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Author Topic: Serious Children's Writing Question
CoriSCapnSkip
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Where can I find books and articles addressing the issues of current literature for children in light of the reality of children's lives today? It seems the situations in almost all the books I enjoyed as a child except history (and that's counting Carolyn Haywood, Mary Calhoun, and even some of Beverly Cleary as ancient history) would be impossible today due to the fact that parents can't let kids out of their sight until age 15 if then. Should all child characters in fantasy and mystery stories be neglected foster kids or orphans sent to live with inattentive uncles, just to get them out of the adults' presence? Thanks for any leads!
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hoptoad
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Hey CoriSCapnSkip

I have struggled with the same feelings about the YA stories I write.
I believe an emerging trend in YA fiction is a return to exactly the sort of worlds you mention. Where kids are free.

The problem has always been about how to let your characters have freedoms that 'real' kids do not have. For this to occur, the 'suspension of disbelief' has to happen for the WRITER who is an ADULT. I don't think young and young adult readers have that problem. For instance, when I write I tend to think, 'why isn't this kid at home doing his homework? He'll end up having to repeat Grade 8.' I am convinced that young readers easily ignore such things.

I have tackled this aspect of the story by having a kid whose widowed mum is always at work trying to make ends meet at the start of the story. Then problems arise when she no longer has to do that and in the main character's mind she seems to be constantly on his case.

It is still fantasy-based, contemporary speculative fiction just the change in circumstances adds to the conflict.

As I mentioned, I do think that YA are tending to be drawn toward the 'old-fashioned' worlds where school is an aberration and all life occurs in the summer months. (Just realised that i am describing the exact opposite of the HP novels, in which all 'life' happens at school and 'the holidays' are almost ignored. -- still of all the kids at school, the HP triad of Harry, Hermione and Ron have freedoms the other kids do not and for no good reason except that they may be somewhat indulged. Perhaps it ties-in with the common childhood fantasy of being on equal terms with adults. They believe they are right and the adults sowly come around to see that they ARE right.)

Just some thoughts.
I am interested in what possibilities YOU see in tackling the problem.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 27, 2006).]


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CoriSCapnSkip
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Just my opinion that people in rural and small-town areas worry to a somewhat lesser extent about such problems and that I am more qualified to write about such areas as I've spent my whole life living in them, not urban areas.
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Christine
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Why can't parents let kids out of their sight before the age of 15 if then? I'm sorry, but such strict control sounds like the abuse/neglect to me. How can children ever learn to beceom independent adults in such a situation? I live in a pretty typical suburb right now, and I'm always seeing kids running around the neighborhood in groups without their parents. They go to the neighborhood parks, playgrounds, and even pools. (Usually the ones at the pools are full teens if they're alone, but I've seen 9 and 10 year-olds without adult supervision riding bikes and playing at the payground.)

I'm not sure where you're getting your rules from. Perhaps you're exaggerating the age, perhaps not, but I don't really know how to answer the question if I don't really understand what you're talking about.

[This message has been edited by Christine (edited February 28, 2006).]


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CoriSCapnSkip
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That's what I wonder--at what age do you turn them loose, and how do they learn to make any decisions on their own if you don't? So GLAD I don't have kids, but I'm seeing my sisters subject theirs to stricter controls than we had, which as a kid I found overly strict (not going to the park because junkies would attack you--that was the '70s--now it's not going to the park presumably because child molesters will attack you--I've been going to the park for 35 years now and yet to see much evidence of either.)

The crackdown is doubtless more severe in neighborhoods where there's been a kidnapping incident. In Northern Idaho and the neighboring regions of Washington State where the horrible Dylan and Shasta Groene case took place, a mother of young children (I'd say under age 8) was interviewed saying that before her kids "were allowed to play only in the yard, now it's only in the yard when mother is watching"--meaning the mother can't do ANYTHING else, except, presumably, work in that part of the yard where her kids are, at ANY time when the kids want to be outside! Which is as abusive to the mother as to the kids, if you think about it.

I'm not talking about writing stories promoting kids striking up acquaintances with strangers, but just having some freedom of mobility to explore and learn without the watchful eyes of parents always on them.


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Christine
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Ooooh yess...we do live in a reactionary society. We also live in a society with a short memory. After a horrible incident where a child gets hburt/molested/kidnapped/killed, there is a backlash of mothers who fear to let their children out of their sight. As time progresses, they loosen their controls. I bet this happens at an inverse to the geographical distance from the incident.

