Today parents are doing a piss poor job in my opinion, in north america anyway.
Today parents cannot accept risk. To them, risk is something of the past and should be wiped out along with the slide rule and the strap. Well let me tell you something. Risk exists and is an extremely important part of raising your child.
I have several friends who sit in all day and play nintendo, computer, watch tv, whatever. They really don't seem to have much of a life. You know a commen trait I have observed also? All the perants of these kids are reluctant to let them go down the river to play or whatever. Anyway, the kids have to find something to do, so when they can't do it real life, they have to find a poor subsitute.
young children, especially boys need to test and push themselves. Its part of growing up. You learn your limits. What i've seen happen is those boys who havn't had a chance to test their limits, practice with dangerous things, jump right into something that is totally out of their depth.
For example. I set up a Zipline( a rope strining from one high point to a lower point in which you slide down on using some device) by tying rope to a high part of tree and then lower down the trunk of another.
We used just a plain stick to slide down the device on, meaning the stick could easily slip to one side and give your hand horrible rope burn.
i let my friend of 13 years old on with wihtout any second thoughts. He had had quite a bit of experiance toying with his comfort level and was an avid climber and knew when to focus and how to focus. He did it perfectly.
I also let a young boy of 10 onto the line with far more quams. He had never had any experiance with testing himself. When he went onto the line he quivered and sliped to the side. The rope burned through the first layer of skin and he dropped 7 feet to the ground.
Now here is another important point, some people may call me crazy or irresponsible for letting the ten year old on the line. But you know what, i gave him a long needed oppurtunity to try and see what he could do. Some people may have looked at the line and said "you could get hurt" and you know what, you could get hurt. Very easily get hurt. All three of us eventually got injured on that line in minor ways. But heres the thing folks. Getting hurt is not the end of the world. In fact, it opens up worlds. The possibility of getting hurt is there and absoloutly has to be there.
So next time when you see your child doing something dangerous, perhaps weigh the situation "will they die if they die they fall", or "will it be something fairly minor like a cut or something broken", if so I suggest you let your child live life and he will come out a safer person in the end with a better grasp of himself. And whatever you do, don't sue your school board!
Posted by aretee (Member # 1743) on :
You know, I have to agree with you. But, as a woman, my mothering instinct kicks and I worry. My boyfriend bought his daughters a trampoline. He likes to put it near the house and (while he is present) he allows his daughters (ages 12 and 10) to jump off the roof onto the trampoline. They never do it when he isn't there (I don't think they could move the ladder, anyhow) and they have a blast when they do it. It ties my insides into knots, but I love to see them having fun.
We had a wrestling match last night. I stepped on his oldest's head as I flew off the bed. She cried, we paid attention until we figured out she wasn't hurt seriously. She was scared more than anything. When we first started these little wrassling matches they would cry if they didn't get enough attention, or if they fell 4 inches. We explained to them that if we play rough, there is a chance that they will get hurt. If they choose to participate they must take that risk. Now, I have seen them take falls that they never would have imagined, and simply say..."Ouch!" When they realized that pain does not always equal severe injury they took it in stride. They are much tougher than they used to be.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
I agree and disagree. I agree that children need to be outside, get dirty, splash in mudpuddles, dig up bugs, try lots of things. I think children need time without adult overview or interference, to experiment, try things. This doesn't, however, mean that I think parents should just shove their kids outdoors and have no idea what their kids are up to or where they are. A parent's job is to raise their children to adulthood. You fail at that job if your kid is killed while hookiebobbing, or gets a broken neck from jumping off the roof of your two story house.
So if you were another adult or much older child offering my 10 year old son (I have one, btw) the opportunity to go sliding down a rope from a significant height, I would be very angry when I learned about it. Even if he didn't happen to get hurt. Gaining valuable life experiences with taking risks doesn't mean you discard even basic measures of safety. So, I don't know how old you are, but I suggest you check with parents before you go "educating" 10 year olds.
edit: Hi aretee! LTNS! The comment above about jumping off roofs was coincidental, btw...I didn't see your post until after I posted my own. I was thinking of my husband, who at age 6 was attempting to teach his younger sisters how to fly from the roof of their two story house. He was caught before they had a chance to make their first attempt. Another time, a policeman caught him teaching his sisters to run in traffic. I sometimes wonder how his sisters survived childhood.
[ August 04, 2003, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: jeniwren ]
Posted by Maethoriell (Member # 3805) on :
I'm 14 yrs old and I feel confined inside the house after school and during the summer. I don't like it because I can just hang with my friends but the only thing that gets in my way are my siblings. It's no use wasting money to send them to a daycare when they can stay here and do homework. The only problem is that I can't let them outside because I can't protect them as much cuz my parents have to work.
Oh well...that's what camps are for.
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
I have step-kids for the summer. I got: all the bikes in tip top condition, swimming and rollerskating passes, library cards, and pointed out all the kids they know within biking distance. On top of that, behind us are acres of BLM land, hill, peaks, mines, and views. And I can't get them out of the house to save my life.
[ August 04, 2003, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: EllenM ]
Posted by Maethoriell (Member # 3805) on :
They're so lucky....no fair. Wanna trade???
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
Sure, come see me. Posted by Maethoriell (Member # 3805) on :
I've only gone swimming once this summer and once in about 1-3 years. Haven't been to the library in a year or so. Rollerblading I haven't done since I was in 6th grade and I'm a freshman in highschool now.
Jeez..
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:And I can't get them out of the house to save my life.
I would then ask what kind of habits they are raised with at home and how much they are allowed to do.
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
I've always thought that when I'm dealing with an ungrateful complaining pubescent, that it would be great to leave them someplace, like a village in Africa or a scary inner city slum. I could bring back a few native kids with me. They would be tickled. After a couple of months I could go get the ungrateful pubs after they have walked all day to get water, or heard gunfire right outside their door, they would have a completely new perspective on life.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Brettly10, I would disagree with you when you say idiocy as you call it is not an important part of growing up. Its the idiocy that kids aren't getting nowadays. i don' know how old you are, but I can tell, htings were a lot differant back in the forty fifties and sixties. My dad for example, did a lot of idiotic things. He and his friends had fights with pellet guns, they went down to the river and did god knows what, they even shot at each other with hunting bows, now i'd agree that thats taking it over the top, like, a long way. but guess what, you know how many of them died. 0. And guess what else. My dad has been climbing and doing outdoorsy things for years. He is healthy and fit at 56 because of hte good habits he was allowed to have.
Another thing, do you really fail as a perant if your kid dies? I would disagree. Thats another north american philosophy. People all over the world have their children die, its rare, but it happens. They mourn for the child and life goes on.
I think perants have to really look at their upbringing and not look at "where they could have died" and "where they did die"
How many of you can say you died as a child?
Oh, by the way, Brettly10, how old are you? And ask yourself if they way you are raising your kid is the way you were raised. Take out the negative points and add some good points and raise your child that way. I would say always having your child in a safe enviroment is a negative point. Life isn't safe. Don't disillusion them.
[ August 04, 2003, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Another thing, do you really fail as a perant if your kid dies? I would disagree. Thats another north american philosophy. People all over the world have their children die, its rare, but it happens.
L, that is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read on Hatrack. Wow.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: So, I don't know how old you are, but I suggest you check with parents before you go "educating" 10 year olds.
If your not goign to say yes to that, then why on earth would your kids ask in the first place.
And you know what, your probably right. But wrong at the same time. Perants should be asked. But perants often don't make the right call. Judging by what happened in this case, i was right. Was I not? no serious injuries fallowed. Our trip to the island wasn't ruined. And people had a lot of fun.
I think finding nemo had brilliant lesson, if you don't let anything happen to your kids, nothing will happen to them.
[ August 04, 2003, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
Laurenz - Grrr!
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: L, that is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read on Hatrack. Wow.
Could you explain your logic?
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote:How many of you can say you died as a child?
That would have to be one of the most absurd statements I've ever read.
You can go out and enjoy yourself outside in a safe manner. Sending a 10-yr old down a zip line with a stick is not one of them. Broken bones are not the worst thing that could happen, but they aren't fun. How much time playing outside do you think you get when you have a broken arm or leg?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
*reads latest post*
Maybe... maybe... No, the first one is definitely dumber. But the latest one is a close second.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
'Nothing' happening to them is not the same as nothing that can quite easily kill them. It's your job as a parent (especially of younger children) to try and keep them from serious harm. Sometimes they find it anyway, but I would never actively encourage the idiotically stupid behavior of sliding unprotected down a zipline.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Lorenz0, how old are you?
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Yep, going to have to agree with Katharina whole-heartedly there.
Lor, you went from your first post, which was a fairly good one about the "overcautioning of modern life" to something that was just rotten as the second post. You're way off base.
Posted by Christy (Member # 4397) on :
I would be very careful with that opinion, especially considering I don't think the 10 year old was your son. You are responsible for that child while he is on your property and for any injury that comes to him under your care. How important/unimportant that injury is as a learning experience in your eyes really doesn't matter when push comes to shove.
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
Lorenz0, I have to admit they aren't encouraged to do much when they are at home. Mostly they come home from school, do homework, get on the internet, or watch movies. On weekends they go to the mall or the movies. They have a free swimming pool at home within walking distance and weren't allowed to go their much. They live in Hawaii, moved there 2 years ago. They get to the beach rarely and they haven't hiked the lush green forest or seen any of the breathtaking waterfalls, yet. What can I say? Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
OK, I'll agree. The first one was worse.
Just because nothing happened to your Dad and his friends doesn't mean something couldn't have. My Dad did many stupid things when he was growing up that he tried to make sure I didn't do. The reason is because he saw many of his friends get seriously injured.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Ah yes, being attacked on all fronts by tight ass overbearing north americans.
No I don't think its a good thing for your child to die, no i don't think you should put your child into a situation where they could die.
There is a line.
And somebody asked me how much time you would spend outside with a broken arm, well alot more then what you spend later on in life after you broke your neck doing something even more dangerous.
Posted by Maethoriell (Member # 3805) on :
Teens and their Aim-
What parents think of teens and their Aim-
Darn...
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:tight ass overbearing north americans.
This must be what watching Gigli is like.
[ August 04, 2003, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
for the record people, the fall on that line was about 6 feet onto quite soft ground. I would never put anybody into a situation that can kill them.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I was in the grocery store yesterday and I almost got involved in this mother/daughter scene that was playing out by the steak case. The mom was working from her list and the daughter was BEGGING/WHINING at her to NOT buy steak this week. As in:
"Please don't buy any steak." "Can't we go just one week without having steak, please" "Please don't buy any steak." "Can't we go just one week without having steak, please" "Please don't buy any steak." "Can't we go just one week without having steak, please" "Please don't buy any steak." "Can't we go just one week without having steak, please" "Please don't buy any steak." "Can't we go just one week without having steak, please" "Please don't buy any steak." "Can't we go just one week without having steak, please"
This went on for several minutes while the mom just sort of stood there alternating between silence and futile attempts to talk to her daughter about the proposed purchase.
Well, I let it go that time. I needed to get to the steaks, but I was nice and waited until they moved off until I made my selection. And, as it turned out, I didn't see a cut I liked so I didn't buy any steak either.
But then one aisle later I saw the mother/daughter team "negotiating" over whether to buy packaged lunch meat. Again the same whining and they were again in the way of where I needed to get in order to make my selection.
This time the girl was so upset she kept dropping some package of food on the floor of the grocery store. At least they didn't just throw the item back on the shelf. Yuck!
I ended up not saying anything, but I have to say that I was pretty much ready to lay into both of them. First off, the child was old enough to state her desires without whining or begging. Secondly, she seemed like such a spoiled brat to me. I just can't imagine begging for someone NOT to get me some nice food item. Maybe she was trying to be a vegetarian, I don't know, but she sure was annoying.
And I wanted to yell at the mom for putting up with it. And for letting her act that way in public. And for having these interminable disagreements right where I needed to get to.
Ugh!
