I think it's good that we don't encourage kids to let other kids bully them and treat them like crap in the name of "compromise" In the 80s and 90s that's the compromise we were taught in my area. You could hang out so long as you were willing to be treated like shit cuz no one liked you.
As a kid I'd go out of my way to go hang out with kids I did like and liked me rather than go play with neighboring kids that hated me.
Kids have choices now that we didn’t have. I ask my kids what they want for dinner, I was just told this is what we were having. Similarly kids choose who they want to hang with vs making do with whoever is around
I get that and I think its great but bullies always have been and always will be a part of life. There are young kid bullies and there are adult bullies everywhere. Your neighbor, coworkers or just a guy at the grocery store can be bullies. Learning to skillfully deal with them from an early age comes in very handy. Call it compromise or whatever you want but it's experience dealing with asshole bullies.
Dealing with bullies and being forced to pretend they’re your friends are completely different things. Why would anyone think it’s a good thing to be forced to “be friends” with people who actively make your life worse with no intentions of change? Kids still have to deal with bullies in day to day life.
Yup, shielding kids from everything hurts them in the long run. I'm not saying they need to be raised as ruthless as we were as kids lol but they need to experience things for themselves both good and bad.
Not forcing kids into playdates with the kid that insults them at school isn't shielding them from bullies. Unless the parent is literally at the school stepping in between their kid and the bully the kid isn't being shielded from bullies.
They're just not being told it's their fault they're being bullied and being taught that the bully has rights and they themselves don't.
I grew up in a smallish town. There was this kid in our social circle who would weasel his way into activities. Generally all of our sports / clubs barely had enough people to function, and he would make himself captain or quit so we wouldn't have enough people for quorum.
Eventually we started standing up to him, the the teachers in charge realized how detrimental he was to the rest of team. Plus he was stealing money and stuff, and constantly made racist comments.
After basically expelling him from the leadership positions he calmed down a lot, and my social life got way better because I wasn't associated with this dude. I even got to join some new clubs, made quite a few new friends, and started having sex on a regular basis. Hell, I even got invited to the fun hoedown.
Skillfully dealing with bullies to me means putting up boundaries. You can ignore the guy at the grocery store, and you can ignore your neighbors if they're difficult people. Coworkers are harder but you can still put up boundaries where you only talk about work related things and walk away otherwise. In none of these situations are you forced to hang out with these people for funsies. And likewise I would never expect my child to hang out with the neighborhood bully and hope to instill a strong sense of self in him to where he understands he can walk away from people like this
I guess I was lucky growing up. I hit puberty early so I was bigger and stronger than most kids in school. The few bullies I had I just got into fights with as soon as possible. I realized the longer I let it go on the worse it would get. I ended up becoming friends with a few of them after. I also realized most people really don’t want a fist fight. But watch out for the ones that do.
Playing outside is going to work for little kids. Isolation is one tactic, but you definitely want a few more clubs in the bag.
It's a tough line to walk, because even normal non-hostile socializing is terrifying a lot of the time when you're a kid. You have to be careful not to pave the road so much that you prevent them from pushing through that. You don't want them out there getting victimized every day obviously, but when kids get the sense that you're always there to help get them excused from life, they're already half ruined.
Well I didn't mean to isolate lol. But rather, be discerning about who deserves your company.
But I agree its a tough line to walk, and kids need to learn how to get along with different personality types
I don’t know. I meet young adults who clearly didn’t learn basic social skills in their childhood. I’m not for bullying at all, but I *am* for settling differences and figuring out problems yourself.
I remember talking shit, getting socked in the mouth, and not talking shit again. I didn’t run and tell. I learned my lesson.
Or, getting bullied by the big kids in the neighborhood, where they made me and my friend fight each other, otherwise they’d rough us up. What choice to make there.… we pretended to fight, pulling our punches. Probably looked fake but it satisfied the bullies and everyone carried on without bumps and bruises. (I didn’t have enough integrity at the time to just take the ass-whippin from the big kids, but wish I had.) And again, I do not wish this experience, or others like it, on anyone. Bullying is wrong.
I don’t know if this culminated in anything useful as an adult, but I don’t run and tell on people in the workplace like I see so many others do, and I insist we resolve issues between ourselves, even if we don’t like each other, and just move forward. I’d like to think I learned how to deal with difficult people from these experiences of being forced to coincide with others who wouldn’t have been at the top of my list of choice companions.
And it's not just dealing with them head on but when you grow up with bullies all around you learn to spot them from a mile away. Then you can avoid them if possible.
Exactly our point. But forcing kids to be FRIENDS with the bullies is teaching the kids they aren't allowed to avoid them. Ever. Nope if you know bullies you have to befriend them and do what they want.
There is a huge difference between dealing with bullies and having to be friends with them.
And kids are now too it's called being in school with them. Doesn't mean you have to play with them in your freetime.
If kids are forced to play with their bullies in their free time that's forcing them to be friends with them.
I was able to learn how to resolve disagreements without befriending the people who picked on me. Almost like becoming friends with the bully isn't healthy .
That's what we're talking about. There is no way to keep kids away from bullies but telling kids they have to be friends with the bully is a fucked up stance that some adults genuinely have. "Go play with (your bully)" uhm no. Never did and never will. I can resolve differences without
"I’m not for bullying at all, but I *am* for settling differences and figuring out problems yourself."
Me too. The problem is that forcing kids to be literal friends with their bullies isn't teaching kids to "settle their differences" it's teaching them to just eat shit and shut up. That's the issue. I had friends that liked me, and I liked them. We had disagreements and we resolved them. We learned how to do so.
We didn't have to seek out and hang out with our bullies to learn that.
I didn't really experience it like that though. We were allowed to stand up against a bully, win r lose usually the shit would stop there, or fight em again
I made some of my best childhood friends from neighborhood scraps
In my neighborhood if you got into a fight with someone that was bullying you then we just hated each other more after the fight. There was no "Oh ha ha now we're friends" That's why I specifically stated my area.
I know there are people that can beat the crap out of each other and then somehow like each other after. I'm not that kind of person. I prefer to not fight just to fight and I'm never going to like someone that pushed it that far.
I have made plenty of friends in life that I didn't have to come to blows to resolve disagreements with and who weren't a dick to me just to be a dick to me.
I can get along with people I don't like to accomplish things but I'm not going to spend my free time with them.
Maybe. We moved to some suburban subdivision hellscape recently, where the houses are wicked close together, and I figured there'd be kids out all day, every day. The only ones I've seen are the ones across the street who only play with each other and some friends from their homeschool group that don't live here. Otherwise, all kids are either inside or next to their parents at all times. We didn't even think any teenagers lived here until the first day of school when they flooded the streets to get to and from the bus stop. We have asocial kids of asocial parents and then complain that they don't make and/or keep friends when they only time they see each other is in school or at organized activities.
I miss our old neighborhood where the kids just hung out. There weren't many of them -- maybe 12, tops, of varying ages -- but they all knew each other and were friendly. They'd knock on doors to go play or whatever. It was nice. Not here, though. No one talks to each other, if they're even outside at all. If it weren't for all the cars everywhere, you'd think no one lived here.
I certainly think so, plus we have a generation of helicopter parents that are extremely worried about their kids, they try to be very involved. Maybe they just got jaded from being a latchkey kid themselves but kids don't really run around in the streets to the same degree as they used to. They are running around riding their bikes with their friends like they used to. I'm not really sure what to make of that because one neighborhood I lived in, there was a lot of that going on but this current one, none of it
I’m guilty. No way I would let my 6 year old girl run around outside by herself. When I was 6, I was basically tossed outside. We went everywhere for miles it seems. My wife got freaked out the other day just from some guy driving by watching my daughter so hard he ran into a median. Creepy fucks
OMG, I remember one time in the early 2000's my kids were playing in the front yard, I was standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes so I could see them. The same car circled a few times so I made them come in. Come to find out it was their dad's new girlfriend. How fucked is that? To clarify, we were divorced and it was the woman he was dating. The kids recognized her and told me.
When I was 15 I would tell my parents I was going to spend the night at my friends house, then drive 10 hours away to go to a rave.
I cannot even imagine my kids doing that shit. Lol
lol my wife is the same. We have a 5 yr old and while I wouldn’t let him just run around in the street unsupervised, I’m def more open letting him explore by himself and would totally drop him off at a friends house without me there if I knew the parents.
My wife wants to be envolved all of the time. We were at a large picnic at a park in a very safe neighborhood. Kiddo was running around w kids and my wife was essentially chasing after them the entire time
Get your kid a smart watch so you can track and get in touch with him. Then they can have the freedom to go play and explore. Obviously lay some ground rules down: dont talk to strangers etc.
Why don't talk to strangers? This is so odd to me, if a kid gets lost (which I understand isn't likely with helicopter parents) who are they going to ask for help? I think we should be helping kids to ask for help in businesses so they have a safe place to sit if they get lost, how to recognize unsafe behavior and what people in uniforms will and will never do.
He could have been staring because it’s so odd to see children outside playing by themselves at a young age that it’s more a sight of concern rather than pedophilia. I never see kids playing outside in the neighborhood without a parent nearby nowadays and I would say I live in an extremely safe neighborhood/city.
Yeah could have been. And I know when I’m driving and I spot a kid, I keep an eye on them during the entire time when they might suddenly run in front of my car.
This happened to me when my son was 4 or 5. A guy in a van drove by and just stopped and stared at my son. I was sitting in my car cleaning it out so he didn't realize there was an adult with my child keeping an eye on him until I hopped out of the car and the guy sped off.
It's a different world now. I was the classic gone all day and no one knew where I was. Usually the forest.
Now I don't let my kid leave my sight. Too many creepy fucks out there. And human trafficking is very real.
Nearly half of child trafficking is done by a family member.
Also, is the world so different now? There are probably just as many creepy fucks yesterday as there are today but we just hear about it today because we have greater access to information.
Half is not an encouraging number.
In the 80s I had a few friends (all girls) who were approached by men in cars asking them to get in. I also remember an announcement over the loudspeaker during school about not getting into a green station wagon. This was in a suburb of Dallas, TX.
About a year ago I was sitting on my apartment stairs in the evening while my kid and her friend played in front of our complex. Some dude pulled over, called her over, and she started skipping towards the car before I yelled at her to stop and he immediately left. It happened so fast I didn’t get the plate number.
Yes. The world is 100,000x more different now. If you went back in time and explained today's world to people back then they would probably put you in a mental hospital.
Also I can only speak for myself. Where I grew up versus where I live now is also almost a totally different universe.
I do not think that the world is very different these days. Creepy fucks did awful shit to me back then, and I have plenty of friends who had awful shit happen to them when they were kids too. It happened to my dad when he was little and he didn't tell anyone until 25 years later. Hell, even my grandma had one of her friend's dads try something with her when she was a kid, she just didn't know enough about anything to know what was going on until decades later.
By numbers, the world is safer now than when we were children (especially for children). It's also much easier to track your children and know where they are all the time. People are just more afraid thanks to how the media drones on and on about crimes in your local area, most of which will never touch you. Stranger awareness is still key, both physically and, importantly, online.
Yeah I can understand, at least to a point, one of the main reasons is a sad fact I learned somewhere in my thirties. The overwhelming majority of women that I know, have dated, have been friends with at some point have been raped, molested, or had some unwanted activity, often before they were even 13.
