Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Electronics Causing 'Death of Childhood'?
An anonymous reader writes "Top children's authors, including best-seller Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), have written an open letter to the British Government claiming that consumer electronics have brought about the death of childhood. They say that children desperately need 'real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in'. The letter writers also state that children have lost their imaginations because they are, 'pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past.' The article asks, 'is modern life too fast for the supple human mind? Do children have a rev counter we're red-lining by exposing them to so much input?'" So what does Slashdot think? Are kids growing up too fast nowadays because of them new-fangled technologies?
Short answer: No
Long answer: Yes
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
Well, LEGOs would solve your problem right there. How many geeks grew up with Legos and got into DIY projects?
Justifies fear with unfounded appeals to emotion referencing the corruption of youth.
More on this... every generation from now.
It's easy to see why parents, assaulted by the constant barrage of news items on paedophile attacks, terrorism and murder, encourage their children's seclusion in the hermetically sealed confines of a softly carpeted room with a plasma TV and Xbox 360.
I personally think that parents who make this decision are failing their children. The child needs to be aware of what's going on in the world. That's why I love school classes that have current events, I encourage my child to read and / or watch the news. If they're secluded from everything, they're going have no clue what's going on when they hit the real world.
Dang kids today, with their sprialgraph and rock em sockem robots.
In my day all we had was a hoop and a stick! And sometimes we didn't even have the hoop!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Maybe after TV's have been in people's homes for 50 years, then we'll have the answer.
I guess we'll just have to wait until that happens.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
They saw this very thing as a problem so they protected me. I am now 30 years old and they still won't let me get a cell phone, watch movies, or play with friends who have an ipod.
But sincerely,
Every generation has some aspect that is supposedly going to bring utter ruination to the future. And every generation manages to cope. I think we will be allright as long as parents bring some healthy balance to thier kids activities. When has that concept ever been new and fresh? It has always been that way.
My humor is probably your flamebait
I need it too!
Bah! The idea of childhood is a product of the late 19th century. Before that kids were considered to be little adults, and put to work just like adults. I say, put 'em to work again! The passive, TV-centered childhood entertainment of today is just training these kids to work passive, computer-centered jobs in the future. Put 'em to work gold farming now!
Children play at what they will be doing when they grow up, in order to learn. When people were doing mostly manual labor, physical play was important. Now that more and more work is mind-work done one computer and electronic equipment, it makes sense for children to play with electronic toys and games, using their minds more than their bodies.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yes I know this is a troll...
But how many people out there were claiming we wouldn't be having any new low-level programmers because kids these days grow up with Windows and Macs rather than Apple IIe and C64's?
The reason that kids are growing up too quickly has to do with the parents encouraging kids to just watch TV by placing them in front of it instead of actually paying attention. This behavior becomes habit -
-also, as we over protect our children, we seperate ourselves more and more from the rest of the community. This splits our kids away from the available social networks and playmates - encouraging further isolation.
So, it's not the technology - but the fact that we don't teach or give our children any other options.
TRHOnline - Staggering Towards Brilliance
You let your kids become zombies.
I'm a geek. I find it hard to get off my ass and get away from the computer, until I glance over and see my 2yr old with glazed eyes watching the TV. Then it's oput to play ball and run around, or take the dog for a walk, or play with Lego or SOMTHING.
The square babysitter needs to be used carefully!
Like hell they are, losers!!!111
BANG! DIE ALIEN!!
(Mathew, aged six)
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
It's also electronic content. A kid should not be raised by proxy in front of a video screen, whether he/she has a controller (or a mouse and/or keyboard) or not. There's more to growing up than that.
One should also be actively and physically engaged as well. Playing outdoors, running around, playing with physical objects (whether they be Legos or whatever).