But then I thought, well maybe this is just a bad day for them and everyone's tired and hot and feeling a little bit overwhelmed with the variety of foodstuffs found in the average Supermarket. So I just smiled and picked up a pack of Chicken Weiners and left.
Posted by aretee (Member # 1743) on :
Okay, this thread is taking a scary turn.
Not all parents who have lost children through accidents are failures. That is why they are called "accidents." They are tragic and heartbreaking.
Then, there are parents who are truely neglectful. They don't care what their kids do, or how they treat other people as long as those kids aren't bugging them.
Risks should be taken, as well as precautions. That is called temperance and prudence. I am sick to death of concerted efforts of small groups to ban or outlaw products because one child died using it.
Is that callous? Perhaps, but accidents happen. If kids never go out an have adventures because they fear getting hurt, we are going to create a generation of people afraid to fail. If there is a fear of failure who will try anything? Is that a paradox?
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:Parent mode changes things
Yes perant mode does change things. And it should. My problem is it tends to change things to much.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*rolls eyes* Why is it all the STUPID people get to write the diatribes? Why can't Rabbit post something about the sad state of modern parenthood, or something, instead of leaving it to the troglodytes?
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote: I did have BB-Gun fights with my friends when I was young. My friend has a BB permanently stuck in his cheek because of this.
Going by Lorenzo's logic, it's a good thing this happened. If it had not, you would have grown not understanding your limits. You might have shot someone with a real gun. Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
aretee, Thank you for pointing that out. yes, I'm not suggesting we all become neglectful. But "we need to take risks as well as precautions". brilliant.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Thanks guys, i appreciate all the insults.
Anyway, sorry for you guys rabbit didn't do something on the sad state of parenting.
Now, that i've caused quite the comotion I'm going to go and unpack my van from quite a long trip.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I don't think its a commotion. No one's upset.
How old are you, btw?
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
How old are you and why do you have a 13 yr old and 10 yr old, apparently not related, going down a zip line? You are apparently at least 16. Why are younger boys hanging out with you?
Are you a parent?
Are you a teacher?
Are you in a 'big brother/big sister' program?
What is your relationship with the parents of these children?
I seriously want to know.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
First of all, don't make a leap based on your limited observations that all parents are one thing or another.
Secondly, I don't think parents should ever put their children in "risky" situations just for the learning experience. They should, however, allow their kids to get into challenging situations and solve them themselves. Allow them to explore by themselves, but be nearby. Daniel was playing outside and got into our creek bed (wet weather creek, it was dry) he walked the length of our property exploring and climibing over the rocks and tree limbs down in the creek. But when he realized he couldn't climb out again, he panicked and began screaming. I was nearby so I could go to him.
Let 'em get dirty (one of the scariest things I've ever seen was a mother at the local park, who sprayed the slide with disinfectant before her kid was allowed to slide down it.) Let 'em see new things. Don't be afraid to let them get sweaty.
But put them in actual physical danger? No. Not worth it.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Personally, I think Laurenz0 would do well to stay inside for a while. Pick up a dictionary. Learn how to spell. This will come in much handier while trying to earn a living than knowing your limits on a tow line. Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Kayla, you rule. Seriously. Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
LaurenzO, I can feel where you're coming from but you're not expressing yourself well.
If a child dies in your care, it comes down to is it negligience or not, that is was the danger predictable and preventable. The trick is to balance fun and risk with prudence and safety. Parents that take all the risk out of a child's life in the name of safety tend to take almost all the fun out as well. And parents that are blase about all risk could be considered negligient or at least apathetic to their children. It's very tough and every parent makes their own choices on where the balance should lie. I agree that some risk lets you know your limitations. But too much risk can kill you. This thread reminds me of a golden age sci-fi novel where a scientist invernts robots to save him from all risk. They quickly get out of hand and stop obeying him "for his own good." Then they multiply and lay down the law for everyone. Soon all sports,bicycles, sharp scissors,knives, any and everything that could possibly harm humans are done away with. Not much fun is left. [edit:Belle makes a good point contasting risky situations with challenging situations.]
[ August 04, 2003, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
quote: Personally, I think Laurenz0 would do well to stay inside for a while. Pick up a dictionary. Learn how to spell. This will come in much handier while trying to earn a living than knowing your limits on a tow line.
Ouch
Did you think maybe Lorenz0 was putting out a large quantity of typing, along with reading other's posts and he didn't have much time to proofread?
This is what I mean by grammar bigots discounting an opinion based on presentation not logic.
Come up with something better if you think you want to score off someone.
[ August 04, 2003, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: EllenM ]
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
quote:for the record people, the fall on that line was about 6 feet onto quite soft ground. I would never put anybody into a situation that can kill them.
It's worth noting, as an example, that despite all the extremely dangerous things Jackie Chan has done in his career, the time he was closest to dying was a short fall from a tree. Oh, and Belle has the idea just right.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Unfortunately, I think one of the consequences of modern times is the need for more caution.
I remember, sometime back in elementary school, that the Native Americans had a different way of letting their children learn the ways of the world. If the child got near to a fire or put his hand in, they didn't tell him not to -- they let him, and so he learned that fire burns.
Of course, the Native Americans lived in a communal setting -- there was almost always someone there to see that the child was not permanently harmed by the experience. There were no guns -- the child couldn't shoot himself. No cars, no roads, no traffic; no toxic chemicals. And if the kid ate wild mushrooms, he learned that they made the world a very, very strange place .
Seriously, though -- while I think your point has considerable merit (I'm the child of parents who, in my opinion, found the right balance between risk and caution, allowing me and my younger sister to climb, swing, dig, splash and romp to our hearts' content, all the while avoiding serious injury entirely), I think you have to understand the parents' perspective.
Let me put it another way for you. I don't know how old you are, but you seem young -- so am I. I'm 18, and at the moment I have a boyfriend whom I've been dating almost a year now. I care about him a lot, and I really don't want anything bad to happen to him. Unfortunately for me, he drives a souped up Ford Mustang, which he street races at speeds varying anywhere from 95 to 130 miles per hour. Let me tell you how much I wish he didn't. Obviously, he's not *a* child, let alone my child, so I don't exactly have say over what he can and cannot do. But let me tell you how much I worry when he shows up anywhere 10 minutes late. He knows what he does is stupid; I know what he does is stupid. If he *were* my child, this is one fire I would not be letting him stick his hand into -- by the time he really understands how dangerous it is, he'll be dead. Obviously, you don't have any children of your own -- neither do I. From listening to parents, I don't think that there is any love that can compare to the love a parent has for a child, but try picking the next best thing. Your mom, dad, little brother or sister, your boyfriend. How would you feel if something terrible happened to one of them because of someone else's negligence?
[ August 04, 2003, 02:42 PM: Message edited by: Kasie H ]
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Ah, Ellen, no sense of humor.
I let my son out of the house last week. Know what he learned? Not to listen to dorks like Laurenz0. Of course, he learned this right after he snapped his arm in half, so, I suppose that was a good lesson. Too bad he couldn't have stayed at home, learned that lesson when I told it to him the first time and save me a small fortune in emergency room and doctor bills. Oh, not to mention the money wasted on that summer pool pass he can't use, which is where people learn acceptable risks under the confines of supervision.
Perants just don't understand, I guess. Der. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Rereading the first post - talk about a classic case of blame the victim.
A 10-year-old slides down a zip line at the provocation of older boys with no safeties and only a stick that has a tendency to fail and cause burns and falls. The predictable happens, and the 10-year-old is blamed for not having enough experience. He should have done stupid things like this earlier, so he'd be used to it. My stars!
Posted by Der Grammatikfuehrer (Member # 5015) on :
Ellen, we prefer to be called Grammar Nazis. Please be more considerate of our feelings in the future.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Oh, and Ellen, most computers come equipped with Spell Checkers of some sort. Doing a "large quantity of typing" is really no excuse because he doesn't even really need to proofread. Any program would pick up a mistake like perants.
quote:This is what I mean by grammar bigots discounting an opinion based on presentation not logic.
See, generally, I'll poke fun of someone's spelling mistake not as a way of discounting their argument, but in order to poke fun. With Laurnez0, however, I was intentionally making a point. He needs to stop encouraging children to do dangerous things and to give him an excuse to do so, I thought he might pick up a dictionary. That, or learn where that Spell Check program is on his computer.
Kids.
[ August 04, 2003, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: Kayla ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What's the matter with kids today.
Kids!
So blahblah in every way! Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
katharina, you seem to be bashing me a lot without backing up your points, although I comment you on that gigi burn, that was quite funny.
Anyway, You say things like this is the stupidest thing you have ever heard. Could you explain to me why?
And no, I'm not blaming the victim. i don't know where the hell you got that idea from. I'm blaming the parents of the victim.
Another thing, I'm not saying force your child in to dangerous situations. God no! But for example, if your child trys to ride his or her bike of a jump or something. Put a helmet on their head and tell them what can happen. Its better he or she perform that stunt while your around instead of after they get out of your care. There are worse things than broken bones.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
And as for my grammer, i couldn't care less. Grammer is not one of my strong points nor is spelling. Plus I don;t have time to run this all through a spell check.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
quote: There are worse things than broken bones.
Yeah, like never picking up a dictionary, using words incorrectly and continuing to wander through life sounding completely uneducated. Sheesh, learn where capital letters go. Learn where the spell checker is. Learn what the word commend looks like.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
You haven't answered the questions about your age, I'm curious too. How old are you?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Oh honey, I'm not bashing. I'm assuming this condition isn't permanent. I'm just trying to shorten its life-span.
You've gotten quite a bit of feedback in this thread. What do you think of what they said?
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:A 10-year-old slides down a zip line at the provocation of older boys with no safeties and only a stick that has a tendency to fail and cause burns and falls.
okay, many things wrong witht hat sentence. I told him of the dangers, that I didn't reccomend it. I told him what the worst that could happen to him was, and he still decided to go down. He learned.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
quote:Grammer is not one of my strong points nor is spelling. Plus I don;t have time to run this all through a spell check.
Really don't have that extra 30 seconds, huh? But we are supposed to take the time to take your arguments seriously and respond?
And it's Grammar and don't.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
quote:And no, I'm not blaming the victim. i don't know where the hell you got that idea from. I'm blaming the parents of the victim.
So it's the parent's fault because they didn't teach the ten year old kid to go down a zipline unprotected?? Ah, sorry, I'm not buying it.
First of all, there's a reason we don't teach most ten year olds calculus. Same thing applies here. Although in this case, I'm not sure it's something most people would teach at all.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Obviously the parents' biggest mistake was putting the kid in your care.
Posted by The Editor-in-Chief (Member # 5014) on :
quote:Sheesh, learn where capital letters go.
For instance, they don't go in the phrase spell check. Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
How did the kid get in your care, Laurenz0?
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote:I told him of the dangers, that I didn't reccomend it. I told him what the worst that could happen to him was, and he still decided to go down. He learned.
You still haven't said your age, but I assume you're a bit older than him. Since you knew the risks, you should not have let him go down. From the way you described it, it was your line.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
What if I had been referring to a specific brand name? "Spell Checker, the spell checker you can count on." Huh? Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
I find it interesting that you haven't told us how old you are, either. It isn't a rhetorical question.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Laurenz0, consider what you're saying: you told a ten-year-old of all the possible dangers associated with going down a zip line, then let him do it anyway when he figured he could cope with 'em.
Think about that for a second.
Posted by The Editor-in-Chief (Member # 5014) on :
Sure, Kayla. You just keep telling yourself that.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Tom, I think it's pretty obvious that Laurenz0 has had plenty of time to think about his position. I kind of doubt there's any hope of him coming to a different conclusion upon further reflection.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I find this whole thread amazingly funny. I have two sons. The oldest (Robert, 6) just this year got up the courage to get in the pool wearing water wings instead of a boat-worthy personal floatation device. He's always been... cautious.
My younger son (Liam, 3 1/2) has made at least one valliant attempt to kill himself EVERY DAY since he learned to walk. At 16 months he climbed out a ground floor window (six inches above the ground). To do this, he had to push the window up (it was open, but only a few inches) and release the screen. I was cooking dinner, and suddenly realized he wasn't trying to grab boiling pots anymore.