But you can safely give your kids reasonable, age and maturity appropriate degrees of freedom.


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hoptoad
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'Abuse/neglect' is an overly emotional and inaccurate description.
It is closer to hypervigilance

Hypervigilance is the condition of maintaining an abnormal awareness of environmental stimuli and scanning for threats. It is sometimes characterised by intrusive disturbing thoughts and mounting anxiety. It can be promoted in parents by repeated exposure to 'threats' as reported in the news and popular media, indicating that these threats, ( including such things as sexual, mental and emotional abuse, abductions and physical harm etc), to children are more common, widespread and frequent than they really are.

Having said that, these occurences are more widespread and frequent than most people realise. The hypervigilant parent will often know or have exposure to children or families where one or more of these things have occurred. A sense that the general public are 'less aware' feeds the syndrome. To the chronic sufferer, children roaming the streets at dusk may be seen as evidence of parental neglect, ignorance or lack of parental skills and confirm their views that the threats are real and exist just outside their front door.

Most parents will experience periods of hypervigilance, often as a result of some catalysing negative event like the ones you mentioned. As a father of a fourteen year-old girl, a twelve year-old boy and an eight-year old boy, I know I have.

Edit:

Also there is a tendency for parents to give children almost boundless permission/indulgence early in their life. As disturbing or destructive behaviour occurs, parents tighten the controls and rules. This reads to the child as decreasing freedom and loss of favour.

Evidence suggests that little children should have the tightest controls and the strictest rules and as they mature and learn how to make well thought-out, sound decisions, freedoms should increase and rules relax. This reads as increasing freedom and promotes a sense of being trusted.

The point I want to emphasise is that kids in books tend to have more 'freedoms' than real kids do, or imagine they do. That is part of the escapism.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 28, 2006).]


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CoriSCapnSkip
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This poor kid was so traumatized by stranger danger he actually ran from rescuers: http://www.jwf.org/ReadArticle.asp?articleId=119
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Survivor
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Well....

Okay, going back to what was being said about "controls" and so forth, I tend to think of it in terms of the amount of help a child needs to do things. An infant needs a lot more help than a child of two, who needs more help than a kid entering kindergarten, and so on and so forth.

Admittedly, my theory leads me to restrict privileges ever more as a child gets older. The child has to become more independent.

Little kids do need help dealing with unfamiliar and potentially dangerous situations. But it depends on the kid and the parent. Personally, I teach kids not to touch the stove by grabbing them and shoving their fingers towards the flame anytime I catch them too close to the stove. I've never burned a kid yet


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CoriSCapnSkip
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Thanks for the answers. Anyone raising kids care to comment? Do you have them wired to a cell phone at all times? If it became possible to implant GPS chips in a kid, would you?
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TMan1969
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I live in a big city and I keep the younger children close by - and I do let them go to the after-school club/friends house that is reasonably close. The two youngest girls, 6 and 9 travel together. My boy usually stays in, or visits his friends across the street. My teenage daughter (16) hangs out with her friends, and has a curfew (weekends Midnight and week-days 10. Of course we have the phone numbers of where they go and my oldest has a cell phone (when she buys time). Its hard not to be overprotective - but sometimes you have to loosen the strings a little bit.
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arriki
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We moved out to this suburb when our kids were 11 and 5. I felt okay with letting my little one at age 7 walk down to the playground park three blocks away with her puppy. I remember that. My 11 year old was allowed to ride her bike all over the neighborhood inside the borders of major streets. I do know that one of her friends when in junior high and even high school was not allowed to ride her bike out of sight of the house. Super paranoid parents. I felt comfortable letting my kids have some freedom. That's why we struggled to afford a house out here in a safe neighborhood.

As for fantasy, I think there are lots of possibilities for entrance to "other places and times" within the house and yard.

I remember a story opening -- can't recall the story or the author but the idea was so fascinating -- where the child hears a door banging in the wind, lifts his pillow and finds the door underneath it. I can't recall where the door led to, but the idea...always stuck with me.


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Survivor
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I've "helped" raise kids...does that count?

I don't think that I want my own kids to have tracking devices embedded in them. I prefer to feel confident that if a dangerous situation occurs, my kids will be the ones posing the danger rather than the other way round. So I'm all for letting them play with fire and knives and explosives and stuff.


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