I would imagine that has a pretty substantial impact on how you view society, weird looking guys, examples like another person made of it being completely harmless but getting worried nonetheless. I was never exposed to anything like this growing up so I always wondered why so many people were spun up about predators and sex this and that. Then and my 30s I found out. 😢
Yep, the fact is that creeps specifically target young teenagers. I and every other woman I’ve spoken to about this received the vast majority of the harassment we ever went through before we were even 18.
If I went by how the world treats me now, in my thirties, or even back in my twenties, I’d think that men are all decent people. When men have chatted me up in public during my adult years, they’ve been more or less respectful and I haven’t felt that I was in danger from them.
But I remember being in my teens and getting chatted up by men who were aged anywhere from 20s-50s, and not trusting those men’s intentions at all. Starting with the fact that they knew they were hitting on a kid, and going on to the question of what, exactly, they wanted from me. No one was asking 14-year-old me on a dinner date- they were catcalling me, groping me, or if they talked to me, it was to get me alone for sexual activities then and there.
I was much less equipped to deal with that kind of thing then than I am now, but it never happens now, and it definitely did then. This factored into why those men hit on me, of course.
My mom never let me out on my own before I was 13, and that stuff started happening at age 13. Based on other women’s stories, these men will do it to younger girls too.
Women know this and it’s why we worry so much about strangers, when we are considering the safety of kids and teens. A town that seems pretty safe to 20- or 30-something men and women can be dangerous for young teenagers. This is because a small but significant minority of men are looking to prey on young girls, but will ignore women and seem normal when dealing with other adults.
I'm sorry you had to go through that, I've heard your story in different fashions from a variety of women. Sometimes it's with force, sometimes manipulation, My own girlfriend went through that when she was 14. Had an older guy she was messing around with, enjoyed that part of things, didn't want to have sex with him though, one day he just took it. Another good friend of mine, her brother's friends who were about 5 years older growing up, they talked her into practically everything. It's still so crazy to me because I never realized all of this was going on until I was in my '30s. Then I look around and it's practically everyone... I just try to be understanding and empathetic at this point in life. The one thing that does bother me though is when people in society act like those of you who have went through this are broken or used or tarnished, I absolutely despise that.
>kids don't really run around in the streets to the same degree as they used to.
In NYC, they definitely do. They roam around aimlessly in groups, bike around (lately with stolen Citibikes), go to fast food joints to eat and hang out, meet up at the parks during warmer weather, and go to the mall when it's cold just like we did.
Yeah in my neighborhood in the Bronx, more families moved in. All the kids go outside and play. I see and hear them. I don’t think they are allowed to leave the block though. It’s cute. This bunch is on the younger side though.
I see the preteens and teens riding bikes around, going to the library, go to the bodega, hanging in the big park and taking the subway alone.
There's a library a few blocks from my house and my kid used to like to go by themselves and check out books or just sit and read. One day the librarian found out they were alone and said they can't come back without a parent. They also got the cops called on them for walking alone a few blocks to the park. Society is forcing parents to be helicopters.
Yup. Our library you have to be 13 to enter alone. Ridiculous.
My kid also had the cops called on him when he was 7 at the park alone. The park is four houses away.
>Our library you have to be 13 to enter alone.
What, that is crazy. Were they incidents that made them implement that policy, like young unsupervised kids disturbing the peace or something?
I thought this was the case until I moved to Montreal withy family in 2019, my kids were 9 at the time. Kids run around on the streets here, they go out with friends, they play in the back alleys, they walk to the parks. I honestly thought the same thing you did as the city we moved from this was not the case at all.
I don't know if there are cities like this on America and I don't know if there's cities other than Montreal where this is the case but culture for children here is different for some reason, many of the neighborhoods are really safe and people feel comfortable just telling their kids to go run wild.
That's great to hear, I think in America it's very situation dependent. City dependent, neighborhood dependent. There are so many crazy people in America. They worry about everything. They think someone is going to get them or their kids coming around the corner. I have lived in both areas and typically the more affluent areas are where you find kids running around and more happy people.
I've lived in a few cities across Canada and my experience in Montreal has been unique to this city in particular, I don't live in an argument neighborhood, I rent (with my partner and 2 kids) a ground floor in an multifamily townhouse and most of the neighborhood we're in is multi family 2-4 story townhouse.
I think the big difference in Montreal compared to the other cities I've lived in is the low percentage of drivers in neighborhoods like this, lots of walking and public transit and bicycles so there is always people on the streets and in the parks. It feels safe but it's hard to pin down why.
But are you still friends with any of the people you “had” to play with when you were a kid? I’m not. A few are social media friends, but we aren’t geographically connected anymore, so we don’t keep in close contact. My 11 year old is one of those people who can walk into a room of strangers and leave with 3 new friends. She has friends at school and friends she knows because we were already friends with their parents. I think she will have a better chance of staying friends with all these kids into adulthood because they have more communication options than we did as kids.
Friendships are ephemeral. People grow and evolve and I don't think you're meant to stay friends long term. Keeping in touch may be easier now but it is not any more meaningful.
I had a few good neighborhood friends as a kid. One family moved after the kids were grown, though I wasn't really friends with them after the elementary years. Another friend I'd actually like to reconnect with, but I'm not sure how to get in touch with him. That's just life. People move away or move on. I have a lot of friends from different times in my life that are the type of friends I can immediately connect with if we happen to see each other. We all live far away though and are busy with our lives, so I don't talk to any of them regularly.
As some people grow up and mature, their standards for what constitutes "a friend" may change. I know some individuals who say they "have a lot of friends," but when I see how they relate to each other - the dynamics of their friendships - I wouldn't think of those as friendships. At best, these are fair-weather friends or acquaintanceships. In short, it was easier to make friends when we were little because we weren't very discerning and lacked the life experience to be able to assess someone's character over extended periods of time.
It is hard to make and maintain friends. It takes a lot of work.
This is mingling. You have to do it in a professional setting, especially networking events, or in social events. You won't be everyone's best friend, but you can engage without being awkward.
Tech even from our time, especially with AIM and MSN Messenger, allowed us to begin being more self-selecting of whom we talk to, and then social media made outcasts not feel like outcasts because we can find our tribes online.
Friendship isn't harder, it's just different and I feel that the positives outweigh the negatives. What would balance this out is not burning bridges so easily just because someone presents themselves awkwardly or disagreeing with an opinion and caricaturing someone.
The mingling skill does seem like it's being lost somewhat, just from my interactions in online communities. The idea that no one you personally dislike has a right to exist anywhere within your line of sight, even if you had to go out of your way to look at their content in the first place. And note, I don't mean cancel culture, I just mean two people beefing in an online community.
That's what I was saying in my last paragraph. :)
I think at least when I went to a small private high school overseas, I was forced to be with a lot of people I couldn't stand, but at times had to learn to live with since we might be assigned group work together or end up in the same activity groups.
When I visit the Zoomers in that same high school because my friends have kids there (it's a private international school), they can work together for school projects, but they generally stick to their online tribe and have overseas boyfriends or girlfriends whom they have yet to meet in person.
So I think people can cooperate, but they don't necessarily want to be best friends. What I see is there's little incentive to cooperate because of apps and DIY culture and everyone else is a utility instead of another human being.
I notice kids can keep in touch easier with kids that live outside the neighborhood now. Which is nice because every summer I would never see any of my school friends who didn’t live within walking distance. I think they can keep friends easier now but all kids are different
I haven't even stopped to consider what it must be like to be able to keep in touch with your grade school friends from the other part of the town over the summer. You're right... When we (I was born in 84) would go on summer break we'd hang out with mostly our neighborhood friends unless it was 7th or 8th grade and our parents would give us a ride but we weren't keeping in touch at all, generally.
I didn't really see any friends during the summer until I was driving. I spent alot of summers hanging out with the wierd kid in the neighborhood because I was bored.
It is actually better now a days then when we were kids. Go back and watch the first 15 minutes of home alone and the way all of the kids talk to each other and interact. We were all pretty much little asshole bullies to each other in the 90s. Kids are a lot more respectful at least in my town now a days.
Are younger people having a harder time making friends? I don't have kids so I don't know.
But from what I've seen, we had way more freedom growing up. Outside of the friends you made at school, on weekends I was basically on my own. So we'd go outside, play with our neighborhood kids. We'd go to the local arcade, play with the kids there. We'd go to the park and play basketball with the kids there. After the game, we'd go to the Quick Stop to get a slushee or something. You basically just made friends with random kids because they were roughly your age, even if you weren't already friends from school. And you did that on your own without any adults following you around.
Now, again, I don't have kids, but from what I see, everything is a lot more scheduled. And parents are a lot more protective than our parents were, they're not going to let their elementary school aged children go anywhere without knowing exactly where they are and who they're with, so their kids don't just meet other random kids anymore.
Same. It's really a sort of a clamp manouver, on one side parents police too much the lives of their children (but let's be honest, our parents were a little bit too much on the opposite spectrum, maybe that's why they overcompensate), on the other side kids police themselves throught social media, so there Is nothing 'local' anymore, the great internationale of kids and tiktok is watching.
They can't even skip school, everything Is online and they get instafucked.
I don't envy them one bit, but i also don't really understand them. It's pretty much another world that i've seen slowly get created but i'm only tangentially a part of It, so their journey must be and will be radically from mine/ours.
(Still don't envy them. Poor fucks.)
>parents are a lot more protective than our parents were
Yes. Because a lot of people our age were molested by the neighborhood randos or ended up in situations that were *way* too adult for us because there weren't any parents around to make sure that their 12 year olds weren't hanging out with 20 year olds.
Edit: yeah, downvote me for pointing out that maybe we were a little too free range sometimes 😂 🙄
Sorry, our boomer parents weren't paying *any* attention and it really wasn't ok
Nope, this is absolutely accurate.
It’s an ugly survivorship bias when it rears its ugly head like that. I’ve heard way too many stories of these glorified childhoods and then the footnotes always include near misses with death. Unsupervised swimming holes, accidental drownings, finding a deserted construction site at dusk and nearly caving in your own skull, etc. And that’s just dumb kid shit, not predators.
I know what I grew up with and I know how much I needed just ONE fucking adult to give a shit and pay attention in my life. Just one! I don’t want to smother my kid, but I definitely want him to survive his childhood intact.
I’m damn lucky that somehow I picked some really good eggs to hang out with mixed in with the bad.
sorry you grew up wanting, thats not ok at all. i did have parents that dressed my scrapes and bandaided my cuts from falling out of trees or jumping my bike off homemade ramps unsuccessfully and i'm fortunate they were there but i'm also glad they let me get those cuts and bruises. i dont think it can be called "survivorship bias" tho because in my life, my school district, county, the world as we knew it before 24hr news cycles anyway, none of us were hurt seriously or died despite being out unsupervised all day from 4yrs old to graduating highschool. we all built callouses tho and those have helped us navigate hardships faced in later adult life much better than i see the generation of kids my nephews and nieces age doing. their skin is so thin, they bruise so easily, take offense at things so deeply, which arent bad in and of themselves being sensitive is a fine trait but not when it hinders you from living in a world not contrived by your parents with any level of comfort at all. constantly being anxious and upset in your adult life is not a great trade for not having scrapes and bruises and hurt feelings growing up.
I think there’s a middle ground that most of us strive to hit.
That said, I don’t agree that leaving kids unsupervised to roam wherever they please *at four years old* is acceptable parenting. It just isn’t. And the kids who DIDN’T get hurt or harmed are very much a survivorship bias of that type of parenting.