I caught him just as he 'escaped'. He was very proud of himself.
Just a few weeks ago, I caught him with a bungee cord wrapped arouind his neck. He was pulling it tight enough to choke, then letting it go and laughing. The boy aint right.
Truth is, though, he's already a better swimmer than his brother, and will probably have the training wheels off his bike before his brother.
We go to the pool a lot, we take them bicycling, we play wiffle ball in the back yard. We don't let them play video games except when they have a baby sitter, or on long road trips.
We don't have cable.
I have two major challenges as a parent:
1.Getting Robert to try new things, and stick with something physical long enough to master it.
2.Keeping Liam ALIVE until he moves out.
Oy.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I can't believe that I feel a need to say this to a group of supposed adults, but "Stop picking on the little kid." My god, grow up already.
What's wrong with you people? Are you actually that insecure in your parenting?
Laurenzo is pretty obviously a young teenager. What do you people seriously think you're trying to accompish here, because it looks to me like you're just looking to feel better about yourselves. You're definitely not trying to help Laurenzo grow and learn. Actually, maybe you are, but then you just plain suck at it.
[ August 04, 2003, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Olivet,
Best of luck. Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
Sorry Brettly. That joke isn't too funny to me.
We know he is at least 16, since he apparently can drive and owns a van (unless 'my van' means 'my parent's van').
I'm curious to know why he has a couple of younger boys hanging around. What are the circumstances?
Especially concidering his attitude, which has not been "Let me clarify myself", but defensive. And has been about letting it be okay to have your kids take risks.
Posted by Brettly10 (Member # 271) on :
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
But, but...
I DIDn'T! Did I?
I never meant to disparrage Lornezo, just to point out that even when kids do have lots of opportunities to get out and 'do', sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
And seriously, dude, no one's going to bash you just for being young. You really can tell us how old you are.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Currently, we are all still just guessing what happened from lack of information. I'd like L to answer the following questions.
1. How old are you?
2. Why was the 10-year-old in your care?
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:I don't think its a good thing for your child to die, no i don't think you should put your child into a situation where they could die.
As many as 6% of childhood deaths are due to falls, mostly from injury to head and spinal column. ("The mortality of childhood falls,' by Hall JR, et al; in Journal of Trauma. 1989 Sep;29(9):1273-5.)
The bottom line, Laurenz0, is that such falls as your 10-yr old friend suffered can be very dangerous, even fatal. You may believe it is not that dangerous, but you are not in a position to accurately assess that risk.
You are, however, lucky that something worse didn't happen.
(Parents, take this as a warning: know who is taking responsibility for your children when they are out of your sight. Know whether or not older children are reliable and responsible enough to take care of younger children.)
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Kasie H,
I disagree with you that less caution was needed in the past. The first place I came across the whole "let the kid burn himself" arguemnt (saw it articulated, that is--I was aware of the idea before) was in Rousseau, and since he went in for the whole noble savage bit, with all of its idealization of less technologically advanced society, I wouldn't be surprised if that was where your grade school teacher got the idea also.
The thing is, I doubt that life was really all that much safer in less technologically advanced societies--just different. For example, the wrong mushroom can do a whole lot more than send you on a trip. Pre-European contact Native Americans may not have had to worry about getting hit by a car, but they probably did have to worry about getting mauled by a mountain lion, or bear, or charged by a moose, or whatever. Furthermore, something that, with a thorough washing and application of Neosporin, is merely a cut is potentially much more serious when you don't have antiseptic creams and a knowledge of the usefulness of washing out a wound.
I'd submit that it's much safer, now, to fall 10 or 12 feet than it would have been back then, simply because now it's possible to be life-flighted to the nearest hospital for treatment (that isn't to say that it's safe now, just that it's saferer).
I think that in any society, regarless of degree of technological sophistication, you have to balance allowing a child to take a risk with your knowledge of the safety or lack thereof of their actions. Sure, let them touch a hot stove*--they won't do it twice. Don't let them grab ahold of a skillet handle and pour boiling grease over their head though. The trick is figuring out which action falls into which category.
*If they're your kid
[ August 04, 2003, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: Noemon ]
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
Olivet, my 9-yr old nephew is just like Robert. I took him to a water park here in Orlando a week ago. He did not want to ride any of the rides that were enclosed tubes, went head first, etc. He is a very, very cautious boy.
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
Is there a grammer nazi in the house? I'm sure I saw one around here...
quote: saferer
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Missed you , CT! AIM me sometime! I'm Pifingers.
Brettly, They take Gymnastics during the school year, and we've been thinking about some kiddie martial arts. They were in Kindermusic, but I think Robert may be old enough for real piano lessons.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
I'm nearly 16, and clearly people do bash you for you age and the child never was in my care!!!!
He is a friend of a friend of mine. My friend is 13 and he is 10. he was not in my care. Never was he placed him my care. He was just hanging out with us.
Yes I can drive. yes I do drive.
You know what, maybe we shouldn't even walk on the sidewwalk with our kids. Dangerous things could happen. Maybe we shouldn't let them cross the street. Maybe we should chain them in their room so absoloutly nothing can happen to them. That would be safe.
[ August 04, 2003, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
I'm with Mr. Squicky on this. There has been entirely too much mocking and insulting of LaurnzO on this thread. Kayla gets a pass because her tyke just broke his arm. How's he doing anyway, Kayla?
quote:for the record people, the fall on that line was about 6 feet onto quite soft ground. I would never put anybody into a situation that can kill them.
For this you need a safety harness, spotters, padded ground, and a D-ring, Brettly10? Don't forget cervical collars, body armor and a Medivac chopper standing by. Thanks for proving LaurenzO's point: many parents are obssesed with safety to the point of absurdity.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
zgator, I find that wonderfully re-assuring. I get the "He's all Boy" comments all the time about Liam, but I'm like, "So Robert is what? Part Pidgeon?"?
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Crap! CT, couldn't you have waited till after my last post to weigh in? All I can say is a short fall from a zipline puts you in a good position to land on your feet.
[ August 04, 2003, 03:51 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Brettly has become Morbo's Vermin of the Week.
Morbo, if memory serves, Brettly has daughters, and there is a subtle tendency to think of little girls as fragile. Though I was seriously overprotective until Liam came along and singlehandedly justified my paranoia. Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Squicky, until we know for sure how old he is, there's no possible way to let him off easy as "too young". And you know...despite being asked a number of times, he still hasn't answered the question. How curious.
Further, the longer this thread gets, the scarier Lorenz0 is to me. There are a couple of teen boys in my neighborhood who are not allowed to get anywhere near my son. Because they are nuts. They are happy to suggest to the younger boys all kinds of insane things, stuff that might not hurt older boys, but where the risk is significantly greater for younger kids who don't have the size, strength or dexterity to keep from being seriously hurt. Like sword fighting with real swords taken from one Dad's collection. Or wrestling ala WWF out on the concrete.
Lorenz0, no matter what age you are, you're begging for a lawsuit from an angry parent. Justifyably so. One of the things when I was a kid was that we ran free in our neighborhood, but we were all just about the same age. We didn't have older kids to influence our hijinx to levels we weren't really ready for yet. My son broke his arm speed racing around the culdesac...that was an accident, and it was a bunch of other boys his age. If he had broken his arm during the afforementioned wrestling session with one of our 15 year old neighbors, it would have been another thing entirely. I would have insisted that the boy's parents pay my insurance deductible and copay percentage.
Posted by Der Grammatikfuehrer (Member # 5015) on :
Amka, there's always a grammar Nazi in the house.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Olivet, your Liam stories are funny and scary. I think I'd have a nervous breakdown with a kid like that. Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
Actually, I wasn't thinking of Laurenz0 as a kid. I had pictured him more as an adult.
Almost 16. It isn't a bad age, and nothing to be ashamed of. You should have told us a long time ago. It was you not telling me that made me more curious.
Just understand, and you too Morbo, that until you are a parent and while you are still a minor, you probably don't have quite the perspective on it that you will when you have your own child.
I will agree that some parents smother their children too much and don't allow them the freedom or give them the responsibility they need to grow. But uneccessary risk taking really isn't helpful for the process of growing up and maturing.
[ August 04, 2003, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: Amka ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Amka!
I'd go back and change that, but it'd spoil your joke! I had the damndest time with that word for some reason--I blame the nesting of multiple UUB tags and my own sleep deprived state! For a little while I actually had it written [er]safeb[/er]. How I came up with that I don't know.
Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
My question for you, Laurenz0, is why are you hanging out with 10 year olds? If you were babysitting or something, I could understand that, but for some reason it always creeps me out when older teenagers associate with much younger children.
For one thing, the activities of a 15 year old who drives a van are by default going to be more dangerous than those of a 10 year old. You've already proven this point with your 7-foot fall story.
Shouldn't you be trying to get a date?
Am I the only one who's disturbed by this?
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
*lovingly pats her prescription medication*
Oh, I get by. Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
No Fitz, you aren't.
Posted by qsysue (Member # 5229) on :
I remember not too long ago a Bishop whose son died from jumping off the roof and missing a trampoline.
I don't think LaurenzO is in much of a position to be criticizing parenting skills. And I don't especially think parents playing it safe with their kids is the biggest crisis facing childcare these days.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote: The author concludes that an infant or child may suffer a fatal head injury from a fall of less than 3 meters (10 feet)
From CT's first link. Brett10, I thought all the safety precautions you mentioned were overkill. I just emphasized their absurdity. I picked you because of all your specifics when others were just saying vaugely "be safer." Also, you can slip and have a fatal head injury in the shower, but I don't see many safety devices in there.
[ August 04, 2003, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Liam... Liam seems a bit more cordinated in body than he is in mind. Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
When I was about 14, there were some younger kids in the neighborhood who liked to try to hang around with us older kids. We were pretty nice about it, unlike others in our age group. But it becomes clear pretty quickly that the younger kids are just too likely to get hurt with any "normal" horseplay, let alone something really dangerous.
They don't weigh enough to avoid just getting "bounced" by the average 14 year old even unintentionally.
The disparity is even greater when comparing them to 16 year olds.
This is starting to sound like Lord of the Flies time, but it really wasn't. Younger kids always want to hang with the older ones.
And some programs (like Big Brothers) actually encourage High School boys and grade school boys to bond. I did that kind of thing once and it was a great thing. But a very awesome responsibility. I mean, the little guy wasn't afraid of anything so I had to be his buffer against stupidity. That's not easy for a teenager.
We did a lot of really cool stuff (like hiking along streams and in canyons). It was all pretty mundane for me, but for a smaller kid it was a grand adventure.
The main thing to remember is like what CT said -- they can't physically handle stuff that would be okay for an older, larger kid.
And, whether you want it or not, if those kids are looking up to you, you are responsible for them. I think you either rise to the occassion or you tell them to stop hanging out with you.
Period.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
Morbo - no shower mat or sticky pads on the floor of your shower? [croc hunter voice]Danger danger danger![/croc hunter voice]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
I see everybody thinks i'm some creepy child molester. Let me set the record straight, here is the full story.
Each year i travel to an island of the west coast of vancouver island.
When we go there are 2 other familes that go with us and they all have kids. I have known them ever since they were born.
Anyway, one of my best friends who goes with us is thirteen years old and in turn one of his best friends is 10 almost 11.
So we basically move as unit. It isn't a very big island.
Oh, by the way, on the topic of the island, since we were in a temperate rain forest the ground was very mossy and soft. We cleared away all obsticles from the landing zone and put padding up on the tree it was attached too.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
But I also think that the parents should know what the heck is up with their kids.
I have no opinion one way or the other on LorenzO by the way.
I'm just saying that the parents ought to know where their kids are and who they are with. The kids ought to know that they have to tell their parent's what they are doing and with whom.