Being raised is a matter of mind and body.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
My daughter has a computer (a Macintosh running Mac OS 9). The only games she has are educational with no killing. She has a simple word processor, a complex drawing program, and other programs that create, not simulate destruction. We use Tivo Kidzone to record only programs with positive messages. So far, she doesn't watch much at the neighbor's kid's houses. We have a garden that she helps in, two dogs, and she spends most of her none school time running around outside, so I'd say, no, her childhood isn't being destroyed by consumer electronics. Your Milage May Vary.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
It's soccer moms scheduling "play dates" between karate and balet on their PDAs that's caused the "Death of Childhood".
If you want your kids to grow up happy: leave them the fuck alone.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
'Nuff said.
A clever person solves a problem, A wise person avoids it. -Einstein
A few months back, I went to a local model rocket launch. It was on a farm in a beautiful chunk of Oregon (See the background of this: http://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones/hustler_pose .jpg). Dozens of geeks and their families were there, launching model rockets big and small into the sky.
More than a few of the kids present were squatting on the ground, or in car seats, blank expressions on their faces, banging away at portable game machines.
How pathetic.
Someday these kids will need to take special classes to learn how to walk on dirt.
I've seen this problem first-hand in my stepson. He grew up absolutely addicted to video games and he constantly throws himself into the video game world. He has difficulty in coping with the real world. Until we started getting him some help, he was even uncomfortable paying for something at a store counter. His sister, who never shared his video game addiction, grew up to be very okay and completely independent. But now that he's almost 23, coping with real life is a skill he's having to work at. He still lives at home, has had difficulty holding a job. He's starting to turn around -- he's in school and getting A+ certification training (hey, it's a start!) But he's got a long way to go.
My blog
Society is changing. Childhood is not dying. It just looks different now than it used to.
Not having RTFA, but having a 4-year-old son I can say that yes, and no.
Children are not 'growing up' too fast these days they are simply replacing their own childhood with one they see on the screen. Entertainment for children has usually been a byproduct of what makes the life of the parent easier. When I was growing up it was easier for my mother to tell me to play outside then to have me ransack the house. Now, with the advent of so much more technology it is easier for the parent to place the child in front of the TV. It allows them to know where they are and what they are doing but it causes the child to miss out on the most basic human desire. The desire for discovery.
I dunno, my kid does not have a Nintendo nor will he until he is much older, if ever. He will not get a cell phone, he is not allowed to stay inside and watch TV all day (he gets enough of that at his mothers) and he has chores to do (offtopic, but important)
The hardest part of parenting in my experience has been the worrying but I would rather my son get a little scraped up and learn the joy of adventuring then be safe and sound in front of the TV.
I think I can say with the experience of my 3 years of life, that children are not growing up too fast.......
I LIKE TOAST!!!
Top children's authors, including best-seller Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), have written an open letter to the British Government claiming that consumer electronics have brought about the death of childhood.
what exactly does he expect the government to do?
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Kids live longer today than they did before, so let's not all start talking about going back to the "simple life" where all the farm girls look like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Consumer electronics, like video games, is extending childhood for young adults. How many grown men still play their favorite childhood video games and re-live the memories, and just for a few moments, feel like they are young and can do anything.
It's all well and good to have an opinion on something. However, like the saying goes, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink. I can't tell where this guy's opinion ends and real unbiased scientific scrutiny and experimentation begins. TBH, I would have to disagree wholeheartedly with the statement "death of childhood". Childhood may be changing, perhaps in many different ways, but that does not mean it's dying.
Part of me wants to dismiss his entire argument as nonsensical luddite ramblings. Another part of me wonders if he might have at least a small point. But it's where those two parts of me meet and ask "where's the proof?" that I finall come to the conclusion there is nothing to see here, move along.
At least, from the children I know and observe, I don't see them suffering developmentally from the fact that they can play their PSP all day. What I mean is, don't blame the PSP. The fact is, I think through simple, good, old fashioned parenting, a child can have a better upbringing today than ever before, as long as the parent is able to understand and integrate today's technology, within moderation, with the raising of their child(ren).