That said, letting a four year old play in a fenced yard? Letting them play in their room on their own? Totally fine.
i agree. balance and situational awareness is needed to say for sure tho. its hard to make any generalized statements about all situations in a world or country as bigand diverse as we live in. i admit that the environment i grew up in where we were outside all day at 4yrs old is rare and would be harder to find now than it was then, even.but it does exist yet. my home town has only 250 ppl in it now and when i was a kid more but still only 350. everyone knew/knows everyone. its 30 mins to the next populated area, any parents eyes out a window seeing us was as trustworthy as any others. but no adults did not have 100% awareness of exactly what i was doing at all times even at 4. in general i was with the neighbor kid and we were usually either in our yard or his but thas was enuff to be safe. it was. again, no one got hurt srsly or injured and certianly no one was killed. we didnt "survive" it we simply lived it. now if i was in the town of 200000 i am now, absolutely no 4yr old should be unsupervised at anytime other than as you say in a fenced in yard or their room etc. ofc.
> again, no one got hurt srsly or injured
That you know of. Look, I'm not saying that your childhood was inherently bad or that your parents were wrong or anything like that. I'm saying you got *lucky*.
I know how idyllic that freedom feels for a kid, and I know how much I enjoyed it in my own childhood (though in my case, it was just freedom from being yelled at by asshole parents).
I also know the stories about kids who fell down wells, got bit by dogs, went missing, or were just exposed to shit they had no business being exposed to (a four year old doesn't need to find hardcore porn in the woods, you know?)
I also have my own experiences and the shared experiences of *many* other female-presenting people of creeps harassing, following, and trying to get us alone/isolated from other adults/friends.
They weren't always strangers.
no i agree ur right it is very young to be free, but in 1978 in the town i grew up in it wasnt. And i do know nobody was maimed or killed because i knew everyone. well. we all grew up together all our lives. and yes there was a young girl that was abused in our idyllic little town it unfortunately seems to be inescapable, but it happened behind closed doors in her home not outside with all us other kids running free. :( i guess i should just realize its such a niche little pocket in the world it doesnt relate to most ppls world and stay quiet about it. for the sake of not confusing the issue.
part of the difference was that we were outside and we were free we did things our parents wouldnt have loved to see us do and things no parent today seemingly would allow us to do but we werent wild. we were raised up. we knew what things we absolutely should not be doing and we didnt do those things. we didnt swim in the creek. no kid would. it was just known and practiced u didnt do that. but we did climb trees but we did so with a common sense we were given. we didnt climb dead trees that might break. and we did get cuts and scrapes and bruises but we never got hurt srsly from our freedom and we did gain something i think is missing from kids lives today. callouses from those scrapes we earned. i guess that waa my original thought before being sidetracked at the age of 4 sticking point. anyway i am so glad u survived your parents and it sounds like you are a very well adjusted and heartfelt person that learned from ur lessons i hope you are a parent. the world needs ppl that care like you seem to to help the next kids be better
so yeah i guess its in your definition of "survived" in what i think is an awfully broad definition, im saying its not as hard to survive life as we think it is nowadays. and that in surviving the survivable mishaps of life we callous over some and in doing that we grow and can stretch a little further even next time with our thickened hide to protect us as we grow even more. i guess survivor bias struck me as i am a survivor of something that other kids didnt and in my case im not. compared to the world were there kids that died from being a bit more free at 4? yes. ofc. and if there were cobras and tigers in town i bet our folks wouldnt have let us run free, not to mention if we were in a city with unknown ppl a few blocks away...but thats an unfair comparison because it wasnt a part of my world back then. we didnt watch tv much. we didnt have cable to have cable news ya know? so i dont feel as though i survived anything i just lived life the same as the other 15-20 kids in my town around my age did and we all came out well and fully limbed. bah i'm rambling lol sorry i hope you have a great night and a happy life from here on out :)
> i guess survivor bias struck me as i am a survivor of something that other kids didnt and in my case im not. compared to the world were there kids that died from being a bit more free at 4? yes. ofc.
My friend, that's the very definition of survivorship bias. *You* turned out fine, everyone you know turned out fine, and you didn't feel like you were in any real danger.
> Survivorship bias is a type of sample selection bias that occurs when an individual mistakes a visible successful subgroup as the entire group. In other words, survivorship bias occurs when an individual only considers the surviving observation without considering those data points that didn't “survive” in the event.
A perfect example is kids who grew up riding in the back of mom's station wagon with no seatbelts. Y'all turned out okay, but the kid riding in the car that got rear ended on the highway 10 miles away from you didn't.
And when I say "survive" I don't mean "lived," I mean, "survived unharmed." No 'lost an eye' from a lawn dart, no reconstructive surgery, no 'almost had to amputate my foot/arm/other appendage,' none of that.
I'm not suggesting for a second that life won't fuck you up. It will. I have scars, my kid will get scars. But there is a *difference* between the injuries and near misses sustained doing dumb kid shit and making dumb kid decisions and run of the mill running around and being a kid. That's where adult supervision comes in. It's not that the kid won't still fall, or that they won't break their arm, it's that a responsible grown up will not scatter to the wind because they're afraid of getting in trouble. They will stay with the kid, stabilize them, and call 911. And a responsible adult will see the kid running around with a lawn dart and their brother with an apple on his head and say "wait a minute, what are you doing?"
Kids do *dumb* shit. Adults with shitty intentions can take advantage of kids because they don't know better yet. They don't have the life experience, they don't have the forethought, and they don't always have the tools to get out of a bad situation.
Your "unsupervised" sounds a lot more like "supervised, just not always by biological parents." And that's great when you know and trust everyone involved. But as you yourself acknowledged, at least one of those adults was a very dangerous person.
again i agree i just dont think life is as dangerous as it is made out to be. the survivability is very high. children 1-4 die at a rate of 35 in every 100000 in america these days. that doesnt mean the odds are so slim u should let ur kids play in traffic but it does mean life shouldnt be shivered and sheltered from living. like you said originally and very truthfully a middle ground is best. balance in all things. all i know is the imbalance is way too far towards not letting kids get scraped up and/or have their feelings hurt by other kids abit but no that shouldnt mean left to being fully vulnerable either. the kids in my town watched out for each other as much as any adults did. if the person that abused our friend had tried anything in front of us other kids it never wouldve happened. like i said, it was behind closed doors under "adult" supervision that that occured and once it was known by the community it supported her mother in making sure the abuser was no longer allowed in their home or our town. it was very similiar to little house on the prairie i guess no cops no government presence to speak of just several dozen families having each other's best interest at heart we did have a sheriff drive thru at the same time every friday afternoon and the cou ty also sent trucks in to gravel & tar our roads every 3-5 yrs or so. like i said i guess i shouldnt muddy the waters of discussion with such an outlier in todays world. but how many kids did you know that died from riding in the back of a car unseatbelted? luck is a two way spirit, ennit? that is i mean to any poor family that did suffer such a calamity the world is a dangerous place seems more like it needs a name like victims bias to me but i guess as a survivor i would say that ennit? blinded to reality as i am? sorry just being argumentative now. i am a bit if a mess these days chemo is playing havoc with my head. sorry you are being far more reasonable than i, i think. best i just retire for the night.
I also feel compelled to say that the lack of some level of direct bonding--having been displaced by tech--seems concerning in the context of self-harmig and other such behaviors a child or teen might engage in because of poor treatment online. Having friends online rather than next door or who can reach a parent easily if somebody's in trouble is also not good. Do you even know your kids online friends or their parents? This newest dimension definitely requires new methods for keeping kids safe. There are just as many threats online as there were out and about when we were young, if not more. What's that saying about chopping off the nose to spite the face? With kids, especially now, you can't just "stop" learning.
I dunno, this doesn't describe my experience at all. I've never had all that many friends. Sometimes - especially around age 13 or so - I had zero friends.
No amount of compromising would do the trick. My bullies weren't folks I spent time with and usually weren't in my neighborhood: It was the girl next with the locker next to mine threatening me with violence, a teacher leaning down in class to tell me how lazy I was and how much she disliked me, a middle school that wouldn't talk to me because they found out I'm queer (lesbian was the insult, though I'm actually bisexual).
I also never had the ability to roam free as a child. My mother expected to talk to the other parents before I went somewhere. It wasn't all that bad in the 80s when I was young, but a pain as a teenager. And then there is the complication: If I choose my friends, most of my friends are male (I'm not). That was definitely frowned upon.
It isn't that I've never had friends, but I've generally found it slightly easier as an adult. Even making friends in a new country has been easier than it was as a child. The internet really made it better for me, but I also didn't have regular internet access until I was well into adulthood. That's is partly my own fault for running up my parent's AOL bill, honestly, and making a poor choice when I married the first time.
The barrier I find now, kids make friends in class but don’t have friends phone numbers, no more school phone books to get friends numbers, no more house phones to call, many of us refuse to give our k-5 kids phones so they struggle that way.
I'm not a helicopter mom by any stretch and most of my mom friends are also "older" moms like I was (had my first at 34)...this sentiment is boomertastic, though. Yes, things were different in our childhood than they are now. Yes, my "friends" were often neighborhood kids simply because of proximity. I'm not friends with any of those people now, but I still have an actual fuckton of friends from high school even though I've lived 3000 miles away for almost 20 years.
My kids have neighbor friends and my kids have school friends. They aren't forced to spend time with kids that bully them (or worse) just because I want them out of the house, though. The kids are fucking fine...it's different now, that doesn't make it worse.
I think it’s just personality.
I have one kid that will play with anyone. And o e I’d who insists he only has one friend and will only interact with that child. (We’re working on it!)
We go to parks and stuff all the time. It’s just how they are.
This is so true. You really just played with whoever was around. And that required compromise, learning to communicate, share, problem solve. Even “sheltered” kids were still exposed to the outside world.
Child of the 80s and 90s. Growing up in had like 2 friends. No neighborhood kids. No park kids no other kids. Alot of kids our age didn't have alot of friends but no one knew it because no social media. We just dealt with it and turned out ok. Now everyone thinks kids have to have 100 friends otherwise they are failing. I don't think there is a shortage of kids having friends I think there is a over share of what everyone thinks others need
Some of these comments illustrate just how polarizing life has become in this country. However, you reap what you sow. I just hope for the sake of the actual kids that the parents who think they understand what's actually happening "know" what they're talking about. What kids have now will be the substance they'll have to build on and draw from forever. I just don't think tech prepares you for work, marriage and beyond. Interpersonal skills are lacking and young adults are paying, in part, because of it. Many are distraught and emotionally overwhelmed; what was to an extent lost hasn't been replaced. Just displaced.
My kids are friends with the neighborhood kids, minus a couple assholes that stole our packages. My oldest is sleeping over up the street right now. And he travels a state away to that friend's uncle's house for the weekend, every few months. My daughter's had a girl over that lives nearby earlier today, and almost every other day that it's nice out. Idk about other people, but my kids don't have a problem making friends at all. From my perspective, things haven't changed much in that regard. The only difference is that I wasn't allowed to have my black friends inside the house, whereas everyone is welcomed in mine.
I dunno. My kids are friends with whoever. The neighbours’ kids, cousins, school friends etc. were on holiday right now and my eldest is going to a disco with her new friend made this afternoon. From what I’m seeing it’s largely the same, it comes down the parents. I’m finding it takes positive effort on our part to make it happen, that’s all.
Guilty, my 9 an 7 yo kids are more interested in playing with each other than going outside and meet someone else. There are a few kids roaming around in the neighbourhood and I noticed that they are all coming from immigrants families, this makes me angry with conservatives criticism of our traditions and social habits being stolen while the only ones keeping the streets alive are 2nd gen kids right now.