Olivet: One of my nephews is like your youngest. His mom put him in gymnastics and karate. Yours is a little too young for that now, but when he's older, those classes will teach him discipline in a very physically satisfying setting, I imagine.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
For all you people saying "it wasn't safe it wasn't safe" your right. It wasn't safe. But there was also quite a low risk of sustaining serious injury on it.
I took many falls on it and tested it out. I told him "probably the worst thing that would happen is you will burn your hand really badly" and behold, i was right. I did exactly the same thing I would if it was my ten year old going down it.
really, i think I'm a good person to comment on the sate of parenting because i'm neither a perant nor am I the child who doesn't get to do stuff.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Just think what all you perants were allowed to do as kids. I'm hearing a lot of "this could have happened" but I'm not hearing a lot of "this did happen".
I heard someone got a pellet in their cheek therefore what they did was stupid. Why? So you have a pellet in your cheek. I would take that for all the fun I had shooting pellets at people. Mind you, I would wear goggles.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote:The mean age of those with accidental falls was 2.3 years, which is markedly younger than that seen in hospital admission series, suggesting that infants are much more likely to die from a fall than older children. Forty-one per cent of the deaths occurred from "minor" falls such as falls from furniture or while playing
From CT's mortality link. The entire study was done in one county. Parents, get your kids off all furniture stat! Or make sure there is padding everywhere. Padded rooms?
[ August 04, 2003, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I think Liam is in gymnastics, Bob. You can start gymnastics and dance classes as early as 2 and a half now.
You know, I don't think it was the implication of youth that made me feel put off by Lorenz. It was attitude.
"Parents these days are doing a poor job" in the title is not going to endear a lot of parents. Words like "piss-pour" isn't going to either.
How much different would it have been if he'd come to this thread and asked a question instead?
"Does anyone think that parents today are coddling their kids too much? It seems like most of the young kids I know never get a chance to do anything challenging, or daring in their youth because of their parents. I don't think this is a good thing."
That would have sparked a discussion. Instead he came in here and called all the parents at hatrack (the ones in North America, anyway) terrible. Then he presented his anecdotal "Proof."
You act like that at hatrack, you can expect to be knocked back a few notches.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Teens brains are just screwy and they don't realize it.
quote:And just as a teenager is all legs one day and all nose and ears the next, different regions of his brain are developing on different timetables. For instance, one of the last parts to mature is in charge of making sound judgments and calming unruly emotions. And the emotional centers in the teenage brain have already been revving up, probably under the influence of sex hormones.
This imbalance may explain why your intelligent 16-year-old doesn't think twice about getting into a car driven by a friend who is drunk, or why your formerly equable 13-year-old can be hugging you one minute and then flying off the handle the next.
So, if you don't mind, I dont' think I'll be taking parenting advice from someone who a) doesn't have children, b) doesn't understand children's limits, and c) who isn't thinking clearly.
quote: I would take that for all the fun I had shooting pellets at people. Mind you, I would wear goggles.
Oh, well it's a good thing you wear goggles, because they're sure to protect the people you shoot pellets at.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
quote:And, whether you want it or not, if those kids are looking up to you, you are responsible for them. I think you either rise to the occassion or you tell them to stop hanging out with you.
Period.
I wish I'd said that. Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Oh, he's in gymnastics. Didn't follow directions very well. He and another kid about his age would just run around like wild boys part of the time. When that kid wasn't there, though, he behaved.
We do have plans for a martial art class. They take them as young as three, and he'll be four in September. He really is getting better. I was just thinking about it and wondering how I made it this far. Whew!
I think if he had been the first one we might not have had two. Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
OK, Brettly10, you sold me on the spotters.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:Oh, well it's a good thing you wear goggles, because they're sure to protect the people you shoot pellets at.
*sigh*
I really hope that was a joke.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Laurenz0, my kid listened to another kid and jumped off a deck onto a trampoline and broke his arm. Not only did he break it, he snapped it like a pencil. Both bones. We had to wait over 3 hours before they could give him the anesthesia to knock his butt out before they snapped it the opposite way (to finish breaking the bones, which were still attached by several shards of bone because neither bone broke cleanly) and then try and set the bones. One was set nice and straight. The other one was "good enough." He's young they say, and it won't matter in the long run. After a while, he won't even notice it.
Yeah, teens brains are screwy. My son has enough problems without being encouraged to do stupid things.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: Teens brains are just screwy and they don't realize it.
So much for age doesn't matter on hatrack, eh?
Well, okay, you can have your kids in a perfectly safe unchallenging enviroment. But don't blame me when they either A) Stick to the house all day or B) when they go out of your care go do something they havn't been able to do all their life and kill themselves.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
quote:I'm hearing a lot of "this could have happened" but I'm not hearing a lot of "this did happen".
There are lots of cases of "this did happen". So far, I've found Hatrack remarkable with a widely diverse population. One demographic isn't represented here though: people who died from childhood accidents.
Here's one case of "this did happen". I know the family.
Never am I saying encourage your kids to do stupid thigns. NEver once did I say that. I would do your best to stop them from doing things short of actually not letting them do it.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
Challenge doesn't equal risk, boss. Your basic premise is flawed. What does sliding down a makeshift zipline teach? In this case, it probably taught him NOT to like that sort of thing, the exact opposite of what you were aiming for.
The whole idea of a parent is to teach you things you should do and not do. If my son wanted to jump off the roof, should I counsel him against it, and if he decided to do it anyway, let him?
[ August 04, 2003, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: TheTick ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: Here's one case of "this did happen"
One being the key word. I'm sure you can provide me with thousands and thousands more, but that is still a very very small population.
I would like to hear stories from you guys about children dying because they did somethign stupid. Honestly, thats not a challange. I'm actually curious.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
*shrug*
Assuming you're reasonably intelligent, age doesn't matter.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: Challenge doesn't equal risk, boss
Sometimes challenge should equal risk, boss.
Are you guys actually telling me your trying to raise your kids without them ever experiancing risk or danger? Please tell me thats not the case.
And what did the zipline teach the kid. It taught him to be careful when he is doing something dangerous.
[ August 04, 2003, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I know what you mean, Lorenzo. I think that maybe a lot of the parents here were put off a bit by some of your word choices, or thought you came off like you were telling them they suck at parenting when you are not a parent yourself.
I understand what you are getting at, though. Most kids do need to get out more.
Can't we agree that kids need some level of physical activity, but that parents should make sure those activities are reasonably safe?
BTW, when I was in High school, one of my best friends was in 7th or 8th grade. We went to a Christian school that was small and had split classes. she was one clsee behind me but two gtrades, I think. She was really cool and well-read. Though, I guess it is worth mentioning that her parents wanted to get to know me and my family before they let Heidi and me have a sleepover, because of our age difference. Then they saw that we were just a couple of shy bookworms that had a lot in common.
Posted by Vána (Member # 3262) on :
That is one sick request, Lorenzo. You want stories about children who have died because they were being reckless?
Are you honestly saying that you don't believe it happens?
*shakes head in disbelief* Hey, we need a graemlin for that.
*sigh*
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
I NEVER said challenge would never have risk, just that they are not one and the same. A kid could get the same experience your deathtrap of a zipline provides with one that has some safety equipment with it.
edit: left out a word.
[ August 04, 2003, 04:38 PM: Message edited by: TheTick ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: That is one sick request, Lorenzo. You want stories about children who have died because they were being reckless?
Yes I do because I'm curious how many of you have experianced that.
Posted by Vána (Member # 3262) on :
So you're hoping to hear enough stories to convince you that recklessness really is dangerous?
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Lorenzo, I'm sorry that people are coming down so hard on you; I disagree (or rather, only partially agree) with you, but I probably wouldn't have when I was 16.
God knows I did plenty of stupid stuff, including jumping off buildings, building match guns, making napalm, making my own fireworks, throwing knives into floors I would shortly be running along barefoot, hacking at putrifying dead things with rusty knives, having bottle rocket wars, etc, and only have a few scars to show for it. I was never seriously hurt, and never actually burned any buildings down, but I know people who were and did. It does happen. Younger kids are generally less dexterous and strong than older kids, and more likely to get hurt doing those same things, I think.
Also, I'm sorry that people were implying that you might be a child molester; that was really uncalled for.
Do keep in mind that younger kids tend to look up to older kids, and may do things to impress them, even if (or especially if) the older kid cautions them that it might be dangerous.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: I NEVER said challenge would never have risk, just that they are not one and the same. A kid could get the same experience your deathtrap of a zipline with one that has some safety equipment with it.
Did anybody die on that ziplne? no no they didn't. DId anybody get seriously hurt on that zipline, no no they didn't. What was the worst thing that happened because of that zip line, a kid couldn't go swimming for a week.
And it wouldn't be the same. Because there is no reason to be careful.
Posted by Vána (Member # 3262) on :
There is always reason to be careful.
Recklessness is not the same as adventure. Caution is always called for. Reasonably safe situations are always better than unsafe situations.
And I don't even have children.
Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
quote: Among children aged 1-14, accidents were the leading cause of death, accounting for one-third of all deaths in this age group. In comparison 3% of deaths among adults were accidental.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
quote: Assuming you're reasonably intelligent, age doesn't matter.
Yeah, JaneX, Shlomo, and Kasie are all perfect examples of age not mattering. Even Maeth (after a bit of a rough beginning) is cool. And while T_Smith nearly stopped my heart one day recounting his adventures in a squirt gun contest, he's not bad either.
There is no need to risk life and limb for a child to grow up and live a successful life. Raising them means teaching them to take reasonable risks. Not idiotic ones. People don't jump out of airplanes without checking their safety gear. Jumping out of an airplane is risky, but with the proper precautions, fun. Not risking your life is actually a good thing. You can have fun and lead a fulfilling life without breaking your neck. Or someone else's.
quote: Did anybody die on that ziplne? no no they didn't. DId anybody get seriously hurt on that zipline, no no they didn't. What was the worst thing that happened because of that zip line, a kid couldn't go swimming for a week.
Yet.
You know, that is the same argument used by people who drive drunk. The only difference between a guy with a DWI and a guy in jail for manslaughter is luck and time.
[ August 04, 2003, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Kayla ]
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
Our much belabored point is that it was MORE possible to get injured on that than one with safety equipment. You know, it's funny. I was very much and indoor kid when I was young. I still know how to be careful when doing potentially hazardous things.
edit: our Queen of Exhaustive Inquiry says it much better.
[ August 04, 2003, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: TheTick ]
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
LorenzO, you asked for lists of stupid things some of us older folks did as kids/teens.
Well, to be truthful, I mostly hung out with kids my age and we didn't have a lot of after-school organized sports, so we mainly rode our bikes around or played basketball or baseball.
Seems rather sane in retrospect.
One game we used to play as kids in LA was "chicken" on our bicycles. It wasn't too dangerous until you got two kids who were brave enough to just keep going no matter what. OUCH!
The dumbest things we did were once we got cars, like racing in residential neighborhoods or driving on the sidewalk. Both really stupid and dangerous. Once a friend of mine tried to outrun a cop and that was a mistake too.
Before getting our licenses we rode down the steepest hill in town, which is saying something in a town that's nestled in the foothills of CA's coastal mountain range. What we didn't realize is that bicycle brakes can overheat and fail. When they do, you are pretty much in God's hands at that point. Since I was the oldest on that particular jaunt, I got chewed out royally, by my older brother. It all worked out (no deaths or injuries).
Another stupid thing we did was chase down some guys who had stolen our bicycles. Turns out they were huge and armed, but they'd made the mistake of trying to ride off on one of the bikes that had a broken chain. We were lucky that the guy just gave us the bike and left. Could've been a lot worse if he'd decided to fight. He could've killed us all easily.
Now, mind you, I had friends who did a lot of really stupid stuff involving home-made bombs and drainage culverts. But these were not people I was comfortable being around. When the lighters came out, most of us would leave to play basketball. We never thought about turning the guys in who were doing it. In retrospect that was kind of stupid too. But this is in the days before Columbine and this one kid in particular just liked loud noises. He was very strange and probably is deaf and missing some fingers by now.