Maybe too many parents are becoming lazy, thinking technology can replace them in areas of parenting where it should not. But like I said above, about opinions.....
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
The whole purpose of childhood is to prepare the person for ADULTHOOD. Now, in that most adults now a days don't really act like adults, I can see an argument for something in the past couple decades truly ruining childhood. However, I have seen a trend over the past couple years of kids and young adults that seem to be taking responsibility for their actions, so whatever it was I would assume has been corrected.
If you ask me, the fault of poor child raising would be place solely on the parents shoulders, as it always has been.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Fortunately my kid's too poor for all that crap. 200 pound per hour therapists? His only indulgence is slashdot.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Hey, I'm a childless adult so according to all the "parents" I've spoken with my opionions do not count. Okay, so here is my observation:
Kids nowadays spend all their time in front of video games, don't even know how to ride bikes (my nephew just learned at age 13 to ride a bike and so did his friends), never play ball in their yard and have schedules or routines that plan out their times at school, after school and at home on the weekend. Everything is planned and scheduled instead of impulse.
My observation is that this is fucked up.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
... or the constant stream of it on the kids channels worries me more ... at the moment.
At six years old, my daughter is still innocent of the pressures of modern life, but her expectations are constantly raised by the idealised worlds she finds in the ads.
At the moment technology is just a great learning tool that she adopts as naturally as a pencil. And she still loves to go outside and play.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
I'd have to say yes. I have some nephew's and neices that are great little kids. But they are infatuated with electronics, and not at a healthy level. Being entertainment junkies (to the point of cell phones, portable this and that, games etc..) is not quite the same thing as having a real love for electronics as a hobby. Being a geek and being a consumer are quite different.
Today's kids (generally speaking) are so overwhelmed by communications, entertainment, and anything in between that they aren't really interacting on the playground, or other venues that are 'kid' places. We need to force our kids to unplug, get outside, get some sun, and play. Go build a fort. Go get hurt and come back so we can fix you up. The outside world is only dangerous if you're never exposed to it. The real world really is a great learning environment, honest.
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
What cause kids to grow up, society pressures. If the child feels he is outcast because he doesn't have a mySpace account then he will want one, and because he want one when he gets on he will try to assimilate to the mySpace culture as well as he can. If the child enjoys playing with old toys and he gets pressure that people his age shouldn't be playing with such toys he will strive to play with what peers and society thinks he should be playing with. T.V. and Internet Adds tend to create false society pressures on these children to get them to want products that they will not necessarily want. Because society wants them to do this so much they will do it as far if not farther then society demands. I remember the Cell phone add with the Girl who was said to be a teenager (probably just 13 or 12) who kept on talking and talking, using the cell phone minutes. This add wasn't for the parents who buy the phone and plan, it was for kids who are 10-14 who should normally be to young to have a cell phone, but the add makes it seem like it is normal for kids to have them. So Kids get them... With global advertising that are advertising children they are trying to make kids become more grown up. As a kid my father had a "Cell Phone" (a large box with a phone in it) I though it was cool and such but I had no desire to have one for myself, why because not of the kids had them. I wanted the Nintendo or Sega like the other kids. As well as He-Man action figures, Transformers and GI-Joe. Because that was the social norms. While my parents generation were happy with toy cars, and balls (more generic things) . The reason was because that is what other kids in their area had and played with. It is not technology but the marketing of the technology and the stupid parents who buy the kids this crap because they actually believe them when they say they need it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I think parents using *any* "device" be it TV, DVD player, Mac, Playstation, etc as a babysitter, are doing their children a disservice..
;-)
However, if there's balance..and *Parental Involvement*, while using/playing with Legos, Computers, Games, toys, books, etc.. All and more can be great for a child..
I grew up w/ Legos, cars, the etch-a-scetch, speak&spell, comic books, books, etc.. I also had the orig tape Walkman a telescope and my parent's TI-99/4A... I also had a Fuji dirt bike that I could ride from here to sunset if I wanted..