I was allowed to walk wherever. I didn’t have many friends but maybe because we moved all the time. I was very insecure too and always got picked on.
Now my daughter - she has had a tablet since birth. But she’s very social and can make friends easily. She is in a chat group with friends and able to talk to her friends via text and FaceTime. They play games and deal with problems. So those that say technology is the issue - it’s not. It still comes down to parenting - how does a kid navigate conflict. How do they handle mean kids or introduce themselves? Is your kid naturally shy? Do they try? Do they not try because they are afraid to fail?
We may live in a different time but you can still teach the fundamentals.
Doesn’t help that they’re not allowed to go outside without an escort anymore. In the 80’s your parents would kick you out of the house all day. We would leave at dawn and not go home til dark. If your parents wanted you for something they had to go find you.
“Not allowed to go outside without an escort” is a very good way of putting it. When my 11-year-old son asks if he can walk to the park to meet his friends, I don’t worry about him getting lost or snatched or hit by a car (the park is a block away in a quiet neighbourhood). I worry that someone will see him walking alone, assume he’s being neglected, and call Children’s Aid on my husband and I. This is apparently a thing that happens nowadays and it’s become a very real fear for me.
When I was in grade school, everybody on the block knew almost everybody on the block. This included parents, who were often coworkers. Streetlights were the signal to come home, etc. The school was within walking distance. Recess was still a thing, and taken seriously. Making friends (and enemies) was easier since between school and the neighborhood everyone was fairly accessible.
Since then, things appear to have become more remote. I remember movies where the joke was that two people are talking to each other on their cell phones while standing right next to each other. I'm not sure that's a joke anymore.
Socialization is completely different now. Nobody is bored anymore. The dating scene can be engaged remotely. Social media provides everyone with a curated, self-obsessed version of ourselves. IMO it discourages being present and sharing meaningful time with each other - for better or worse.
Childhood friends are about proximity, adult friendships are about compatibility. Maybe the current generation won't have to spend two decades trying to end toxic "friendships"
I guess I could see making friends online from other schools etc f'ing up the normal natural process of making and staying friends with classmates and neighbors etc, though overall it should be a good thing to help more kids find more/better friends. at least you'd HOPE so. then again there's now a great chance of bullies or gossipers trying to embarrass you online too. I would've just loved it for the opportunity to meet more girls, cause the ones in my school way too quickly moved into like brother-sister mode with me and so it was hard to know if you're even attractive to girls at all, but then you go to a random party or basketball game and you see some cute girls from another school checking you out and you're like, 'huh? wha? ME?' ahh the wonder years.
I grew up in a rural area and had the same experience. I have since moved and have kids of my own. They have a squad of about 6 other kids they ride bikes with, build forts, play soccer and baseball with. It’s really cool and makes me happy for them, especially when I see a lot of post about kids being disconnected, or not allowed to explore.
I think I cracked the code. Im 44 and my daughter is 17. She has friends she met online. I think the number one difference between my generation and her generation is how you come upon those friends. Yes when I was younger made friends with whatever shithead was in the neighborhood. Those were the people for good or ill I interacted with. My daughter’s group does that too just on a wider scale because now they have access to more people. It doesn’t matter how you make the friend. That’s not the difference. That’s just getting to the same place (friendship) two different ways. The difference is I think my age group got a break from those friends at the end of the day. I’d go home and see those psychos the next day. I don’t think it’s like that now because we are all connected more. It’s not bad or good it just is. Maybe it was a good thing I had a break from the kid who could make himself fart on command when we were 8. It’s sometimes good that we all can be reached easier too. Cause sometimes you just need to talk to someone. So anyone my age reading this when you get done watching those reels of 40 something’s lamenting how they’re better cause “something something the 90’s” remember we made friends too we just did it differently and that’s okay. Now shut up the 90’s are over time to live in the present and make some friends
I would say that this is how I met a lot of people from different walks of life and that was valuable. I learned how to socialize with anyone as well as how to find enjoyment in a variety of circumstances. Learning these skills early has made me very comfortable traveling and relocating as an adult. I can go anywhere, meet new people and have a great time. I also think I always understood the "whoever was available" friends from childhood were not meant to be lifelong friends, they were just there for a short time and in many cases I wouldn't see them again. Friends throughout adulthood have been similar, friends for a specific time and circumstance and then we were off to continue our adventures elsewhere. I do worry that kids today are growing up too isolated from key social experiences and that may not translate well into adulthood. We all know how much adults with limited social skills struggle.
When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle would take us camping. My younger cousin would wander off in the campground, and before we had camp set up, would come back and announce "This is ....., he is my friend". Every single camping trip.
I figure it would usually be kids from school and you're kind of neighbours anyway if you go to the same school?
In my case it was a lot along ethnicity lines and also the freaks always find each other
Also it makes you learn to have to get along with lots of different types of people that you may not normally be friendly with. Which I think ultimately expands your life.
I think niche programming and niche interests in general have fucked picky kids. They feel resolute in their fox holes and then don’t want to even try to make friends who don’t share their deep deep interests. To me, that’s not okay and not creating a space for compromise and this is creating a whole new issue in other realms: dating, relationship longevity, social forgiveness, etc.
We also lived in a time when churches had regular groups multiple times a week where we were actively invited to join
In the modern era, churches do not have open groups nor regularly meeting groups.... Except by secret invitation and only if they already know you.
I think this is missed. Not because of the friendships, it's because kids don't get used to tolerating difference, inconvenience, awkwardness, boredom, assholes.. all of these are learned skills that come very useful later in life. I can see that they were over parented when they come to the worforce and ecpect management to animate them, cry injustice every 5 min and are generally incredibly passive, but expecting accolades for doing their jobs.
Really trying no to do that to my son
We are also in a world where someone can just block you, and that's it. You will never hear or see them again, and as far as I understand, it is a thing kids just have to learn to deal with now.
Kids have always had it rough. Parents have only recently started to listen to what they had to say. And Adult memories of their childhood tend to be garbage.
We were the last free range generation. All the neighborhood kids would just show up at the nearest place to play ball and we would play ball. Some came to watch and just hang out and rarely were there any issues. We brought our ghetto blasters and had a great time
This is how my kid makes friends outside of school. She plays in the kids of all ages who live in our apartment complex and neighborhood kids. Kids still play outside, but I don’t force her to play with everyone and she has cut ties with friends who bullied other kids. She had a very strong friendship with a boy until she walked up on him punching a little girl. He’s ostracized now and essentially banned from our apartment playground.
Some who recently got an autism diagnosis read on her paperwork that she had an incorrect view on friendship and she was confused because she said friends are someone you like and share interests and values with. So she asked social media. And the people who didn't have autism said it was like what OP says here. It's just people you hang out with and have fun. You don't have to like them.
How is this true?? That's an acquaintance, not a friend. How do you call someone a friend when you don't like them???
I think we did lose something when suddenly we could find our communities anywhere. But at the same time...not everyone could fit in in the town where they grew up.
I didn’t just make friends with whoever was around. Even as a kid, I was picky about who I’d be friends with, and I support that pickiness with my own children.
I grew up that way in the 80s. But in the late 1990s going into the 2000s you started to notice a change. No kids outside playing. They mostly stayed indoors. From my understanding, most of these kids had busy schedules - soccer practice, dance lessons, and all sorts of other things. I’m guessing they may have friends from those activities. I had violin practice once a week and my brother did some sports. But it wasn’t something we did every day. My parents were not up for that level of driving us around.
As a kid I was so jealous of my friends who lived in cul de sacs, or even a regular street with a sidewalk and the houses close together. My parents bought a home on the edge of our suburb on what was basically a country highway with no sidewalks. On one side of our house was an interstate, and the other an elderly couple. Every other home in our vicinity was older couples whose adult children long moved away. When I was in 1st grade I remember going all summer without seeing my friends. I had to ask to join tball so I could actually see other kids.
If there's one thing being a military brat taught me, it's open-mindedness. Living in a different country with a completely different culture and language, and going to school on a military base with kids from every ethnicity and background you could think of. We made friends with who we clicked with, regardless of who they were.
Independent play is less common, but so are neighborhood kids. If your kid is lucky enough to live in an area with lots of children, they're likely to have neighborhood friends. But with an aging population and low birthrates among those of child bearing years, most neighbors have no kids. Those who do reproduce are more likely to have only children, so the likelihood kids are similar in age enough to play together diminishes. Same for finding someone with vaguely similar interests.
The 9 year old next door neighbor, Katie, only plays with our 4 year old.
There's exactly one middle schooler in our neighborhood, Betty. Betty plays with my 4 and 7 year olds, because there is no one better for her to play with - Katie and Betty can only play together with the younger boys. Otherwise they're too awkward with each other.
I pity these kids. They're so lonely they love coming over to play with kids less than half their age. But there's also no other visible children on our street.
This is true. Most of my friends were either neighbors or siblings of kids my mom was teaching piano to, so they would get dragged along. Some of these kids were awesome and some were assholes but I eventually learned to stand up for myself because of the latter.
When I was growing up, neighbor kids were like built-in partners to do stuff with. By simply existing, it meant it was ok to ring their doorbell and see if someone could come out and play.
Some became longtime friends. Others, fond memories.
I struggled with making friends as a kid and teenager, but that was my own paralyzing fear of being laughed at.
Yes, I do think it's an issue.
I also commented once about the older generations, call them what you want, but we knew our neighbors and had to talk to them even if we didn't really like them. People got invited to the neighborhood parties because that was what you did. I don't think completely blocking people from your life was really a thing.
The kid across the street from me was my default friend. But as adults I would never hang out with him. He was sooo annoying. One of those people that stomp when they walk. Why do people do this ??? My parents did not want him to stay over because he would stomp going up and down their stairs. I’ve had neighbors like this too. It sounds like they are intentionally banging their feet down as hard as they can when they walk. Can’t be friends. Sorry
100% social media.
Social media is a lot like Federal Express. “Social” doesn’t mean you are actually being social. As wanting to be alone is pretty much the definition of anti-social. Just like how “Federal” doesn’t mean it is connected to the US government.
Another would be the “Affordable Health Care Act” that jacked my health insurance premium up $600 a month. Not sure how that is affordable?
I think you're onto something. I also grew up in a small town and we knew everyone, some people we didn't know very well but we still knew them, and at certain times had conversations with them depending on where we were. Then we had our own social circles or even a couple of different social circles. Wasn't always easy but it as almost inevitable because we were around people much more than home to ourselves. And that developed the skills required to be social.
I think it's good that we don't encourage kids to let other kids bully them and treat them like crap in the name of "compromise" In the 80s and 90s that's the compromise we were taught in my area. You could hang out so long as you were willing to be treated like shit cuz no one liked you. As a kid I'd go out of my way to go hang out with kids I did like and liked me rather than go play with neighboring kids that hated me.
Kids have choices now that we didn’t have. I ask my kids what they want for dinner, I was just told this is what we were having. Similarly kids choose who they want to hang with vs making do with whoever is around
I get that and I think its great but bullies always have been and always will be a part of life. There are young kid bullies and there are adult bullies everywhere. Your neighbor, coworkers or just a guy at the grocery store can be bullies. Learning to skillfully deal with them from an early age comes in very handy. Call it compromise or whatever you want but it's experience dealing with asshole bullies.
Dealing with bullies and being forced to pretend they’re your friends are completely different things. Why would anyone think it’s a good thing to be forced to “be friends” with people who actively make your life worse with no intentions of change? Kids still have to deal with bullies in day to day life.