Some kids should not be allowed to take science classes.
I don't really know what this sliding down a wire is all about. It sounds like something I might've tried if someone else did it first and it looked okay danger-wise. But I was a bit cautious as well. We had a few large bicycle jumps of the 6 foot variety. I never attempted them. Probably a good idea as our ground was not so much moss covered as sort of cactus and rock covered.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Age doesn't matter - Hobbes passed for 25 when he was 14 and posting on Hatrack. When his age was revealed, he was treated just the same.
Don't worry. We'd be making fun of your stupidity and recklessness with someone else's child no matter how old you were. The age just explains it a bit more.
Posted by qsysue (Member # 5229) on :
I just gave you an example of a kid dying. Jumped off a trampoline from a roof + missed the trampoline = dead.
For the record: my husband is into extreme sports, and my boys are too. I've never had to worry about my oldest because he always approaches things cautiously and always waits until he's ready to tackle something before doing it. He's never been seriously hurt on a skateboard, snowboard or bike. Except for once when he did a wheelie and the front wheel of his bike came off.
My youngest son is much more impulsive, and he has a high pain threshold as well. But I don't worry about him because the only times he has opportunity to do big dangerous tricks is when his dad takes him skating or bmxing.
There was a kid who died in my neighborhood when he was riding his bicycle down a cement ramp in a construction zone and hit an unmarked cable/chain. It struck him at the neck and he was killed instantly.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Bob, its sounds like you did some pretty cool stuff and thats what kids should have. A chance to do dangerous stuff, to vent urges.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
qsysue, I admire you for letting your kids do that. Thats exactly what i'm talking about. Observing them and letting them do some minor stuff and then you will feel more comfortable letting them do other stuff.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote:There is always reason to be careful. Recklessness is not the same as adventure. Caution is always called for. Reasonably safe situations are always better than unsafe situations.
Vana.Often it is a question of choosing among different risks and their is no reasonably safe scenario. With danger often comes opportunity. Montrose's toast, from the French Foreign Legion: "He either fears his fate too much, or his desserts are small, who dares not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all." Note that this is a soldiers's toast. But a kid who never takes any risk will be unlikely to as an adult. Evaluating and choosing among different risks is part of being an adult.
[ August 04, 2003, 04:57 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
I had some friends who made their own fireworks like M-80's. They were pretty cool.
Of course, one of those guys is missing 1 and 1/2 fingers from his left hand now. It's 20 years later and he's still missing those fingers. The lesson that one taught me was that they're right when they say don't hold onto lit firecrackers.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
That's good but only to a point, Morbo. Parents need to act as filters for those risks. A kid may not realize the danger of something, so his parents need to veto such recklessly dangerous actions.
quote:With danger often comes opportunity.
Too often, that opportunity can involve a trip to the hospital. Or worse.
Posted by Vána (Member # 3262) on :
But the reason someone may be choosing between risks is to decide which, if any, is the most reasonable.
And you know what? A person always has the choice not to take the risk, because it is not a reasonable one. It is a very rare situation indeed in which a person much choose between two or more unreasonable risks without the option of choosing none.
It is a parent's responsibility to help their child understand what risks are reasonable and what are not. They should not be left to decide on their own when faced with the decision.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Sometimes, accidents happen even when parents are involved. My mom was standing in the pool to catch my little sister when she jumped in (I think she was 4 years old at the time). My sister jumped too far, and split her chin open on my mom's head. Neither one of them were very happy after that Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Too true, Tick. I'm not saying risk should be ignored. It should be minimized. But you can never have risk=0. Many lawyers would have you think so in neglgient death cases.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Oh, and before you tell me that my mom should have let her jump in by herself -- my sister wouldn't jump in AT ALL unless my mom was there to catch her.
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
Sorry that was implied, Lorenz, but parents tend to wonder about that kind of thing when an older child expresses an interest to just play with child 5 or so years younger than them.
I can see, in the isolated situation of being on an island with limited playmates, how that might come about though.
But I suppose if you want some examples:
A kid I grew up with got himself killed when he was around 20 because he didn't want to bother with a helmet while riding a motorcycle.
A kid I went to highschool with ran a stop sign, in the middle of farm country, thinking it would be safe because usually there are no cars around. He survived almost unhurt. But his little sister and his best friend got killed.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote: It is a very rare situation indeed in which a person much choose between two or more unreasonable risks without the option of choosing none.
Vana. They may be rare, but they are crucial or pivotal events in life. A person who hasn't shied away from all risk his or her entire life would be more likely to have a better outcome.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Okay...I really don't think I can keep reading this thread anymore. It's too sad.
(((all of those who have lost children)))
Posted by Vána (Member # 3262) on :
I have never suggested that anyone should shy away from all risks.
The problem we're having here is that a lot of people are ignoring that the reasonable ground here is the middle ground.
Letting children run wild with no supervision is not reasonable. Keeping children locked in their rooms where they'll be safe is not reasonable.
Guiding your children and helping them to learn what is safe and what is not - as well as being there with them to help when they do get hurt - is reasonable. Why is it that so many of us seem to think that only the extremes exist? I just don't understand that.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
Then we are of similar minds, Morbo. We don't want to remove risk, we want the risk to mean something. In zgator's example, his friend learned that holding onto firecrackers causes your fingers to sometimes get blown off. Certainly not something everyone should have to learn first hand (no pun intended).
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote:Letting children run wild with no supervision is not reasonable. Keeping children locked in their rooms where they'll be safe is not reasonable.
Vana, I said almost the same thing in my first post. Striking a balance between the two is the hard part for parents. As I have no kids and probably never will, I'll duck out of this thread, after laying out this callous but apropos quote: Think of it as evolution in action.--Larry Niven. Feet don't fail me now! *bails before parents can organize lynching party*
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
In zgator's example, his friend learned that holding onto firecrackers causes your fingers to sometimes get blown off.
The stupid never learn. The intelligent learn from their mistakes. The wise learn from other's mistakes.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
I didn't add much to my story because I was going to sound like a crotchety old man, but I'm going to say it anyway.
Lorenzo, one of your comments has been that nothing did happen on the zip line, which is fine. But I've thrown firecrackers before and nothing happened. I bet a lot of us have. But then I saw the case where the bad story comes true. Bad things can happen when you don't take the proper precautions.
Nine times out of ten (maybe 99 out of 100), you may fall off that zip line, even on your back, and nothing will happen worse than getting the wind knocked out of you. But there's always that one time that someone lands on their head wrong and breaks their neck (nice cliche, huh).
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Brettly10 does make a good point. It's one thing if you and others in your age group do risky stuff and possibly get hurt. It's another if a kid 5 years younger than you does.
[ August 04, 2003, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I don't know how many times my cousins and my brother and I would ride our bikes through the trails in the wooded area near my grandparents house. Nothing ever happened, until my cousin (Fael's oldest son) had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery and lost his spleen and very nearly died from internal injuries.
I think this proves a point - you say that accidents where kids get hurt are rare, and yet all these hatrackers know someone who had a serious childhood accident....they really aren't that rare.
While you can't put your kids in a padded room to keep them safe all their lives, you do have a responsibility to keep them from being exposed to unnecessary risk. Putting a 10 year old on a homemade zip line with no safety equipment = unnecessary risk.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Well guys, what do you want me to do. I wasn't in charge of him. I wasn't appointed in charge of him. I had no power over him. I just told him what could happen and it happened.
He was in charge of himself and I have a feeling he did learn something. He had a chance to test his limits doing something that was very very unlikely that he would get seriously hurt and he did and went past them. He now has a better idea of his comfort zone.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
damn it you guys. No body put the ten year old on the zip line except the ten year old. Ten year olds aren't stupid (unless they are). I guess there is no way we can argue this because we have differant definitions of nessisary risk. no risk is really nessisary if you really want to get into it.
[ August 04, 2003, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Belle, are you saying that you wouldn't let your kids go bike rideing because of that? Of course people are goign to get hurt.
Christ people, getting hurt isn't the end of the world.
[ August 04, 2003, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
What I'm curious is about is this - what would an UNnecessary risk be, to you?
By the way, if you weren't in charge at that moment of the the zipline you created, who was?
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
I'll tell you what you should have done:
Told him to go ask his parents.
That is what any responsible adult would have done under the circumstances.
His parents may have then come, seen the setup, and made it more safe. A thick leather or nylon strap with a handle would have made it so he didn't even get rope burn.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I'm eighteen, some of my best friends are several years younger than me, some of them do stuff with their parent's permission that I'd be scared to death to do.
I like the idea of a happy medium, and I think that's what most parents have with their children. There are always going to be people out there who take it to extremes, they aren't the majority; I'm guessing most kids in America have an upbringing much like Lor's was.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
[QUOTEWhat I'm curious is about is this - what would an UNnecessary risk be, to you? ] [/QUOTE]
well, an example of an unnecessary risk would be drinking a bottle of whisky then trying to drive home. Nothing is benefited from it.
An unnecessary risk to me is a risk taken when there is a good possiblity someone coud get seriously(like worse than broken bones) for little pay off
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
"Dude, broken bones aren't the benign injury you are making them out to be," says the 32 yr old with arthritis in her shoulder for the rest of her life. She didn't even have to break the bone, just bruised herself in just the wrong place.
It hurts every single day. I'm still alive. I'll probably live until I'm 90, but I would prefer to be pain free.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Brettly, are you male or female. i didn't catch that. And you clearly don't remember/understand how children think.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Children have a screwed up concept of life and death. They don't think about death and they don't understand it. Teens are just learning and trying to re-organize their brains at the same time.
Obviously, the payoff for those high-risk experiences is the adrenaline. I engage in high-risk activities for the adrenaline and the chance to push my body physically as far as it'll go before it gives me the finger.
Would I let one of my ten year old clients engage in any of those activities?
Gosh no.
Do I encourage my ten year old clients to go out and push themselves? Of course. Sports is a great chance for that. I work in an urban area, so natural risk-taking is few unless they participate in sports of some kind.
*wonders if Kayla would take parenting advice from her* Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
And you do? You speak for all children? Strange then how your thoughts don't resonate with most of us, despite the fact we were all kids once, some not so long ago.
Posted by Audeo (Member # 5130) on :
Every child needs a chance to test thier limits. It is an important part of growing up. This doesn't mean they have to seek out new dangers to replace the risk that used to be part of every day life. As a kid I did a lot of potentially dangerous things.
I fell out of innumerous trees, I jumped off a second story roof using grocery sacks for a parachute to land on the cement sidewalk and do it again...several times in fact until some adult walked by and told me I had to stop. My cousin and I made a raft to float down a flooded river in January. We got sucked under a snag, I'm still not sure how we managed to pull loose and swim to shore but we did, and then we had to walk home soaking wet in the snow. To us the greatest danger was an adult finding out about the dangers we had put ourselves in. They always seemed to react irrationally when they found out what we'd done.
Then one summer my cousin went on vacation to Hawaii with his family. He was climbing a cliff near a river (another of our favorite pastimes) that was flooded with rain. His siblings were behind him a bit, and when they finally caught up he was gone. Two days later Search and Rescue divers recovered his body from an underwater cave at the base of the cliff.
So to sum it up, just because you survive one or ten or even a hundred foolish stunts doesn't mean you are guaranteed to survive them all. Looking back on it I wish my parents (and his) had noticed a little more. We could have had just as much fun if there had been an adult or even older kid around to let us do the slightly less dangerous and keep us from doing the potentially deadly.
In the case of the zipline Lor should just have found something better than a stick to go down it. The kid was guaranteed to get a rope burn if he wasn't balanced on it right and he could have tipped sideways, fell and landed in such a way as to break something. Another length of rope about three feet long with knot or loop to hang on to on both sides would have been safer and still should have slid pretty well depending on what kind of rope it was, because no matter what you're doing it's always more fun if you don't get hurt.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:"Dude, broken bones aren't the benign injury you are making them out to be," says the 32 yr old with arthritis in her shoulder for the rest of her life. She didn't even have to break the bone, just bruised herself in just the wrong place.