And look at me! I turned out just fine! (WHO SAID THAT!?)
I always had a computer when I was a kid. I played rather simplistic games on our Apple IIe until my family purchased a much larger (and intimidating for a child) PC. I would play Chessmaster 2100 on that thing for ages and ages, until I received my very own computer game the following Christmas.
What really struck my childlike mind is the imagination and creativity behind many of these games: one minute I could be a young prince, fighting my way through swordsman and jumping through puzzles to rescue a young princess, and then the next moment, I could be King Graham on the quest to find my bride. Sure, it was escapism, but it also provided fuel for some imagination as well.
When I wasn't playing on the computer, I was running around the yard like any energy-pumped child would. Sometimes I would incorporate themes and ideas from the computer games that I've played, and integrate those into my play time. I made up my own fantasy lands that I was traveling in and between, all in the rain while wearing a towel as a cloak and carrying sandwiches as food rations. I would run from danger, slay vicious monsters, and protected the kingdom that I so dearly loved.
Can consumer electronics spur the imagination? Certainly. They can also inhibit it as well. I could have spent my entire childhood glued to the front of the monitor and never step foot outside, but I didn't, and I'm glad I didn't. The trick to this issue is like most others in life: moderation and balance are needed.
I don't get it? What's wrong with being "sedentary" .. have they identified that? And besides playing video games is NOT sedentary. Some people just arent interested with doing the same things as others. It's better for the economy anyway .. in the future (knowledge economy?) a lot of work will be done in using computers and simulations. As for exercise maybe there'll be a pill that can be taken with the same effects. ..If that freaks you out .. fine they can exercise at home. What's wrong if those who prefer it, do it? There were some parents who didnt want their kids playing video games .. cause "there is no future in it" ..Well guess what now it's being found out that a lot of the better surgery graduates in med schools used to play video games and had improvewd their dexterity. Furthermore, the military currently has use for people who were good in simulator games. Eventually a lot of civilian uses will be there too (operating industrial machinery, mining, and farming equipment). Plus, many games will evolve to challenge intellectual capacity and be vehicles for learning .. because many humans have an intrinsic need for it. So please, just because you grew up a certain way doesn't mean others should. People are different.
I got as far as "Page 1 of 15" (And not the Tom's Hardware sort of "page" either!) and gave up, which I suppose strengthens their point.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The Nothing is devouring Fantasia. ATREYUUUUU!!!!!!
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Why is it that people always complain about kids playing with electronics? You never see complaints about the negative effects of reading even though reading is just as sedentary and even less interactive than playing a video game. Is there a bias against gadget based sendentary time?
NOTE: I'm not some tweener complaining about all the adults who want to interrupt my game time. I've got 4 children. They get equal doses of reading, computer and TV time. All of that comes with required outdoor, non-sedentary time. I don't have to push them to go outside or play on the computer. I do have to push them to do their reading. I read this book and found it to be completely compelling.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I would say it is the opposite. People are waiting longer to form family units and have children. The education cycle is stretching out. According to my insurance company, no one is an adult until they are 25. Just some thoughts.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
Children must have at least some exposure to the crass and cynical consumer world, with a loving parent at their side to explain what all those fancy commercials are really about.
I had a friend in high school who did not have a TV growing up, and as nice a fellow as he was, he was a hopeless rube that at the age of 18, still believed that wrestling was real and would purchase the bridge you had for sale at the drop of a hat.
I think he could have benifited from a few hours of TV per day, with an audio tape loop in the background repeating "None of this is real... None of this is real..."
what groups like this need to realzie is that you cant "one size fits all" parenting or raising kids. Just because it doesn't work for them, doesn't mean it won't work for others.
According to this, I should have the least imagination of any of my friends. Actually, I have the most (according to all of them).