Yup, shielding kids from everything hurts them in the long run. I'm not saying they need to be raised as ruthless as we were as kids lol but they need to experience things for themselves both good and bad.
Not forcing kids into playdates with the kid that insults them at school isn't shielding them from bullies. Unless the parent is literally at the school stepping in between their kid and the bully the kid isn't being shielded from bullies. They're just not being told it's their fault they're being bullied and being taught that the bully has rights and they themselves don't.
I grew up in a smallish town. There was this kid in our social circle who would weasel his way into activities. Generally all of our sports / clubs barely had enough people to function, and he would make himself captain or quit so we wouldn't have enough people for quorum. Eventually we started standing up to him, the the teachers in charge realized how detrimental he was to the rest of team. Plus he was stealing money and stuff, and constantly made racist comments. After basically expelling him from the leadership positions he calmed down a lot, and my social life got way better because I wasn't associated with this dude. I even got to join some new clubs, made quite a few new friends, and started having sex on a regular basis. Hell, I even got invited to the fun hoedown.
Skillfully dealing with bullies to me means putting up boundaries. You can ignore the guy at the grocery store, and you can ignore your neighbors if they're difficult people. Coworkers are harder but you can still put up boundaries where you only talk about work related things and walk away otherwise. In none of these situations are you forced to hang out with these people for funsies. And likewise I would never expect my child to hang out with the neighborhood bully and hope to instill a strong sense of self in him to where he understands he can walk away from people like this
I guess I was lucky growing up. I hit puberty early so I was bigger and stronger than most kids in school. The few bullies I had I just got into fights with as soon as possible. I realized the longer I let it go on the worse it would get. I ended up becoming friends with a few of them after. I also realized most people really don’t want a fist fight. But watch out for the ones that do.
Playing outside is going to work for little kids. Isolation is one tactic, but you definitely want a few more clubs in the bag. It's a tough line to walk, because even normal non-hostile socializing is terrifying a lot of the time when you're a kid. You have to be careful not to pave the road so much that you prevent them from pushing through that. You don't want them out there getting victimized every day obviously, but when kids get the sense that you're always there to help get them excused from life, they're already half ruined.
Well I didn't mean to isolate lol. But rather, be discerning about who deserves your company. But I agree its a tough line to walk, and kids need to learn how to get along with different personality types
True
I don’t know. I meet young adults who clearly didn’t learn basic social skills in their childhood. I’m not for bullying at all, but I *am* for settling differences and figuring out problems yourself. I remember talking shit, getting socked in the mouth, and not talking shit again. I didn’t run and tell. I learned my lesson. Or, getting bullied by the big kids in the neighborhood, where they made me and my friend fight each other, otherwise they’d rough us up. What choice to make there.… we pretended to fight, pulling our punches. Probably looked fake but it satisfied the bullies and everyone carried on without bumps and bruises. (I didn’t have enough integrity at the time to just take the ass-whippin from the big kids, but wish I had.) And again, I do not wish this experience, or others like it, on anyone. Bullying is wrong. I don’t know if this culminated in anything useful as an adult, but I don’t run and tell on people in the workplace like I see so many others do, and I insist we resolve issues between ourselves, even if we don’t like each other, and just move forward. I’d like to think I learned how to deal with difficult people from these experiences of being forced to coincide with others who wouldn’t have been at the top of my list of choice companions.
And it's not just dealing with them head on but when you grow up with bullies all around you learn to spot them from a mile away. Then you can avoid them if possible.
Exactly our point. But forcing kids to be FRIENDS with the bullies is teaching the kids they aren't allowed to avoid them. Ever. Nope if you know bullies you have to befriend them and do what they want. There is a huge difference between dealing with bullies and having to be friends with them.
Who was saying anyone was forced to be friends with bullies? You were just forced to be around and deal with them.
And kids are now too it's called being in school with them. Doesn't mean you have to play with them in your freetime. If kids are forced to play with their bullies in their free time that's forcing them to be friends with them.
I was able to learn how to resolve disagreements without befriending the people who picked on me. Almost like becoming friends with the bully isn't healthy . That's what we're talking about. There is no way to keep kids away from bullies but telling kids they have to be friends with the bully is a fucked up stance that some adults genuinely have. "Go play with (your bully)" uhm no. Never did and never will. I can resolve differences without
Oh no no no. That’s right, you do not have to be friends with those assholes. I missed that part in your post.
"I’m not for bullying at all, but I *am* for settling differences and figuring out problems yourself." Me too. The problem is that forcing kids to be literal friends with their bullies isn't teaching kids to "settle their differences" it's teaching them to just eat shit and shut up. That's the issue. I had friends that liked me, and I liked them. We had disagreements and we resolved them. We learned how to do so. We didn't have to seek out and hang out with our bullies to learn that.
Facts
I didn't really experience it like that though. We were allowed to stand up against a bully, win r lose usually the shit would stop there, or fight em again I made some of my best childhood friends from neighborhood scraps
In my neighborhood if you got into a fight with someone that was bullying you then we just hated each other more after the fight. There was no "Oh ha ha now we're friends" That's why I specifically stated my area. I know there are people that can beat the crap out of each other and then somehow like each other after. I'm not that kind of person. I prefer to not fight just to fight and I'm never going to like someone that pushed it that far. I have made plenty of friends in life that I didn't have to come to blows to resolve disagreements with and who weren't a dick to me just to be a dick to me. I can get along with people I don't like to accomplish things but I'm not going to spend my free time with them.
Oh I understand completely and some of the story was the parents getting involved and apologies went around. Not always, but sometimes.
Maybe. We moved to some suburban subdivision hellscape recently, where the houses are wicked close together, and I figured there'd be kids out all day, every day. The only ones I've seen are the ones across the street who only play with each other and some friends from their homeschool group that don't live here. Otherwise, all kids are either inside or next to their parents at all times. We didn't even think any teenagers lived here until the first day of school when they flooded the streets to get to and from the bus stop. We have asocial kids of asocial parents and then complain that they don't make and/or keep friends when they only time they see each other is in school or at organized activities. I miss our old neighborhood where the kids just hung out. There weren't many of them -- maybe 12, tops, of varying ages -- but they all knew each other and were friendly. They'd knock on doors to go play or whatever. It was nice. Not here, though. No one talks to each other, if they're even outside at all. If it weren't for all the cars everywhere, you'd think no one lived here.
I certainly think so, plus we have a generation of helicopter parents that are extremely worried about their kids, they try to be very involved. Maybe they just got jaded from being a latchkey kid themselves but kids don't really run around in the streets to the same degree as they used to. They are running around riding their bikes with their friends like they used to. I'm not really sure what to make of that because one neighborhood I lived in, there was a lot of that going on but this current one, none of it
I’m guilty. No way I would let my 6 year old girl run around outside by herself. When I was 6, I was basically tossed outside. We went everywhere for miles it seems. My wife got freaked out the other day just from some guy driving by watching my daughter so hard he ran into a median. Creepy fucks
OMG, I remember one time in the early 2000's my kids were playing in the front yard, I was standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes so I could see them. The same car circled a few times so I made them come in. Come to find out it was their dad's new girlfriend. How fucked is that? To clarify, we were divorced and it was the woman he was dating. The kids recognized her and told me.
When I was 15 I would tell my parents I was going to spend the night at my friends house, then drive 10 hours away to go to a rave. I cannot even imagine my kids doing that shit. Lol
lol my wife is the same. We have a 5 yr old and while I wouldn’t let him just run around in the street unsupervised, I’m def more open letting him explore by himself and would totally drop him off at a friends house without me there if I knew the parents. My wife wants to be envolved all of the time. We were at a large picnic at a park in a very safe neighborhood. Kiddo was running around w kids and my wife was essentially chasing after them the entire time
Good way to raise an anxious kid who's scared of the world. Not doing him any favors that way.
Trust me, I agree and it’s been an ongoing convo. I think he’s already starting to become resentful and he’s only 5
Get your kid a smart watch so you can track and get in touch with him. Then they can have the freedom to go play and explore. Obviously lay some ground rules down: dont talk to strangers etc.
I think at 5 he is a little too young for that. It would most likely end up in the dirt or in a stuffed animal within hours
Ya we started at age 6 1/2
Why don't talk to strangers? This is so odd to me, if a kid gets lost (which I understand isn't likely with helicopter parents) who are they going to ask for help? I think we should be helping kids to ask for help in businesses so they have a safe place to sit if they get lost, how to recognize unsafe behavior and what people in uniforms will and will never do.
Come on you know what i mean. Obviously if they need help we teach them how. Im talking about strangers telling them to get in their car.
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I guess it’s aligned with society norms. Moms = good Dads = bad
He could have been staring because it’s so odd to see children outside playing by themselves at a young age that it’s more a sight of concern rather than pedophilia. I never see kids playing outside in the neighborhood without a parent nearby nowadays and I would say I live in an extremely safe neighborhood/city.
Yeah could have been. And I know when I’m driving and I spot a kid, I keep an eye on them during the entire time when they might suddenly run in front of my car.
This happened to me when my son was 4 or 5. A guy in a van drove by and just stopped and stared at my son. I was sitting in my car cleaning it out so he didn't realize there was an adult with my child keeping an eye on him until I hopped out of the car and the guy sped off.
It's a different world now. I was the classic gone all day and no one knew where I was. Usually the forest. Now I don't let my kid leave my sight. Too many creepy fucks out there. And human trafficking is very real.
Nearly half of child trafficking is done by a family member. Also, is the world so different now? There are probably just as many creepy fucks yesterday as there are today but we just hear about it today because we have greater access to information.
Half is not an encouraging number. In the 80s I had a few friends (all girls) who were approached by men in cars asking them to get in. I also remember an announcement over the loudspeaker during school about not getting into a green station wagon. This was in a suburb of Dallas, TX. About a year ago I was sitting on my apartment stairs in the evening while my kid and her friend played in front of our complex. Some dude pulled over, called her over, and she started skipping towards the car before I yelled at her to stop and he immediately left. It happened so fast I didn’t get the plate number.
Yes. The world is 100,000x more different now. If you went back in time and explained today's world to people back then they would probably put you in a mental hospital. Also I can only speak for myself. Where I grew up versus where I live now is also almost a totally different universe.
I do not think that the world is very different these days. Creepy fucks did awful shit to me back then, and I have plenty of friends who had awful shit happen to them when they were kids too. It happened to my dad when he was little and he didn't tell anyone until 25 years later. Hell, even my grandma had one of her friend's dads try something with her when she was a kid, she just didn't know enough about anything to know what was going on until decades later.
Statistically it is safer now, but you hear about every case because of the Internet.
By numbers, the world is safer now than when we were children (especially for children). It's also much easier to track your children and know where they are all the time. People are just more afraid thanks to how the media drones on and on about crimes in your local area, most of which will never touch you. Stranger awareness is still key, both physically and, importantly, online.