It hurts every single day. I'm still alive. I'll probably live until I'm 90, but I would prefer to be pain free.
And of course, there are bad sprains that can do the same thing. I have permanent ligament damage in my ankle. I wasn't even doing anything reckless—just playing basketball. It hurts every single day.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:In the case of the zipline Lor should just have found something better than a stick to go down it
Allrighty then. What do you suggest to use on an island without more technology than sea kyacs, the stick worked very well when we learned to carve a notch in it.
Anyway. thats beside the point.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
You know what's killing me about this thread? According to Lorenz0, we're overinsulating our kids (an argument that I think can be reasonably made for some mothers -- my mother would be on that list), but if we parents followed his advice, everyone else in the world would call us terrible parents for letting them get hurt or killed.
In the pursuit of having fun and taking a risk, one of my high school classmates, a very tall, handsome young man, decided to hookiebob off the back of his friend's Jeep. It was going pretty well, he was having a great time, until they went into one of the turns of the road going about 20 or 30mph, he lost his grip on the car and flew into the other lane. Where he was hit by an oncoming car. He didn't die, though. He was lucky and was only paralyzed for life. I'm pretty sure he thought the risk was well worth the lesson learned.
Lorenz0, the long and short of this is that you have yet to acknowledge that you have *any* responsibility here. You seem to think that you have no influence over the actions of that 10 year old. I suggest, sir, that you think about who set up the line. Who was showing the other two younger kids how to use it? The point here is that you have a responsibility as an older child to look out for those younger than you, to understand that you are an influence, and that if the child is hurt while you're around, you *are* responsible. Deny it if you want, but you're *wrong*.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Allright then, I take the responsibility in a calculating the risk, testing it myself, and deciding that no serious injury could come of it. And in all the times we went down it, I was proved correct.
But a ten year old should know how to make decisions for themselves because they have been in situations like this before. Ten year olds are not as stupid as most of you think. They should be out doing plenty of stuff.
Had I thought the zip line would had a good chance of seriously hurting somebody, i wouldn't even set it up let alone go on it myself.
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
You mean to tell me all you grammar nazi's first type your post in a word processing program and then copy and paste into the "Post a Reply" utility. 'Cause if I'm not mistaken, being someone who has taught software at college, there is no such utility in IE. Sooooo please enlighten the rest of us, please.
Posted by Ralphie (Member # 1565) on :
At twenty-five years old I'm learning that I'm dumber than a box of rocks.
At ten years old I'm surprised I was sentient.
Kids are making connections and synapses at the speed of light, but that doesn't mean they have ANY idea what to do with their newfound information. That's the point of getting older - collecting all that information and then knowing what the heck to do with it.
Lorenz0 - I think you've been a little dogpiled, and I feel bad about that. But, from a moderately objective perspective, you haven't exactly been exhibiting an amazing amount of wisdom in your posts. Kids are not smarter than we give them credit for. Their little sponge-like brains are just beginning to understand discernment and wisdom, which are the key ingredients to avoiding danger, bodily disfigurement and death.
Luckily, kids are also almost 80% Rubbermade. If I got in half the accidents now as an adult as I did when I was a kid I think I would be quadriplegic. But, as resilient as they tend to be, there were other kids that fell from trees and rooftops, biffed it on their bikes and got caught in undercurrents in rivers that weren't nearly as fortunate as I was.
The parents you're debating with are some of the most balanced ones I've ever met. Not having kids myself, I'd totally bow to their experience. If they say, "We need a middle ground, and ten year olds on zip lines most likely isn't it," I'd strongly take WHY this is into consideration.
[ August 04, 2003, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: Ralphie ]
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
So, had the 10 year old fallen on his head and broken his neck, you were willing and able to take full responsibility for that? How much do you make a year, Lorenz0? At not-quite-16, I'll venture that it's not enough to cover the full expenses of such an accident.
As far as 10 year olds making their own decisions, what you're really saying is that 10 year olds should be able to make wiser decisions than 15 year olds, right? Yeah, that makes sense.
Posted by Ela (Member # 1365) on :
quote:Yeah, JaneX, Shlomo, and Kasie are all perfect examples of age not mattering. Even Maeth (after a bit of a rough beginning) is cool. And while T_Smith nearly stopped my heart one day recounting his adventures in a squirt gun contest, he's not bad either.
Thanks for the compliment to my kids, Kayla.
**Ela**
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Ela, they make it easy.
Ellen, I just open my Outlook Express and paste long replies to check for errors. I usually have OE open anyway, so why not take the extra few seconds and check the spelling. It doesn't catch everything, and I don't spell check every post, but generally, I try to check the longer ones. A little courtesy never killed anyone, and if someone wants people to take them seriously, they could at least pretend to care about what they are writing. Spelling and capitalization is a good thing. That's why they teach it in school A simple system so everyone can learn the same information. If everyone spelled however they wanted, it wouldn't take long for the world to become illiterate.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I am just past seventeen, and I have two younger sisters, one ten, one just turned four.
I have a complaint against the judging of older people spending time with younger children. What is a family, then? My ten year old sister plays quite happily with her four year old sister. Families seperated by years are able to play together, so why can't friends be seperated by age?
Another example, my sister has a friend now aged fifteen. They write to one another, they played with one another only a few years ago. My sister is a young ten, and wouldn't understand "hanging out" but I know a ton of ten year olds who would.
Yet another example, many of the very seniors at my school are friends with the very juniors. They are seperated by four or five years.
People can be friends, as children, with people who are of different ages without being censored and regarded as odd.
Posted by dangermom (Member # 1676) on :
Another parent checking in, asking for a middle ground. But really I want to say, hey Brettly, we're neighbors!
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
Well Kayla, I suggest if you're going to be a grammar Nazi that you take the extra few second and have Word open, because it looks like this last post was critically lacking in punctuation. Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Belle, are you saying that you wouldn't let your kids go bike rideing because of that? Of course people are goign to get hurt.
Christ people, getting hurt isn't the end of the world.
Actually, no that's not what I was saying at all. I was trying to point out that serious accidents are more common that you were making them out to be. And I was tying to illustrate that even an activity that seems to be safe (bike riding) and has been performed safely many times before can still turn dangerous in a flash.
My kids actually ride bikes every day, even the three year olds have bikes with training wheels. And yes, they get hurt - skinned knees, scrapes, bruises. But I would not allow my kids to do what we used to do - take a bike on a rough trail into woods, without any safety equipment and no adult supervision. That I would not do.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Ellen, chill.
We can tell the difference between errors made by quick typing and those made by sloppiness or laziness.
Kayla was right to suggest he polish up his typing, it will serve him well later.
Yes, we all make mistakes typing, I do all the time, but everyone knows it's not because I'm actually ignorant of the correct spelling - or worse, that I "couldn't care less."
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Ellen, I did and there were two mistakes. Neither of them involved punctuation.
I hate Word. It doesn't seem to be intelligent enough to figure out all the rules of grammar, but if it did, I'd use it all the time, so I could figure out where the heck the commas were supposed to go. However, as it is, I can write a sentence, check it, Word tells me it's correct, then I change the commas and Word still says it's correct. Can't win for losing with that program.
quote: Ela, they make it easy.
Ellen, I just open my Outlook Express and paste long replies to check for errors. I usually have OE open anyway, so why not take the extra few seconds and check the spelling. It doesn't catch everything, and I don't spell check every post, but generally, I try to check the longer ones. A little courtesy never killed anyone, and if someone wants people to take him or her seriously, they could at least pretend to care about what they are writing. Spelling and capitalization is a good thing. That's why they teach it in school, a simple system so everyone can learn the same information. If everyone spelled however they wanted, it wouldn't take long for the world to become illiterate.
[ August 04, 2003, 08:52 PM: Message edited by: Kayla ]
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
Belle, so you're telling me one person's inexcusable error is a grammar Nazi's slight oversight. You're telling me to chill when Kayla's first six posts contained grammar arguments, filled with evidence of her disdain for Lorenz0's opinions based on his presentation not content.
quote:We can tell the difference between errors made by quick typing and those made by sloppiness or laziness
Oh, really how can you tell? You're making a character judgment/assassination based on this thread. You’re calling him sloppy and/or lazy. How smug! This is after all a chat board, not a business proposal. If you're going to live by the sword, you ought to be ready to die by the sword.
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
Kayla and Belle will you just admit you're not perfect. Kayla you have since re-edited this quote to correct the punctuation errors. Geez!! This is the unedited post. Can you see a difference?
quote:Ela, they make it easy.
Ellen, I just open my Outlook Express and paste long replies to check for errors. I usually have OE open anyway, so why not take the extra few seconds and check the spelling. It doesn't catch everything, and I don't spell check every post, but generally, I try to check the longer ones. A little courtesy never killed anyone, and if someone wants people to take them seriously, they could at least pretend to care about what they are writing. Spelling and capitalization is a good thing. That's why they teach it in school A simple system so everyone can learn the same information. If everyone spelled however they wanted, it wouldn't take long for the world to become illiterate.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Ellen, I meant it when I said chill. You're getting awfully upset about something that doesn't merit this type of emotion.
Lorenz declared HIMSELF sloppy when it comes to typing, he said he didn't care what it was like.
He probably doesn't care so much at age 15, but it will make a difference for him later. In other words, he should start caring, or he will always be looked down upon. Whether you like it or not, people are judged by how well they communicate in writing.
Seriously, though - why is this bothering you so much? Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:, we all make mistakes typing, I do all the time
I think the quote by me above is indicative of the fact that I think I'm not perfect.
I'm posting this in a separate post instead of editing my previous one, so that you don't accuse me of "fixing" errors, btw.
You really think Kayla not typing a question mark is equivalent to misspelling "parent" multiple times and saying you don't care how it is spelled?
Again, calm down. It's not that big of a deal, really.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Sheesh Ellen. The boy rarely uses capital letters, spelled parents incorrectly, even after having it pointed out to him, and rather than lecture parents about letting their children out of the house to risk their lives would do well to stay home and learn to SPELL SIMPLE WORDS.
I didn't say a word about his use of commas, did I? And for the record, my first post was a sarcastic barb. My second was a direct response about what my son did the last time I let him play at a friend’s house. The third was a response to you. The fourth was another telling Laurenz0 to use a dictionary. The fifth was questioning the fact that he had time to write all the posts, but not an extra 30 seconds to spell check them. The sixth was a post entirely dedicated to laughing at myself.
So, if you are going to talk about me, get your facts straight. My disdain for Laurenz0 has little to do with his spelling ability and more to do with his judgment. However, I will say the fact that he couldn't care less about making his posts easier to read for his audience says a lot about his judgment.
The re-edited paragraph was placed there to show you that Word doesn't pick up enough to make it worth using! Can't you see that? It didn't even pick up the fact that there was a question without a question mark!
I've already admitted I'm not perfect. Many times in fact. I believe it was about 6 months ago someone else asked a similar question and I posted multiple links where I had called myself an idiot. However, when others tell me I've made an error, I don't tell them I'm too lazy to bother with any of their concerns and continue to post the same incorrect thing over and over. I, unlike some, am more than happy, willing and able to learn.
Now, can you point out specific examples of incorrect grammar so I don't continue to make the same mistakes? (If you look, you might even find posts of mine where I've specifically requested grammar assistance and suggested a grammar thread, which we've had, but those never seem to answer problems that come up while posting.)
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
I was the one who asked Kayla to chill when she started down this road. You're telling me to chill and I'm telling you to chill. Let's all chill together. Do you think you can let it go now?
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Why? Could you possibly be wrong?
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
Not going to let it go, are you? Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Oh, like you did? Wait, I remember, you wanted Belle and I to admit we make mistakes. We did. Now you want to drop it.
So, does this mean you make mistakes, too?