Not saying that their worries are completely baseless, but really they need to look for more than just a simple easy answer.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
If TV, Computer games and straight jacket schooling are preventing kids from learning proper social skills and learning cause and effect it may go some way to explain why so many of my friends have been beaten up by gangs of kids lately.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The children of the poor are denied a "real" childhood by early immersion in the problems of the adult world, including of course child labor at various times and places in history ("The golf links lie so near the mill/That almost every day/The laboring children can look out/And see the men at play." --Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorne).
The children of the rich are granted over-structured, over-scheduled "privileges" that tend to consist of training lessons for things their parents consider important.
In the 1950s, Robert Paul Smith's "Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing." which complained that children in comfortable suburbs seemed to be spending all their time in adult-sponsored activities and did not know how to play mumblety-peg or conkers...
Wertheimer's "The Seduction of the Innocent" told of the terrible havoc being wreaks on youthful minds by comic books.
Heck, even David Elkind's "The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon" is in its third printing and approaching its 25th anniversary.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I think many people would say we need to move faster. The young mind should be free to learn and absorb at the rate it needs. I for one welcome the explosion of information, I think in the past it hasnt been accessable enough to the young mind. And of course it is up to the parent to moderate what kinds of information the child gets, as each family has separate belief systems. But all in all the young mind will soak up things quickly, give it to them. When I was younger I was fortunate enough to have an encyclopedia. Now everyone has one at their fingertips. You can get answers quickly now rather than waiting for the bi-weekly trip to the library.
Second, just because a child doesnt experience "Your" childhood, doesnt mean that they are not a child. Play may be different now, it is always changing. Just because a child now at age 7 has the knowledge of a 15 year old isnt a bad thing. We are starting to see people in their 20s, and even in their teens with more knowledge than people in their 50-90s. This, I think, is a good trend. The accellerated intellect will allow us to advance our civilization quicker and better than ever in history. Just check out the last 50 years, even the last 15. It is quite impressive. However it is causing a lot of stife in workplaces and life in general as we have intellect vs wisdom everywhere. Give it another 30 years and we will see an amazing culture as long as we dont stifle it.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
No, they're growing up too fast (and often in unhealthy ways) because of poor parenting and poor education systems.
It is not rocket science that a child left unsupervised with an unrestricted TV, Internet-enabled computer and PlayStation n in their bedroom is likely to spend an unhealthy amount of time in front of a screen, and come into contact with less than suitable material for someone their age. The also-not-rocket-science solution to this problem is... not to give kids all the toys and the chance to use them unsupervised all the time.
Likewise, it's easy to let the kids buy junk food on the way to and from school, and to eat school meals with poor nutritional value and drink soda, and then to throw a quick microwave meal or frozen pizza in for dinner. And then we wonder why more of our kids are seriously overweight and developing health problems than any time in recent history. The revolutionary solution to this is... giving kids real food and drink at meal times.
Of course, it's much easier for parents to leave little Jonny and Suzy to play with their hi-tech toys and then cook them frozen pizza for dinner than it is to take an active part in their upbringing by, I dunno, talking to them, reading to them, having dinner with them, and taking them to see and do interetsing things. The work-life balance in many western countries is now so far left of stupid that many parents see the easy option as the only option, however.
Similarly, one has to wonder at "education" systems that spend more time worrying about whether 7-year-olds can pass formal examinations than worrying about 7-year-olds learning to interact with other 7-year-olds, make friends, and play together. And yet, this is exactly where we're headed.
Society needs a wake-up call, particularly if it thinks it's worked this one out. Hi-tech toys are just the symptom, not the cause of the problem.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
IMO, the key is balance. Exercising only the mind or only the body is unhealthy in a child, and in an adult.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I think these writers are a bunch of stupidheads. I've been using consumer electronics for 30 years, and my friends are still telling me to grow up.
A city is a large community where people are lonesome together -- Herbert Prochnow
We can't just blame technology for the trends. There are many factors that, IMHO, seem to be going into this.