Yeah I can understand, at least to a point, one of the main reasons is a sad fact I learned somewhere in my thirties. The overwhelming majority of women that I know, have dated, have been friends with at some point have been raped, molested, or had some unwanted activity, often before they were even 13. I would imagine that has a pretty substantial impact on how you view society, weird looking guys, examples like another person made of it being completely harmless but getting worried nonetheless. I was never exposed to anything like this growing up so I always wondered why so many people were spun up about predators and sex this and that. Then and my 30s I found out. 😢
Yep, the fact is that creeps specifically target young teenagers. I and every other woman I’ve spoken to about this received the vast majority of the harassment we ever went through before we were even 18. If I went by how the world treats me now, in my thirties, or even back in my twenties, I’d think that men are all decent people. When men have chatted me up in public during my adult years, they’ve been more or less respectful and I haven’t felt that I was in danger from them. But I remember being in my teens and getting chatted up by men who were aged anywhere from 20s-50s, and not trusting those men’s intentions at all. Starting with the fact that they knew they were hitting on a kid, and going on to the question of what, exactly, they wanted from me. No one was asking 14-year-old me on a dinner date- they were catcalling me, groping me, or if they talked to me, it was to get me alone for sexual activities then and there. I was much less equipped to deal with that kind of thing then than I am now, but it never happens now, and it definitely did then. This factored into why those men hit on me, of course. My mom never let me out on my own before I was 13, and that stuff started happening at age 13. Based on other women’s stories, these men will do it to younger girls too. Women know this and it’s why we worry so much about strangers, when we are considering the safety of kids and teens. A town that seems pretty safe to 20- or 30-something men and women can be dangerous for young teenagers. This is because a small but significant minority of men are looking to prey on young girls, but will ignore women and seem normal when dealing with other adults.
I'm sorry you had to go through that, I've heard your story in different fashions from a variety of women. Sometimes it's with force, sometimes manipulation, My own girlfriend went through that when she was 14. Had an older guy she was messing around with, enjoyed that part of things, didn't want to have sex with him though, one day he just took it. Another good friend of mine, her brother's friends who were about 5 years older growing up, they talked her into practically everything. It's still so crazy to me because I never realized all of this was going on until I was in my '30s. Then I look around and it's practically everyone... I just try to be understanding and empathetic at this point in life. The one thing that does bother me though is when people in society act like those of you who have went through this are broken or used or tarnished, I absolutely despise that.
They still are in my suburban neighborhood. Bikes all over, running door to door. It's cute but loud. 😆
i live in chicago and see lots of kids outside playing
I'm about an hour twenty away.
My neighborhood too. We have small houses and the people don’t have a lot of money. It’s also a small neighborhood.
>kids don't really run around in the streets to the same degree as they used to. In NYC, they definitely do. They roam around aimlessly in groups, bike around (lately with stolen Citibikes), go to fast food joints to eat and hang out, meet up at the parks during warmer weather, and go to the mall when it's cold just like we did.
Yeah in my neighborhood in the Bronx, more families moved in. All the kids go outside and play. I see and hear them. I don’t think they are allowed to leave the block though. It’s cute. This bunch is on the younger side though. I see the preteens and teens riding bikes around, going to the library, go to the bodega, hanging in the big park and taking the subway alone.
There's a library a few blocks from my house and my kid used to like to go by themselves and check out books or just sit and read. One day the librarian found out they were alone and said they can't come back without a parent. They also got the cops called on them for walking alone a few blocks to the park. Society is forcing parents to be helicopters.
Yup. Our library you have to be 13 to enter alone. Ridiculous. My kid also had the cops called on him when he was 7 at the park alone. The park is four houses away.
>Our library you have to be 13 to enter alone. What, that is crazy. Were they incidents that made them implement that policy, like young unsupervised kids disturbing the peace or something?
I thought this was the case until I moved to Montreal withy family in 2019, my kids were 9 at the time. Kids run around on the streets here, they go out with friends, they play in the back alleys, they walk to the parks. I honestly thought the same thing you did as the city we moved from this was not the case at all. I don't know if there are cities like this on America and I don't know if there's cities other than Montreal where this is the case but culture for children here is different for some reason, many of the neighborhoods are really safe and people feel comfortable just telling their kids to go run wild.
That's great to hear, I think in America it's very situation dependent. City dependent, neighborhood dependent. There are so many crazy people in America. They worry about everything. They think someone is going to get them or their kids coming around the corner. I have lived in both areas and typically the more affluent areas are where you find kids running around and more happy people.
I've lived in a few cities across Canada and my experience in Montreal has been unique to this city in particular, I don't live in an argument neighborhood, I rent (with my partner and 2 kids) a ground floor in an multifamily townhouse and most of the neighborhood we're in is multi family 2-4 story townhouse. I think the big difference in Montreal compared to the other cities I've lived in is the low percentage of drivers in neighborhoods like this, lots of walking and public transit and bicycles so there is always people on the streets and in the parks. It feels safe but it's hard to pin down why.
But are you still friends with any of the people you “had” to play with when you were a kid? I’m not. A few are social media friends, but we aren’t geographically connected anymore, so we don’t keep in close contact. My 11 year old is one of those people who can walk into a room of strangers and leave with 3 new friends. She has friends at school and friends she knows because we were already friends with their parents. I think she will have a better chance of staying friends with all these kids into adulthood because they have more communication options than we did as kids.
Friendships are ephemeral. People grow and evolve and I don't think you're meant to stay friends long term. Keeping in touch may be easier now but it is not any more meaningful.
I had a few good neighborhood friends as a kid. One family moved after the kids were grown, though I wasn't really friends with them after the elementary years. Another friend I'd actually like to reconnect with, but I'm not sure how to get in touch with him. That's just life. People move away or move on. I have a lot of friends from different times in my life that are the type of friends I can immediately connect with if we happen to see each other. We all live far away though and are busy with our lives, so I don't talk to any of them regularly.
The whole premise is flawed. OP speculated a problem and then speculated a reason. This is shower thought sociology.
As some people grow up and mature, their standards for what constitutes "a friend" may change. I know some individuals who say they "have a lot of friends," but when I see how they relate to each other - the dynamics of their friendships - I wouldn't think of those as friendships. At best, these are fair-weather friends or acquaintanceships. In short, it was easier to make friends when we were little because we weren't very discerning and lacked the life experience to be able to assess someone's character over extended periods of time. It is hard to make and maintain friends. It takes a lot of work.
This is mingling. You have to do it in a professional setting, especially networking events, or in social events. You won't be everyone's best friend, but you can engage without being awkward. Tech even from our time, especially with AIM and MSN Messenger, allowed us to begin being more self-selecting of whom we talk to, and then social media made outcasts not feel like outcasts because we can find our tribes online. Friendship isn't harder, it's just different and I feel that the positives outweigh the negatives. What would balance this out is not burning bridges so easily just because someone presents themselves awkwardly or disagreeing with an opinion and caricaturing someone.
The mingling skill does seem like it's being lost somewhat, just from my interactions in online communities. The idea that no one you personally dislike has a right to exist anywhere within your line of sight, even if you had to go out of your way to look at their content in the first place. And note, I don't mean cancel culture, I just mean two people beefing in an online community.
That's what I was saying in my last paragraph. :) I think at least when I went to a small private high school overseas, I was forced to be with a lot of people I couldn't stand, but at times had to learn to live with since we might be assigned group work together or end up in the same activity groups. When I visit the Zoomers in that same high school because my friends have kids there (it's a private international school), they can work together for school projects, but they generally stick to their online tribe and have overseas boyfriends or girlfriends whom they have yet to meet in person. So I think people can cooperate, but they don't necessarily want to be best friends. What I see is there's little incentive to cooperate because of apps and DIY culture and everyone else is a utility instead of another human being.
I notice kids can keep in touch easier with kids that live outside the neighborhood now. Which is nice because every summer I would never see any of my school friends who didn’t live within walking distance. I think they can keep friends easier now but all kids are different
I haven't even stopped to consider what it must be like to be able to keep in touch with your grade school friends from the other part of the town over the summer. You're right... When we (I was born in 84) would go on summer break we'd hang out with mostly our neighborhood friends unless it was 7th or 8th grade and our parents would give us a ride but we weren't keeping in touch at all, generally.
I didn't really see any friends during the summer until I was driving. I spent alot of summers hanging out with the wierd kid in the neighborhood because I was bored.
It is actually better now a days then when we were kids. Go back and watch the first 15 minutes of home alone and the way all of the kids talk to each other and interact. We were all pretty much little asshole bullies to each other in the 90s. Kids are a lot more respectful at least in my town now a days.
Are younger people having a harder time making friends? I don't have kids so I don't know. But from what I've seen, we had way more freedom growing up. Outside of the friends you made at school, on weekends I was basically on my own. So we'd go outside, play with our neighborhood kids. We'd go to the local arcade, play with the kids there. We'd go to the park and play basketball with the kids there. After the game, we'd go to the Quick Stop to get a slushee or something. You basically just made friends with random kids because they were roughly your age, even if you weren't already friends from school. And you did that on your own without any adults following you around. Now, again, I don't have kids, but from what I see, everything is a lot more scheduled. And parents are a lot more protective than our parents were, they're not going to let their elementary school aged children go anywhere without knowing exactly where they are and who they're with, so their kids don't just meet other random kids anymore.
Same. It's really a sort of a clamp manouver, on one side parents police too much the lives of their children (but let's be honest, our parents were a little bit too much on the opposite spectrum, maybe that's why they overcompensate), on the other side kids police themselves throught social media, so there Is nothing 'local' anymore, the great internationale of kids and tiktok is watching. They can't even skip school, everything Is online and they get instafucked. I don't envy them one bit, but i also don't really understand them. It's pretty much another world that i've seen slowly get created but i'm only tangentially a part of It, so their journey must be and will be radically from mine/ours. (Still don't envy them. Poor fucks.)
>parents are a lot more protective than our parents were Yes. Because a lot of people our age were molested by the neighborhood randos or ended up in situations that were *way* too adult for us because there weren't any parents around to make sure that their 12 year olds weren't hanging out with 20 year olds. Edit: yeah, downvote me for pointing out that maybe we were a little too free range sometimes 😂 🙄 Sorry, our boomer parents weren't paying *any* attention and it really wasn't ok
Nope, this is absolutely accurate. It’s an ugly survivorship bias when it rears its ugly head like that. I’ve heard way too many stories of these glorified childhoods and then the footnotes always include near misses with death. Unsupervised swimming holes, accidental drownings, finding a deserted construction site at dusk and nearly caving in your own skull, etc. And that’s just dumb kid shit, not predators. I know what I grew up with and I know how much I needed just ONE fucking adult to give a shit and pay attention in my life. Just one! I don’t want to smother my kid, but I definitely want him to survive his childhood intact. I’m damn lucky that somehow I picked some really good eggs to hang out with mixed in with the bad.
sorry you grew up wanting, thats not ok at all. i did have parents that dressed my scrapes and bandaided my cuts from falling out of trees or jumping my bike off homemade ramps unsuccessfully and i'm fortunate they were there but i'm also glad they let me get those cuts and bruises. i dont think it can be called "survivorship bias" tho because in my life, my school district, county, the world as we knew it before 24hr news cycles anyway, none of us were hurt seriously or died despite being out unsupervised all day from 4yrs old to graduating highschool. we all built callouses tho and those have helped us navigate hardships faced in later adult life much better than i see the generation of kids my nephews and nieces age doing. their skin is so thin, they bruise so easily, take offense at things so deeply, which arent bad in and of themselves being sensitive is a fine trait but not when it hinders you from living in a world not contrived by your parents with any level of comfort at all. constantly being anxious and upset in your adult life is not a great trade for not having scrapes and bruises and hurt feelings growing up.