You know, you haven't been at Hatrack all that long. You might be wrong about me. You never know. Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
*sigh*
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
*Throws bucket of water on thread.*
Belle and Kayla are right that such things are important if you want to be taken seriously. I personally know a guy who was expected to get a large promotion because his superior liked his attitude, etc. He wrote a short email expressing his excitement at the prospect of working in the new area. But he repeatedly wrote "sales" as "sells". As in, I look forward to working with you in the sellsforce. There were also numerous grammatical mistakes, etc.
He should have spell-checked or at least let someone with a college degree (e.g. most of his co-workers) proof read it.
Four years later, he has yet to be promoted, because that email made him look sub-literate.
HOWEVER, Ellen is right that you guys are making too much of this. If he wants to take more care in the future, that's fine. If he doesn't, badgering him won't help.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Where is Rita when you need her?
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Oh, Olivet, make no mistake, I couldn't care less about Laurenz0's spelling at this point and time. I just decided to give Ellen a hard time. Especially after she misrepresented my first 6 posts and wouldn't "let it go."
Being the bigger person, I'll let it go now. I swear. After all, I can admit I'm wrong.
All better now?
Come on, you know you want to. . .
Posted by Ralphie (Member # 1565) on :
She was tempted, Icarus. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Oh, I think it's obvious what's going on here, don't you? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clearly, Ellen is really Cedrios, back to terrorize us!
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I only stepped in because Ellen was being harsh to Kayla, whom I consider my friend. If Kayla's dropping it, then I am too. I never really cared much about Lorenz's future opportunities, I just didn't like Ellen's crusade.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Man, y'all didn't like the irony of me being the "bigger" person?
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
*snort* Belle and Kayla are hardly folks to tear you up over simple screw-ups. They are also the first two people to admit to mistakes. Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Cool guys. I know. And you know I love you all. It's just that Ellen is relatively knew, and may have missed out on the subtext of some of the posts. It's kind of a running joke.
I was just trying to be kinda jokey. Hope I didn't offend. :Blinks innocently:
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Noemon, as you are actually one of my cedonyms (or am I one of yours? I forget), I feel compelled to voice my agreement.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(Hi, Olivet. I will AIM soon, but I have to leave now. It was a ratty night. But thanks for being the benevolent presence here -- was cool to see you do your thing. )
[ August 04, 2003, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Olivet, I don't think you're capable of blinking innocently.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(*pokes mac okay? on my way to bed)
[ August 04, 2003, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
(*pat pat* dealing. get results tomorrow o_O)
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(*nod okay, will check with you in morning)
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
(*hug*)
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"Some people may have looked at the line and said "you could get hurt" and you know what, you could get hurt"
I am sorry to jump in at the end.
You could have done the same activity quite safely, and without the need of armor or a padded landing. The kids would get the same feeling of risk and excitement, but they would be roped in, with an appropriate zipline set-up, which braked soon enough before the tree so they would not smash into it. This type of apparatus should be set up and supervised by an experienced person.
Another factor is that the parents of a child hurt on your parents' property would sue not you, but your parents. For a lot of money. We live, after all, in a country which allows these things to happen:
quote: This year's favorite could easily be Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.
Thanks, Kayla. Funny, I thought I had heard a few of those before.
I think you can still get my point, though. The McDonald's coffee case is true, as are many other ridiculous cases.
A child being hurt on another person's property and the parents sueing up the wazzo is not an urban legend, however.
[ August 04, 2003, 10:57 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
I constantly struggle with my fear for my boys' safety vs. fear of over-insulating them.
I watch, and after they prove that they CAN do a thing, I back-off and let them try something even more challenging. I think this is a good compromise, but it frustrates my kids who think that they are invincible. They have much more fun playing with Dad.
My husband is a "let them prove that they can't do it" kinda guy. They come home from almost every outing scraped, dirty, cold, tired and excited. Shortly after they get home, I'm regailed with stories of "John got lost, but..." or "Jacob didn't bleed that much after I...".
My husband is a risk taker and has a much stronger sense of fun than I have. I want those qualities for my boys.
But I want my boys to outlive me. I want them to realize there are limits and that being here tomorrow gives you the chance to overcome those limits and set sights on the next goal. I don't want them to lose all the moments ahead and waste all their beautiful potential in one blaze of glory.
Being a parent means constantly struggling with issues that have no right answer. And whether you're a parent in North America or Africa, you want two things: 1) You never want to see your child injured and 2)You want your children's lives to be even more fullfilled than your own. Sometimes it just feels like those two goals are mutually exclusive.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Whoa. 200 posts in one day. This is why I have names like that. Attention grabbers.
Anyway, I guess we can't argue this anymore. It all comes down to morals which we can't argue. We all have our own lines and in my opinion, most of you need to let your kids live more. Case closed.
How about we switch this to the topic of sueing people. how many of you people would sue your school board or whatever if your kid died on it?
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
It would depend on why.
Sorry, I can't resist, but if they had set up a zipline like yours and a kid fell off or slammed into a tree, I might be sueing.
If the kid fell on the playground, which is as safe as it can possibly be made, I wouldn't sue.
If the kid died because he was being beat on, and teachers could have prevented it, I might sue. If they had no way of knowing, then I probably wouldn't.
It isn't about "would you sue or not". It is about circumstances. If it were preventable by reasonable precautions, then I would sue. Otherwise, I'd just chalk it up to life. If I sued, the money would pay for expenses and then go towards doing something to fix it.
Posted by JaneX (Member # 2026) on :
quote:Yeah, JaneX, Shlomo, and Kasie are all perfect examples of age not mattering.
*hugs*
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
^ ! ! Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Why has no one asked, "What would Ender do?"
AJ (I mean child Ender not adult ender)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Um, Kayla, relax. Really.
I don't mind dogpiling on Laurenz0 for his arrogant assumptions about parenting, or his odd tendency to put young children in dangerous situations, but I think you've crossed the line between TEASING someone about bad grammar and, frankly, harping on it.
The strange catfight you're initating with EllenM doesn't make much sense, either. She was more confrontational than she needed to be, true, but surely you can recognize that she essentially extended a flag of truce in her last few posts?
Let it go, 'k?
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Tom,
It is interesting that you say this to Kayla, to be nice and approriate and let it go, when your first comment was this:
"Why is it all the STUPID people get to write the diatribes?"
Frankly, that was one of the meanest comments I have seen on this site.
Liz
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
It was, indeed, mean, and I shouldn't've posted it.
It was not, however, the intro to a drawn-out catfight -- largely to Laurenz0's credit, I might add.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Thanks for saying that, Tom, because it surprised me and seemed out of character for you. Liz
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yeah, it was. I've been grumpy for the last week, thanks to work and general exhaustion. Never do a 2003 server conversion in the same week you decide to clean and stain your deck. Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote: the same week you decide to clean and stain your deck.
That reminds me.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:I don't mind dogpiling on Laurenz0 for his arrogant assumptions about parenting,
Yes. arrogant. thats a good word.
Sorry peoples if I come off as that, but I have a tendency towards devils advocacy, and if someone has something so i'll probably disagree and once I disagree backing down is not an option so I often say things more strongly than I mean them to get the point across and is often misinterpreted. example "dying isn't the worst thing that can happen to your kid"
I do however disagree that I shouldn't have let the kid down the line since at that time, we were just a bunch of friends hanging out, and when that happens, no one can really force people do anything. Just suggest.
I felt that he had the power to make his own decision, he isn't stupid/un-self aware therefore the i think the decision was up to him and not me. I was just a guy hanging around, and contrary to what some of you have said, i don;t see many attempts to impress me in particular. Perhaps my thirteen year old friend, but not me. I was not appointed by the parent to look after the kids rendering me in a position of just bystander. I suggested that it was quite dangerous, but he decided to go ahead. I think he made the right decision but many of you would disagree, but thats moral differances which we can't argue.
[ August 06, 2003, 01:42 AM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Is there anybody out there who agrees with me that most perants are overbearing? Perhaps not to the same degree as me. *shifts eyes*
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
I think some parents are too overbearing.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Actually I think a lot of parents are much less overbearing than my parents were. My mother in particular was the oldest of 7 kids. After keeping the six younger kids in line for years, she only had 3 children herself. Keeping track of us was a piece of cake for her and we never got away with anything.
AJ
Posted by Amka (Member # 690) on :
No, most parents aren't overbearing.
Please forgive me for saying this, but at your age it does feel that way. It is a natural reaction for you to have at your age. You are nearly an adult, but not quite yet. You feel like an adult but aren't yet aware of some of the, erm, realizations and attitudes that adults need to have. Even very mature people who are your age still don't have the experience they will have as an adult that will make them look back and realize that they were still very young at that age. Your parents are more aware than you are that the dangers they are trying to prevent could actually happen to you. They have a better understanding of what is 'out there' than you do.
Older people understand more than younger people give them credit for. Adults have seen their friends or children of their friends die in accidents. Adults have made stupid mistakes themselves that is still affecting their life. Adults realize that you don't have to learn from your own mistakes. It is better to learn from the mistakes of others.
It is not very wise, for instance, to learn that drugs are bad by getting addicted, bottoming out in a trip to the emergency room, and then going through rehab with lingering effects the rest of your life. Clearly, you are much better off gaining that knowledge not through personal experience but by seeing the examples of others.
I think it is about the time you are as old as your earliest memories of your parents that you start to think "I'm as old as my parents back then and they were my parents at this age." Especially when you have children, and not before (even if you are mature), you understand what your parents were thinking when they restricted you. If anything, you begin to think of your parents as having been quite liberal with you. You certainly wouldn't have put up with the bs you gave your parents. But then you realise that, well... you have to put up with it and give them some freedom because they have to learn.
Yeah, some parents don't learn that and do over react. But not most of them.
My dad laughed at me when I talked about how hard it was to get my kids to bed, and exclaimed "Ahhh, revenge."
[ August 06, 2003, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Amka ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: Please forgive me for saying this, but at your age it does feel that way.
Actually, i'm not basing this on my experiance with perants. I'm basing it on the news and my friends and their perants.
What i'm comparing it to is what kids were allowed to do back in earlier days, when they coud really go out of the house say "mom I'm going to the river, be back for lunch" go down to the river, relaly do whatever the hell they wanted. Come back for lunch, head out and do something else.
I'm worried that this will become a trend. each generation allowing their children to do less and less. Eventually if we keep on this road, we will keep our kids in padded boxes. \
[ August 06, 2003, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
L, this is nothing against you, and I hesitate to say this because I don't it to be criticism.
But thinking padded boxes are within the realm of possibility shows how young you are.
It's like those extreme utopia and dysopia books - they appeal young to me, because I've figured out the principle of regression to the mean, and I've seen enough cycles to know that the pendulum usually swings back.
Now, it is definitely a trend that kids are getting less and less physical, and fatter and fatter as a result, but that doesn't come from overprotective parents. It comes from a host of other factors, a more urbanized and sedentary society being one of them.
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
Laurenz0:
quote:I felt that he had the power to make his own decision, he isn't stupid/un-self aware therefore the i think the decision was up to him and not me.
You say that now. What if he had been killed? Would you still feel secure saying that it was his own decision and his own fault?
quote:I was not appointed by the parent to look after the kids rendering me in a position of just bystander.
I'm sorry, but until you're mature enough to realise that it is your responsibility, whether explicitly given or not, to stop 10-year-olds from doing dangerous things, you really have no right to tell parents what their responsibilities are. 10-year-olds are stupid. It falls upon those who are presumably wiser with age to stop them from breaking their damn necks.
So basically, what you're telling parents to do—and an interesting point to note is that many of the people you're issuing these imperial instructions to are old enough to be your parents—is to let their kids do whatever they damn well please with damn fool friends like you. And to what end? So that they won't end up "sit[ting] in all day and play[ing] nintendo, computer, watch[ing] tv, whatever". So effing what? They have the rest of their lives to grow up, just as you have the rest of your life to come to the realisation that you're responsible for people beyond yourself. In the meantime, I and others will thank you for not recklessly shortening the time period we're talking about when we say "the rest of their lives".
