?
by dukeofdoom on 7/28/23, 7:27 PM
When I was growing up, basically no one had it. The rates were 1 per 1,000 or lower. So one or two kids in the entire high school. Now you can expect one in your class. Many of these kids are supper naive and vulnerable, just trying to fit in. One reason why the right is skeptical of what is being taught to them.
by kbos87 on 7/29/23, 2:28 AM
by m3kw9 on 7/28/23, 6:44 PM
by rafaelero on 7/28/23, 7:52 PM
Also, multiple twin studies show how parenting have negligible effects over life outcomes, so I am pretty skeptical of this theory.
by makeitdouble on 7/29/23, 2:17 PM
We let kids look at cars, poison signs, stairs and elevators and make them understand hos it works and why it's dangerous. Online threats shouldn't be different.
by rcurry on 7/28/23, 10:36 PM
by honkycat on 7/28/23, 7:48 PM
I will also ALWAYS point out that our parents could go to bars at 18 and actually had places they could gather socially without parental supervision before half-way through college.
They put kinds in child jail, tell them to behave or else, make them sit through hours and hours of shitty classes in un air-conditioned rooms with checked out teachers. ( note: this is not how the children of the wealthy experience school )
Once again, you can point to economic factors like the erosion of the public spaces, the massive over-building of suburb and road infrastructure making outside objectively dangerous, and outsourcing public spaces to corporate owned malls that were NEVER profitable.
by crtified on 7/28/23, 10:19 PM
A kid can play free as much as they like, but that doesn't parlay into success if that kid routinely goes home to unhappiness and imbalance in other areas of life.
by mseepgood on 7/28/23, 5:57 PM
by viburnum on 7/28/23, 9:54 PM
by carabiner on 7/28/23, 9:15 PM
by sourcecodeplz on 7/28/23, 8:50 PM
by thefz on 7/29/23, 8:28 AM
... Oh, and the compulsory XKCD link https://xkcd.com/1227/
by anon291 on 7/28/23, 9:59 PM
My children are at home with my wife (not school age yet). This is apparently abnormal now. So many people have expressed concern that our daughter is not in preschool or daycare. My own mother is concerned she hasn't started academic work like my niece and nephew (they're all around four and five). A neighbor has commented that we're pursuing an 'alternative' lifestyle just by having our kids at home. It's crazy.
Now back to play deprivation. Hot take: the play at preschool, etc is not the same as play with parents, family, and friends. At the end of the day, daycares, schools, etc are businesses (yes, even public schools) that need to protect themselves from liability, which means they are naturally going to promulgate the safety culture that we now know leads to all sorts of mental health issues for teenagers. To get around the issue of lack of play, they announce new activities for the kids. One preschool we were looking at bragged that they did a 'research project' with the children! Now, I'm sure research projects while sitting inside carry less liability concerns, but I'm not sure a preschooler needs that. But, this is the best business decision as they get the benefits (low insurance premiums and ability to get more revenue by enrolling more kids) while they outsource the problems (a teen's mental health issues are the parents problem).
We are lucky to have an active community and my wife and other stay at home moms take the kids on play dates basically every day. On the days they're not with friends, they're at one of the grandparent's houses. Over the summer, they've done things like gone hiking, gone fruit picking, zoos, museums, playgrounds, pools, etc with other kids. The best part is that, since it's not a professional environment, the kids get to do things like jump off rocks, fight with each other, fall of playground equipment, run down hills, climb tall trees, etc. Now of course, not all parents are like this, and some probably think my wife is negligent (I've seen many of these parents at the playground and they seem dreadfully boring). However, some parents allow their kids to play. On the other hand, I've never met a teacher or daycare worker that would allow these things. My carers growing up certainly wouldn't. I don't even blame the teacher; they're often watching 10+ kids at a time, and it's simply impossible to pay attention to a kid doing anything fun at that scale.
But, when you have a group of adult friends supervising children, what ends up happening is that the adults sit around having fun, while the children play, which is awesome. So many times I've seen one of the kids come up to the adults with a complaint about play, and the unvarying response from all the adults is "if you're not having fun playing, why don't you sit down and engage with the adults?" Sure enough, after you put it that way, every kid goes back to playing regardless of whatever slight initially sent them away.
We need to normalize being a child again, and we need to have an honest conversation about how to make that possible.
by jrochkind1 on 7/28/23, 8:45 PM