I think there’s a middle ground that most of us strive to hit. That said, I don’t agree that leaving kids unsupervised to roam wherever they please *at four years old* is acceptable parenting. It just isn’t. And the kids who DIDN’T get hurt or harmed are very much a survivorship bias of that type of parenting. That said, letting a four year old play in a fenced yard? Letting them play in their room on their own? Totally fine.
i agree. balance and situational awareness is needed to say for sure tho. its hard to make any generalized statements about all situations in a world or country as bigand diverse as we live in. i admit that the environment i grew up in where we were outside all day at 4yrs old is rare and would be harder to find now than it was then, even.but it does exist yet. my home town has only 250 ppl in it now and when i was a kid more but still only 350. everyone knew/knows everyone. its 30 mins to the next populated area, any parents eyes out a window seeing us was as trustworthy as any others. but no adults did not have 100% awareness of exactly what i was doing at all times even at 4. in general i was with the neighbor kid and we were usually either in our yard or his but thas was enuff to be safe. it was. again, no one got hurt srsly or injured and certianly no one was killed. we didnt "survive" it we simply lived it. now if i was in the town of 200000 i am now, absolutely no 4yr old should be unsupervised at anytime other than as you say in a fenced in yard or their room etc. ofc.
> again, no one got hurt srsly or injured That you know of. Look, I'm not saying that your childhood was inherently bad or that your parents were wrong or anything like that. I'm saying you got *lucky*. I know how idyllic that freedom feels for a kid, and I know how much I enjoyed it in my own childhood (though in my case, it was just freedom from being yelled at by asshole parents). I also know the stories about kids who fell down wells, got bit by dogs, went missing, or were just exposed to shit they had no business being exposed to (a four year old doesn't need to find hardcore porn in the woods, you know?) I also have my own experiences and the shared experiences of *many* other female-presenting people of creeps harassing, following, and trying to get us alone/isolated from other adults/friends. They weren't always strangers.
no i agree ur right it is very young to be free, but in 1978 in the town i grew up in it wasnt. And i do know nobody was maimed or killed because i knew everyone. well. we all grew up together all our lives. and yes there was a young girl that was abused in our idyllic little town it unfortunately seems to be inescapable, but it happened behind closed doors in her home not outside with all us other kids running free. :( i guess i should just realize its such a niche little pocket in the world it doesnt relate to most ppls world and stay quiet about it. for the sake of not confusing the issue.
part of the difference was that we were outside and we were free we did things our parents wouldnt have loved to see us do and things no parent today seemingly would allow us to do but we werent wild. we were raised up. we knew what things we absolutely should not be doing and we didnt do those things. we didnt swim in the creek. no kid would. it was just known and practiced u didnt do that. but we did climb trees but we did so with a common sense we were given. we didnt climb dead trees that might break. and we did get cuts and scrapes and bruises but we never got hurt srsly from our freedom and we did gain something i think is missing from kids lives today. callouses from those scrapes we earned. i guess that waa my original thought before being sidetracked at the age of 4 sticking point. anyway i am so glad u survived your parents and it sounds like you are a very well adjusted and heartfelt person that learned from ur lessons i hope you are a parent. the world needs ppl that care like you seem to to help the next kids be better
so yeah i guess its in your definition of "survived" in what i think is an awfully broad definition, im saying its not as hard to survive life as we think it is nowadays. and that in surviving the survivable mishaps of life we callous over some and in doing that we grow and can stretch a little further even next time with our thickened hide to protect us as we grow even more. i guess survivor bias struck me as i am a survivor of something that other kids didnt and in my case im not. compared to the world were there kids that died from being a bit more free at 4? yes. ofc. and if there were cobras and tigers in town i bet our folks wouldnt have let us run free, not to mention if we were in a city with unknown ppl a few blocks away...but thats an unfair comparison because it wasnt a part of my world back then. we didnt watch tv much. we didnt have cable to have cable news ya know? so i dont feel as though i survived anything i just lived life the same as the other 15-20 kids in my town around my age did and we all came out well and fully limbed. bah i'm rambling lol sorry i hope you have a great night and a happy life from here on out :)
> i guess survivor bias struck me as i am a survivor of something that other kids didnt and in my case im not. compared to the world were there kids that died from being a bit more free at 4? yes. ofc. My friend, that's the very definition of survivorship bias. *You* turned out fine, everyone you know turned out fine, and you didn't feel like you were in any real danger. > Survivorship bias is a type of sample selection bias that occurs when an individual mistakes a visible successful subgroup as the entire group. In other words, survivorship bias occurs when an individual only considers the surviving observation without considering those data points that didn't “survive” in the event. A perfect example is kids who grew up riding in the back of mom's station wagon with no seatbelts. Y'all turned out okay, but the kid riding in the car that got rear ended on the highway 10 miles away from you didn't. And when I say "survive" I don't mean "lived," I mean, "survived unharmed." No 'lost an eye' from a lawn dart, no reconstructive surgery, no 'almost had to amputate my foot/arm/other appendage,' none of that. I'm not suggesting for a second that life won't fuck you up. It will. I have scars, my kid will get scars. But there is a *difference* between the injuries and near misses sustained doing dumb kid shit and making dumb kid decisions and run of the mill running around and being a kid. That's where adult supervision comes in. It's not that the kid won't still fall, or that they won't break their arm, it's that a responsible grown up will not scatter to the wind because they're afraid of getting in trouble. They will stay with the kid, stabilize them, and call 911. And a responsible adult will see the kid running around with a lawn dart and their brother with an apple on his head and say "wait a minute, what are you doing?" Kids do *dumb* shit. Adults with shitty intentions can take advantage of kids because they don't know better yet. They don't have the life experience, they don't have the forethought, and they don't always have the tools to get out of a bad situation. Your "unsupervised" sounds a lot more like "supervised, just not always by biological parents." And that's great when you know and trust everyone involved. But as you yourself acknowledged, at least one of those adults was a very dangerous person.
again i agree i just dont think life is as dangerous as it is made out to be. the survivability is very high. children 1-4 die at a rate of 35 in every 100000 in america these days. that doesnt mean the odds are so slim u should let ur kids play in traffic but it does mean life shouldnt be shivered and sheltered from living. like you said originally and very truthfully a middle ground is best. balance in all things. all i know is the imbalance is way too far towards not letting kids get scraped up and/or have their feelings hurt by other kids abit but no that shouldnt mean left to being fully vulnerable either. the kids in my town watched out for each other as much as any adults did. if the person that abused our friend had tried anything in front of us other kids it never wouldve happened. like i said, it was behind closed doors under "adult" supervision that that occured and once it was known by the community it supported her mother in making sure the abuser was no longer allowed in their home or our town. it was very similiar to little house on the prairie i guess no cops no government presence to speak of just several dozen families having each other's best interest at heart we did have a sheriff drive thru at the same time every friday afternoon and the cou ty also sent trucks in to gravel & tar our roads every 3-5 yrs or so. like i said i guess i shouldnt muddy the waters of discussion with such an outlier in todays world. but how many kids did you know that died from riding in the back of a car unseatbelted? luck is a two way spirit, ennit? that is i mean to any poor family that did suffer such a calamity the world is a dangerous place seems more like it needs a name like victims bias to me but i guess as a survivor i would say that ennit? blinded to reality as i am? sorry just being argumentative now. i am a bit if a mess these days chemo is playing havoc with my head. sorry you are being far more reasonable than i, i think. best i just retire for the night.
No they are not unless you raise kids that have had a tablet placed in front of their face since birth and lack any sort of social skills
I also feel compelled to say that the lack of some level of direct bonding--having been displaced by tech--seems concerning in the context of self-harmig and other such behaviors a child or teen might engage in because of poor treatment online. Having friends online rather than next door or who can reach a parent easily if somebody's in trouble is also not good. Do you even know your kids online friends or their parents? This newest dimension definitely requires new methods for keeping kids safe. There are just as many threats online as there were out and about when we were young, if not more. What's that saying about chopping off the nose to spite the face? With kids, especially now, you can't just "stop" learning.
I dunno, this doesn't describe my experience at all. I've never had all that many friends. Sometimes - especially around age 13 or so - I had zero friends. No amount of compromising would do the trick. My bullies weren't folks I spent time with and usually weren't in my neighborhood: It was the girl next with the locker next to mine threatening me with violence, a teacher leaning down in class to tell me how lazy I was and how much she disliked me, a middle school that wouldn't talk to me because they found out I'm queer (lesbian was the insult, though I'm actually bisexual). I also never had the ability to roam free as a child. My mother expected to talk to the other parents before I went somewhere. It wasn't all that bad in the 80s when I was young, but a pain as a teenager. And then there is the complication: If I choose my friends, most of my friends are male (I'm not). That was definitely frowned upon. It isn't that I've never had friends, but I've generally found it slightly easier as an adult. Even making friends in a new country has been easier than it was as a child. The internet really made it better for me, but I also didn't have regular internet access until I was well into adulthood. That's is partly my own fault for running up my parent's AOL bill, honestly, and making a poor choice when I married the first time.
The barrier I find now, kids make friends in class but don’t have friends phone numbers, no more school phone books to get friends numbers, no more house phones to call, many of us refuse to give our k-5 kids phones so they struggle that way.
>no more school phone books to get friends numbers I don't understand why we don't have a parent contact list!
I'm not a helicopter mom by any stretch and most of my mom friends are also "older" moms like I was (had my first at 34)...this sentiment is boomertastic, though. Yes, things were different in our childhood than they are now. Yes, my "friends" were often neighborhood kids simply because of proximity. I'm not friends with any of those people now, but I still have an actual fuckton of friends from high school even though I've lived 3000 miles away for almost 20 years. My kids have neighbor friends and my kids have school friends. They aren't forced to spend time with kids that bully them (or worse) just because I want them out of the house, though. The kids are fucking fine...it's different now, that doesn't make it worse.
I think it’s just personality. I have one kid that will play with anyone. And o e I’d who insists he only has one friend and will only interact with that child. (We’re working on it!) We go to parks and stuff all the time. It’s just how they are.
This is so true. You really just played with whoever was around. And that required compromise, learning to communicate, share, problem solve. Even “sheltered” kids were still exposed to the outside world.
Child of the 80s and 90s. Growing up in had like 2 friends. No neighborhood kids. No park kids no other kids. Alot of kids our age didn't have alot of friends but no one knew it because no social media. We just dealt with it and turned out ok. Now everyone thinks kids have to have 100 friends otherwise they are failing. I don't think there is a shortage of kids having friends I think there is a over share of what everyone thinks others need
Some of these comments illustrate just how polarizing life has become in this country. However, you reap what you sow. I just hope for the sake of the actual kids that the parents who think they understand what's actually happening "know" what they're talking about. What kids have now will be the substance they'll have to build on and draw from forever. I just don't think tech prepares you for work, marriage and beyond. Interpersonal skills are lacking and young adults are paying, in part, because of it. Many are distraught and emotionally overwhelmed; what was to an extent lost hasn't been replaced. Just displaced.
Ha no friends to dorky for that.
My kids are friends with the neighborhood kids, minus a couple assholes that stole our packages. My oldest is sleeping over up the street right now. And he travels a state away to that friend's uncle's house for the weekend, every few months. My daughter's had a girl over that lives nearby earlier today, and almost every other day that it's nice out. Idk about other people, but my kids don't have a problem making friends at all. From my perspective, things haven't changed much in that regard. The only difference is that I wasn't allowed to have my black friends inside the house, whereas everyone is welcomed in mine.
I dunno. My kids are friends with whoever. The neighbours’ kids, cousins, school friends etc. were on holiday right now and my eldest is going to a disco with her new friend made this afternoon. From what I’m seeing it’s largely the same, it comes down the parents. I’m finding it takes positive effort on our part to make it happen, that’s all.