Growing up in my hometown 5-10 years ago, I remember kids being outside all the time, playing whatever, chasing each other around. I loved playing street hockey with my friends, for example. However, you go back now, and even on the most beautiful spring day the neighborhood is practically devoid of kids just playing outside (organized sports are still popular, or course, but I mean jusy *play*). Instead, most of them are inside watching TV, playing video games, or, as is more and more the case these days, they are simply trying to do everything and anything to get into a good college (that's put simply of course, but that seems to be the gist of it). Kids aren't allowed to be kids anymore, due to pressure to do everything, due to media influence, etc. "Playing" seems to be considered a waste of time.
Another thing I've noticed is fear in the parents. I used to play outside and get hurt, dig around, get sick, etc. My parents would keep an eye on me but they didn't stop me from playing.
Anyway, just my 2 cents...Two overworked and uninspired parents I know have knowingly and willingly embraced electronic entertainment for their children so as have that built in babysitter handy. One child, years into this sad experiment, is a complete failure at school, cannot concentrate on anything, cannot work for himself and has poor social skills. The other has missed the magic of reading and is impatient with schoolwork. It's almost an act of protest to reduce exposure to gameboys, tv, computers, and videos, especially knowing that when a child is in school classmates will occasionally look at him or her strangely if he or she is deprived of an xbox at home.
"The reason that kids are growing up too quickly has to do with the parents encouraging kids to just watch TV by placing them in front of it instead of actually paying attention. This behavior becomes habit -"
Often the reasons that happens is both parents work or it is a single parent home. Plus there is so much mind numbing entertainment that our culture now expects to entertained all the time. I can not tell you how many times I have seen kids watching DVDs in the car when they are just driving around town! Adults are no better, we have games and TV on our cell phones, and movies on our IPods. One wonders what we could do with that time if we where not being entertained.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The key is balance, isn't it? My 6-year old son has an old PII Sony Vaio (running SuSE Linux 8.1, of course), a digital camera (old Sony Mavica (writes to a floppy disk)), and an old videogame console (original PlayStation). He enjoys playing with them quite a bit.
However, I also try to get him and his sister up into the woods each weekend to play in the dirt, eat wild clover and look at the banana slugs. We try to get some time in at the park every day after school. We draw frequently with pencil, crayon and paper.
We watch movies and videos on DVD, but we don't have cable or satelite TV at home. We also try to read each night.
Both my children have very fertile and active imaginations--my son is working on writing and illustrating his first book and, last week started a "math book". The problem isn't the electronics, it's relying on them too much.
I probably spent too much time as a child reading books. I'd probably be better adjusted socially if I'd have been out playing with other kids more instead.
Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
YES!
I mean, come on, when I went to school I stood out because I was the fat, unathletic, geek who would rather screw around with an electronics kit than a football. When I went with my son for his orientation to 9th grade, I discovered that 2/3rds of the incoming kids looked like I did then.
Oh, did I mention that at my worst I broke 310 pounds? And that I've spent the last 12 years of my life trying to make up for my utter lack of physical activity as a kid?
Clear, Dark Skies
First off this is his view and if he feels this way he can raise his children however he pleases.
Second, parents can raise their children however they please.
Third, I dont feel a government could/should enforce a 'law' to govern such things, mostly because it has NOTHING to do with the government. I wouldn't want some stranger to make parenting decision for me.
This can also be called, bad parenting.
Remember, (mostly) anything is OK in moderation.
Legos.
Every generation has some aspect that is supposedly going to bring utter ruination to the future. And every generation manages to cope. I think we will be allright as long as parents bring some healthy balance to thier kids activities. When has that concept ever been new and fresh? It has always been that way.