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
katharina, Do you realy believe that perants let their kids do as much nowadays as they did before? No whos blaming the victim? "its the kids fault for being less physical"
Well, I can tell you. Your wrong. Since you seem to bash me alot, let me tell you. Thats a rather naive thing to say. I don't know where you grew up, but you hear the stories all the time. "back in my day, we could go play on the streets for hours." "we would go find rocks and throw at each other" And so on and so forth. Mind you, big cities also account for a parents reluctancy to do let their kids do something.
But the padded boxes was a metaphor. No, padded boxes are not probably not goign to happen.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
quote:What i'm comparing it to is what kids were allowed to do back in earlier days, when they coud really go out of the house say "mom I'm going to the river, be back for lunch" go down to the river, relaly do whatever the hell they wanted. Come back for lunch, head out and do something else.
I don't know that any child, aged 10, has *ever* been allowed to do that, even in these good old days you seem to be glorifying.
[ August 06, 2003, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: Kasie H ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Huckleberry Finn, maybe.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
Perhaps not at ten, but slightly older, maybe 12. 11 even. Anyway, the perants let the kids go and didn't really know what they were doing, and most of the time. No one really got hurt.
Edit: Most of the time.
[ August 06, 2003, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: Laurenz0 ]
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
Lorenz0, different times, different cities, different rules, buddy. Parents aren't sitting their kids in front of the TV because it's the safer thing to do, they do it because it's the easier thing to do. It's not like they think, "Little Kelly can't go outside and play in the brook, she might trip! Let's just sit her down at the computer, it's so much safer there!" It's more along the lines of "Good Lord, I just worked 12 hours and there isn't any food started for dinner. And I still have to call my accountent, make the kids lunch for the morning, balance the checkbook, work in the garden, finish sanding the deck and ... argh! Kelly's yelling at me again! *spoken* Kelly? Why don't you watch some TV, Ok honey?"
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
At risk of reigniting the grammar wars:
However, I will say the fact that he couldn't care less about making his posts easier to read...
Dear Kayla:
Thank you so much for correctly using the often-incorrectly-used phrase "couldn't care less."
Love ya.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
quote:Anyway, the perants let the kids go and didn't really know what they were doing, and most of the time. No one really got hurt.
I'd like to start with the following: although I kicked and screamed at various points during my childhood, I do not feel that my parents were unecessarily overprotective. I think they found an excellent balance, actually, and I think it shows. This summer, for example. I'm 18 and going to college next year, granted, but I am living away from home -- housesitting for friends and such -- all by myself. My parents let me do this so I could take advantage of a great job opportunity I had this summer. Which is great. I appreciate both the freedom and the trust they've given me.
I enjoy the freedom, yes. But I talk to my mom or dad every night. If I'm going someplace, or doing something, especially if it's far away, I let them know about it. Not because they pressure me to. But what if, God forbid, I'm in a car accident? What if it's 12 am on a back road somewhere where there's little possiblity of someone finding me? At least someone knows when I was supposed to be home, or where I was coming from.
There have only been a few times in my life when my parents have not known where I was, regardless of my age. It was always because I lied to them, and I'm very lucky that nothing happened to me.
That said, I also expect the same courtesy from my parents. Even when I was living at home, if they went out, I always knew where they were going and when they were coming home. If they were an hour, two hours late, at I would know that something might be wrong.
Knowing where your loved ones are is not just something that applies to children. It applies to all of us. My parents still know when my grandparents will be in Michigan, or in Florida, or if they'll be travelling to visit friends. It's not because they think they're too old and need to be watched for. We're a family. We watch out for each other. That's what families do.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Actually, you know what? THere are parents out there who do let their kids "go down to the river, back for lunch, and then do whatever the hell they want". Those are the same parents who don't care if the kid comes back for lunch or not. Those are the parents who might even hold a secret hope that the kid falls in the river and drowns so he doesn't interupt their busy lives so much. They don't really want him to drown, but they do certainly wish he would just go away and quit inconveniencing them. Loving parents, those.
Lorenz0, you don't live anywhere near Bellingham, WA, do you? I just want to make sure that you don't spend a lot of time with MY 10 year old.
Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :
#250!
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote: Parents aren't sitting their kids in front of the TV because it's the safer thing to do, they do it because it's the easier thing to do
You know bob. i never thought of that. its a good point, but I also disagree with you. i think that perants could just as easily send their kids outside, but they worry to much. saying, go to the park, or something is just as easy as saying go play computer. But then again. They wouldn't go to the park if through all that time perants just said play computer and they got hooked. Ya know. you raise an excellant point and in a lot of cases probably applies.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:It's not because they think they're too old and need to be watched for. We're a family. We watch out for each other. That's what families do.
*wistful*
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
But really people. Are you actually saying parents let their kids do as much these days?
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
Laurenz0: It's irrelevant.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
(((Kat))) It's probably little consolation, but you do have a terrific Hatrack family.
[ August 06, 2003, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: Kasie H ]
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Kat, I'd be thrilled to have you as a sister. <-- platonic and sisterly
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
((((Kasie)))) I know. I used to have that as my blood-related family; I remember what it's like. ((((jeniwren)))) Thank you for the compliment. I'd be delighted to be your sister. Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:Laurenz0: It's irrelevant.
I would disagree. If so. Everything is irrelevant.
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
If a tree falls in the forest...
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
well, fine. don't answer my question.
HOw about we discuss rabid swamp rabbits from brazil.
Posted by EllenM (Member # 5447) on :
I guess I'll jump in here. It seems to me the conversation has polarized, between the loving caring parent and the neglectful parent. I think if Lorenzo used different statements instead of saying “parent are overbearing” or kids used to be able to “really do whatever the hell they wanted.” Then we might be able to see each other POV.
Let’s just say most children are over scheduling and are left with no free time unless it's unsupervised in front of the TV, Nintendo, or computer. I know there are a lot of you that live in cities and you can't just let you children "go out" for their safety and your peace of mind. I live in the Northwest and it seem to me Lorenz0 does too. I live in a medium size town in Eastern Idaho. Crime is low. Parks are plentiful: providing baseball diamond, swings, bike paths, and so forth. In addition, acres of undeveloped land for hiking and exploring. However, it seems most children are either over scheduled or in front of an electronic passive entertainment devise. Moreover, I get to hear mothers complain about always being in the car taking their children to their many activities. And my children and I are left to deal with children who don't know how to socialize. unless they're in uniforms or the TV’s on.
EllenM
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Only if they're gay and want to get married. Otherwise, what else is there to talk about? Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
It's irrelevant because the fact that parents used to let their kids run wild—if they actually did so—has no bearing on whether it was correct then and, more importantly, whether it would be correct now.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
What I'd really like to see if death by accidents have been lowered over the past years. Does anybody now where I could get such information?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Google?
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Going from memory, the top reason for childhood mortality is accident.
A quick search on google shows that accidents are the main reason kids die, but most of those are motor vehicular. For older kids, it's motor vehicles and firearms. That's chilling.
[ August 06, 2003, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: jeniwren ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
So, if motor vehicle accidents are tops. Why do you guys deem driving with your kids safe enough? More kids are dying from that than doing crazy things.
Posted by Vána (Member # 3262) on :
The real question is, why do so many parents think it's okay to drive around without putting their children into their car seats properly, or at all.
But that is an entirely different issue, and one that I will very likely be raising here in September, after I get my Child Safety Seat Technition certification.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Vana, I never understood that one either. I about came unglued one time when I was following a Volvo in traffic. Two small children were bouncing around in the back, waving at me and having a grand old time. My son, raised with the idea that the car won't start unless everyone is buckled in, asked me how the lady driving was able to get her car started.
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
Car journeys are all but unavoidable. The same cannot be said for your little stunt.
Also, a fair number of those must surely result from not wearing seatbelts, another example of unnecessary risk-taking.
Edit: Why do I keep missing out other people's posts? Clarification: I was, of course, addressing Laurenz0, and now that Vana's mentioned it, let me add "or not being secured in car-seats" to "not wearing seatbelts".
[ August 06, 2003, 02:08 PM: Message edited by: ae ]
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
go to november 27.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:The real question is, why do so many parents think it's okay to drive around without putting their children into their car seats properly, or at all.
Now that is my definition of risk with no gain. Horrible. just horrible.
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
You have yet to define what you mean by "gain".
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
By gain I mean a risk that will allow the child to learn by experiance how to be cautious, a risk that will bring him or her outdoors away from the computer, a risk that will give htem some experiance taking risks and best of all, to have a little fun.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Lorenzo, not to defend parents who do this -- the one time I drove with my toddler son *not* strapped in the carseat, I had a good reason. He was having a temper tantrum that had already lasted nearly 2 hours. I was taking him home from daycare, where the director had stayed late and tried to help me calm him down. Ultimately, though, we tried everything and could not get him to calm down. So I picked him up bodily (he weighed about half what I did, so this was not easy) and put him in the car. I tried to get him in his seat, but couldn't. He just wouldn't bend. It was less than a mile home, so I gave up and drove home without him in his carseat.
Sometimes the gain is getting them in the car at all when you *have* to leave. No excuse, obviously. But sometimes you do what you have to do. I remember that day very clearly, even though it was over 7 years ago. Parenting is not for wimps.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
Fun is in the eye of the beholder. Being outside is not immediately equal to being in fun, especially in certain areas.
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
Laurenz0:
quote:a risk that will allow the child to learn by experiance how to be cautious
Why do you want him to learn to be cautious? Trick question.
quote:a risk that will bring him or her outdoors away from the computer
You can play outdoors without risking serious injury the way your example did.
quote:a risk that will give htem some experiance taking risks
This is circular and pointless.
quote:best of all, to have a little fun
Soudns like playing in the car without a car-seat/seatbelt fulfills this criterion.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
I've always heard that if you keep a dog on a short leash, rather than training it, the dog is much more apt to run away should the leash ever break.
Wouldn't the same be true for our children? It's important to let them play (and I agree with EllenM that there is too much "scheduled activities" in the lives of our children today), but to also raise them to have good sense about safety and danger.
It seems that so often, our kids are raised by teachers, coaches and televisions, rather than by their parents. It helps to have a whole village around when raising a child, but all it really takes is at least one caring, involved parent.
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:You can play outdoors without risking serious injury the way your example did.
But there isn't anything cool or exciting like in a video game.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Well, that convinced me.
L, there also is no reset button like a video game either.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Lorenz0, could you please address my post??
Here's another question. Do you feel your own parents unduly limit your own freedom?
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
quote:It's not because they think they're too old and need to be watched for. We're a family. We watch out for each other. That's what families do.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
(((((mack)))))
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
Laurenz0:
quote:But there isn't anything cool or exciting like in a video game.
Way to go, Mr Irrelevant.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Just play video games during a thunderstorm next to a sliding glass door that's open. Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote: What i'm comparing it to is what kids were allowed to do back in earlier days, when they coud really go out of the house say "mom I'm going to the river, be back for lunch" go down to the river, relaly do whatever the hell they wanted. Come back for lunch, head out and do something else.
One thing to keep in mind is that in the old days, parents didn't have to worry so much about whether there was somebody down by the river waiting for kids to come by.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Hey, a real group hug.
(((Kat & mack)))
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Laurenz0, here you go. Adolescent mortality in 1980 was 97.9 (78.1 for injuries only) per 100,000. By 1999, it had dropped to 69.8 (53.5 for injuries only.) It would seem that of all the groups represented, only African Americans mortality rate is going up.
(Sweet William, your welcome! I read those pet peeve threads! I really do try to learn from my mistakes, though learning from others works, too. Now, if only I could get y'all to make more mistakes and then have someone point it out. )
Posted by Laurenz0 (Member # 5336) on :
quote:One thing to keep in mind is that in the old days, parents didn't have to worry so much about whether there was somebody down by the river waiting for kids to come by.
Actually, thats not true. Just the ****ing media seems to make everybody believe it happens to everyone.'
They are just really discovering all that happened back then.
But really. THere still isn't that much of it. No here anyway. And I live in a city of 1 million. Or, 950 000.
The media is making us all paranoid. its true. i agree with Micheal moore when it comes to that.
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