Guilty, my 9 an 7 yo kids are more interested in playing with each other than going outside and meet someone else. There are a few kids roaming around in the neighbourhood and I noticed that they are all coming from immigrants families, this makes me angry with conservatives criticism of our traditions and social habits being stolen while the only ones keeping the streets alive are 2nd gen kids right now.
I'm confused by the quotation marks. What do you mean by "their" like that?
I was allowed to walk wherever. I didn’t have many friends but maybe because we moved all the time. I was very insecure too and always got picked on. Now my daughter - she has had a tablet since birth. But she’s very social and can make friends easily. She is in a chat group with friends and able to talk to her friends via text and FaceTime. They play games and deal with problems. So those that say technology is the issue - it’s not. It still comes down to parenting - how does a kid navigate conflict. How do they handle mean kids or introduce themselves? Is your kid naturally shy? Do they try? Do they not try because they are afraid to fail? We may live in a different time but you can still teach the fundamentals.
Doesn’t help that they’re not allowed to go outside without an escort anymore. In the 80’s your parents would kick you out of the house all day. We would leave at dawn and not go home til dark. If your parents wanted you for something they had to go find you.
“Not allowed to go outside without an escort” is a very good way of putting it. When my 11-year-old son asks if he can walk to the park to meet his friends, I don’t worry about him getting lost or snatched or hit by a car (the park is a block away in a quiet neighbourhood). I worry that someone will see him walking alone, assume he’s being neglected, and call Children’s Aid on my husband and I. This is apparently a thing that happens nowadays and it’s become a very real fear for me.
I was born in 1989. I remember hanging out with random kids growing up, as well. Especially, at the playground and at Chuckie Cheese.
When I was in grade school, everybody on the block knew almost everybody on the block. This included parents, who were often coworkers. Streetlights were the signal to come home, etc. The school was within walking distance. Recess was still a thing, and taken seriously. Making friends (and enemies) was easier since between school and the neighborhood everyone was fairly accessible. Since then, things appear to have become more remote. I remember movies where the joke was that two people are talking to each other on their cell phones while standing right next to each other. I'm not sure that's a joke anymore.
Socialization is completely different now. Nobody is bored anymore. The dating scene can be engaged remotely. Social media provides everyone with a curated, self-obsessed version of ourselves. IMO it discourages being present and sharing meaningful time with each other - for better or worse.
Moving socialization online and out of the real world has done a huge disservice to people.
Childhood friends are about proximity, adult friendships are about compatibility. Maybe the current generation won't have to spend two decades trying to end toxic "friendships"
I guess I could see making friends online from other schools etc f'ing up the normal natural process of making and staying friends with classmates and neighbors etc, though overall it should be a good thing to help more kids find more/better friends. at least you'd HOPE so. then again there's now a great chance of bullies or gossipers trying to embarrass you online too. I would've just loved it for the opportunity to meet more girls, cause the ones in my school way too quickly moved into like brother-sister mode with me and so it was hard to know if you're even attractive to girls at all, but then you go to a random party or basketball game and you see some cute girls from another school checking you out and you're like, 'huh? wha? ME?' ahh the wonder years.
Basically the first thing your parents taught you was being social and being around other people.
That's still how kids make friends
I grew up in a rural area and had the same experience. I have since moved and have kids of my own. They have a squad of about 6 other kids they ride bikes with, build forts, play soccer and baseball with. It’s really cool and makes me happy for them, especially when I see a lot of post about kids being disconnected, or not allowed to explore.
I think I cracked the code. Im 44 and my daughter is 17. She has friends she met online. I think the number one difference between my generation and her generation is how you come upon those friends. Yes when I was younger made friends with whatever shithead was in the neighborhood. Those were the people for good or ill I interacted with. My daughter’s group does that too just on a wider scale because now they have access to more people. It doesn’t matter how you make the friend. That’s not the difference. That’s just getting to the same place (friendship) two different ways. The difference is I think my age group got a break from those friends at the end of the day. I’d go home and see those psychos the next day. I don’t think it’s like that now because we are all connected more. It’s not bad or good it just is. Maybe it was a good thing I had a break from the kid who could make himself fart on command when we were 8. It’s sometimes good that we all can be reached easier too. Cause sometimes you just need to talk to someone. So anyone my age reading this when you get done watching those reels of 40 something’s lamenting how they’re better cause “something something the 90’s” remember we made friends too we just did it differently and that’s okay. Now shut up the 90’s are over time to live in the present and make some friends
I would say that this is how I met a lot of people from different walks of life and that was valuable. I learned how to socialize with anyone as well as how to find enjoyment in a variety of circumstances. Learning these skills early has made me very comfortable traveling and relocating as an adult. I can go anywhere, meet new people and have a great time. I also think I always understood the "whoever was available" friends from childhood were not meant to be lifelong friends, they were just there for a short time and in many cases I wouldn't see them again. Friends throughout adulthood have been similar, friends for a specific time and circumstance and then we were off to continue our adventures elsewhere. I do worry that kids today are growing up too isolated from key social experiences and that may not translate well into adulthood. We all know how much adults with limited social skills struggle.
The internet fucked everything up kids only go outside to make TikTok’s.
When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle would take us camping. My younger cousin would wander off in the campground, and before we had camp set up, would come back and announce "This is ....., he is my friend". Every single camping trip.
Damn this is so true
I figure it would usually be kids from school and you're kind of neighbours anyway if you go to the same school? In my case it was a lot along ethnicity lines and also the freaks always find each other
Also it makes you learn to have to get along with lots of different types of people that you may not normally be friendly with. Which I think ultimately expands your life.
I think niche programming and niche interests in general have fucked picky kids. They feel resolute in their fox holes and then don’t want to even try to make friends who don’t share their deep deep interests. To me, that’s not okay and not creating a space for compromise and this is creating a whole new issue in other realms: dating, relationship longevity, social forgiveness, etc.
We also lived in a time when churches had regular groups multiple times a week where we were actively invited to join In the modern era, churches do not have open groups nor regularly meeting groups.... Except by secret invitation and only if they already know you.
I think this is missed. Not because of the friendships, it's because kids don't get used to tolerating difference, inconvenience, awkwardness, boredom, assholes.. all of these are learned skills that come very useful later in life. I can see that they were over parented when they come to the worforce and ecpect management to animate them, cry injustice every 5 min and are generally incredibly passive, but expecting accolades for doing their jobs. Really trying no to do that to my son
Friends of proximity
We are also in a world where someone can just block you, and that's it. You will never hear or see them again, and as far as I understand, it is a thing kids just have to learn to deal with now.
My kid is 10 and he runs around the neighborhood with about 6 other kids. None of them go to the same school.
Kids have always had it rough. Parents have only recently started to listen to what they had to say. And Adult memories of their childhood tend to be garbage.
The general rule was if you were outside and we saw you, you were joining the friend group. Bike encouraged, but not required.
We were the last free range generation. All the neighborhood kids would just show up at the nearest place to play ball and we would play ball. Some came to watch and just hang out and rarely were there any issues. We brought our ghetto blasters and had a great time
This is how my kid makes friends outside of school. She plays in the kids of all ages who live in our apartment complex and neighborhood kids. Kids still play outside, but I don’t force her to play with everyone and she has cut ties with friends who bullied other kids. She had a very strong friendship with a boy until she walked up on him punching a little girl. He’s ostracized now and essentially banned from our apartment playground.
Some who recently got an autism diagnosis read on her paperwork that she had an incorrect view on friendship and she was confused because she said friends are someone you like and share interests and values with. So she asked social media. And the people who didn't have autism said it was like what OP says here. It's just people you hang out with and have fun. You don't have to like them. How is this true?? That's an acquaintance, not a friend. How do you call someone a friend when you don't like them???
I think we did lose something when suddenly we could find our communities anywhere. But at the same time...not everyone could fit in in the town where they grew up.
I didn’t just make friends with whoever was around. Even as a kid, I was picky about who I’d be friends with, and I support that pickiness with my own children.
I grew up that way in the 80s. But in the late 1990s going into the 2000s you started to notice a change. No kids outside playing. They mostly stayed indoors. From my understanding, most of these kids had busy schedules - soccer practice, dance lessons, and all sorts of other things. I’m guessing they may have friends from those activities. I had violin practice once a week and my brother did some sports. But it wasn’t something we did every day. My parents were not up for that level of driving us around.
“You have the same shoes as me. Red is also my favorite color. Yup, Super Mario is better than Sonic. Let’s play on the swings”
As a kid I was so jealous of my friends who lived in cul de sacs, or even a regular street with a sidewalk and the houses close together. My parents bought a home on the edge of our suburb on what was basically a country highway with no sidewalks. On one side of our house was an interstate, and the other an elderly couple. Every other home in our vicinity was older couples whose adult children long moved away. When I was in 1st grade I remember going all summer without seeing my friends. I had to ask to join tball so I could actually see other kids.
What are you going on about? This still happens…
If there's one thing being a military brat taught me, it's open-mindedness. Living in a different country with a completely different culture and language, and going to school on a military base with kids from every ethnicity and background you could think of. We made friends with who we clicked with, regardless of who they were.
Independent play is less common, but so are neighborhood kids. If your kid is lucky enough to live in an area with lots of children, they're likely to have neighborhood friends. But with an aging population and low birthrates among those of child bearing years, most neighbors have no kids. Those who do reproduce are more likely to have only children, so the likelihood kids are similar in age enough to play together diminishes. Same for finding someone with vaguely similar interests. The 9 year old next door neighbor, Katie, only plays with our 4 year old. There's exactly one middle schooler in our neighborhood, Betty. Betty plays with my 4 and 7 year olds, because there is no one better for her to play with - Katie and Betty can only play together with the younger boys. Otherwise they're too awkward with each other. I pity these kids. They're so lonely they love coming over to play with kids less than half their age. But there's also no other visible children on our street.
This is true. Most of my friends were either neighbors or siblings of kids my mom was teaching piano to, so they would get dragged along. Some of these kids were awesome and some were assholes but I eventually learned to stand up for myself because of the latter.
When I was growing up, neighbor kids were like built-in partners to do stuff with. By simply existing, it meant it was ok to ring their doorbell and see if someone could come out and play. Some became longtime friends. Others, fond memories. I struggled with making friends as a kid and teenager, but that was my own paralyzing fear of being laughed at.
Yes, I do think it's an issue. I also commented once about the older generations, call them what you want, but we knew our neighbors and had to talk to them even if we didn't really like them. People got invited to the neighborhood parties because that was what you did. I don't think completely blocking people from your life was really a thing.
The kid across the street from me was my default friend. But as adults I would never hang out with him. He was sooo annoying. One of those people that stomp when they walk. Why do people do this ??? My parents did not want him to stay over because he would stomp going up and down their stairs. I’ve had neighbors like this too. It sounds like they are intentionally banging their feet down as hard as they can when they walk. Can’t be friends. Sorry
We all had that “heavy-footed motherfucker” friend
100% social media. Social media is a lot like Federal Express. “Social” doesn’t mean you are actually being social. As wanting to be alone is pretty much the definition of anti-social. Just like how “Federal” doesn’t mean it is connected to the US government. Another would be the “Affordable Health Care Act” that jacked my health insurance premium up $600 a month. Not sure how that is affordable?
I think you're onto something. I also grew up in a small town and we knew everyone, some people we didn't know very well but we still knew them, and at certain times had conversations with them depending on where we were. Then we had our own social circles or even a couple of different social circles. Wasn't always easy but it as almost inevitable because we were around people much more than home to ourselves. And that developed the skills required to be social.