But how many generations had their kids sitting in front of, essentially, puppet-shows (or some other analog equivalent) all day, every day? In fact, one could argue that the loonier offspring of the "idle" artistocracy and their highly entertained (but not so very challeneged, physically, etc) kids were the precursor to what we're seeing now, but across much larger swaths of the society: flacid minds, a sense of entitlement, no sense of causality or critical thinking... sort of the Caligulazation of a much wider population.
Basically, the standard of living for most of modern western society is now so high that most of us are living like (or better than) the aristrocracy of the not very distant past.
Yes, we all assume that our current generation's kids are the ones that will wreck civilization, but there's actually something TO this one, I think, at least a bit.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Parents who give their kids plenty of time and attention don't have to worry about "new-fangled" technologies hurting their kids. It's all about balance. If you let your kid play video games endlessly because you are too lazy as a parent to get involved then yes it's bad. If you are unwilling to bolster you kids self-esteem without the help of $300 running shoes then you suck as a parent and the kid loses out. I would say none of that other stuff is to blame as much as detached, indifferent parenting.
Let's go back to the old ways! We'll have school in little churches with 1 teacher and only 5 kids per school, and we'll use the same textbooks for 20 years. And after school, they'll have to milk the cows (if you're one of the rich people that can afford their own) and move the pig crap to the field for fertilizer.
Kids shouldn't even have TIME for games, they should be busy doing manual labor and learning how to be respectable. Playing games and goofing off in the yard will just lead to end of the world and they'll be no-good losers for the rest of their lives.
Seriously folks. Is that what you really think? Progress = bad, automatically?
Fun has evolved. Playtime has evolved. Kids don't have to play with tinkertoys and LEGO until they 16 now. They can play with those when they are young (you know, like the package says... 8 yrs old) and then play with more complicated, more thought-provoking things later. Like Second Life and MySpace.
(I just heard a collective scream, didn't I?) As much as I hate it also, and avoid it like the plague, MySpace actually does introduce kids to the concept that they can have an area that is THEIRS and they can decorate it how they want. Hopefully enough of their friends will tell them exactly how ugly it is and they will improve or give up and find something they are actually good at.
YouTube is also good for this. I watched an amazingly horrid music video (That 'Does you chain hang low song') with some 10-14 yr old kids 'dancing'. It was positively the worst music video I've ever seen. But you know what? When I was a kid, I was the ONLY ONE that could use a video editting machine (in fact, I could also cam-to-vcr edit) to do the morning news in school. I eventually managed to teach some others. These kids just did it. They didn't complain that they couldn't, or anything like that. They just took some vid cam (probably digital, better than a cell phone) and shot video. Tada. Imagination and creation.
It is NOT DEAD. It is merely different now. Kids just work with the toys they are given.
Oh, and lecture time... If you restrict your kids unnecessarily, they will turn this imagination towards thwarting your rules to have fun, instead of having fun.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/09/12/njunk112.xml
my password really is 'stinkypants'
technology isn't making us grow up too fast, it's how we are using it that is making it grow fast, the spin on technology if you will, it's just like saying is technology evil, well of course not. take guns for example, they are dangerous, they are used in wars and people kill using them but they are also used in hunting and self-defense. I remember back in the day when Super Mario bros. 1 was the big thing, and you know what if the gaming industry made safe friendly games like that they wouldn't grow up so quickly but another problem facing this issue is human social interaction for instance say an 8 year old kid see's his older brother playing Doom 3 he might want to play it simply because that what the big kids play. It's silly to make a vague statement like technology is making us grow up too quickly the real problem is we haven't invested enough time into understanding human limits and how to progress technologically without pushing those limits.
Only in the last couple of centuries have we had a protected childhood where children lived in a seperate world from the adults. If kids grow up faster today, and I think it might be the case that increased access to information about the world adults live in might do that, it is just a return to more natural state of affairs. I'm not worried.
I'm much more worried about people who want to turn back time and decrease our freedom under the under the motto "Will someone please think of the children!".
As humans that dominate that earth, except for war and crime, we forget that survival is at the heart of it all. The developing human mind, a child's, is desperately and rapidly trying to absorb as much social knowledge as it can. Not because it's fun. It's only fun because our brains are programmed to give us pleasure for practicing necessary survival skills. For social animals like us, social skills aren't just a good or bad mark on a report card; at one time it was life or death.
What does that preamble have to do with the topic? Simple. Kids are developing "too fast" because they are directly absorbing social skills from TV and movies, frequently in an unmoderated manner. Their poor minds are trying to integrate and internalize media, that for the most part, is poorly written or is only there to entertain using unrealistic situations and far-fetched personal interactions. But their minds are trying to use that knowledge as real data on how they should interface with others in the real world.
I await eagerly the second renaissance of mankind when we stop pretending that TV and video, at least for young minds that are not fully developerd, aren't *programming* of the truest and most far reaching kind. You and I know that the silly or dangerous manner with which one or more actors are interacting is only a joke or a cheap thrill, but to a 5 year it's real data. Then we wonder why we have adults trying to react to so many unimportant and irrelevant media created pressures, that they can't find happiness or make good decisions. We're still asleep it seems.
Robert Oschler - RobotsRule.com
I truely believe that a child will grow up to be a product of their environment. My two year old, who spent the first 8 months of his life sitting on my wifes lap/breast feeding while she was at work in front of a computer. He then spent the next year sitting on my lap or playing in the computer room as I was working. He has been exposed to computers his whole life. It should have come as no surprise to me when I came home the other day, and he has turned on the computer, clicked the login button, opened up IE and clicked the 'favorite' icon and opened SesameStreet.com. He had seen me do it a thousand times while growing up to keep him entertained while I was off on the other monitor doing something else.
/joke
While I agree that children need more stimulation then what they can gather from digital means, it doens't mean that we should remove it until they are a certian age. We are in the digital age, when more and more information is coming down the 'intertubes'. Nothing is going to replace real life experience, but I think that by exposing a child to the information that is out there, be it through the computer or other digital means, is a way to expand their horizons beyond what I, and many others, were exposed to growing up.
Unfortunately, this has lead my son to start guzzling Mountain Dew, saying 'woot!' when he successfully makes it in the toilet instead of his pants, and saying 'I for one welcome my daddy overlord' when I get home....
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel...
The question is: are video games and consumer electronics the result or cause of a sedentary lifestyle?
When I was a kid in the early 70s, all we had to do was play outside (other than "rainy day" boardgames). Then, I got a little older and found, gasp, D&D. You can bet that I started staying in more often.
This was a case of the game causing the lifestyle. However, that was the 70s. Because of the vagaries of "modern" times, with children required to spend more time indoors, have we just adjusted to the location of play?
The idea of cocooning has been well discussed over the last 15 or so years. It was only inevitable that it apply to children as well.
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
Obesity is a serious problem in the UK (as it is in most of the developed world). That's just part of the problem. having to get along with people you don't necessarily like is a social skill that is lost when you can simply tune the world out with your DS or PSP. i am a criminal lawyer (with an interest in IT and developing database applications for work) and i have to deal with the fallout of a society where people cannot communicate without the use of crutches like alcohol and drugs. there is no comparison between this generation and any previous one. Consumer electronics, and the internet have only really reached maturation in recent years. They present an unparalled opportunity to avoid learning the necessary hard lessons of life like listening to alternative voices, the need for patience to achieve anything worthwhile, and the art of negotiation and compromise. In my job, i have had to represent teenage sociopaths whose behaviour is absolutely frightening. These are kids that torment and bully others kids and post the results on the internet. it's not that the kids are necessarily worse now than they were before, it's that the damage they can do and the consequences are far worse than before. both the damage that kids can cause and the dangers they face are without precedent. sorry to digress but 'real' play as opposed to LAN or internet gaming etc teaches kids social skills and keeps them healthier and happier. Anyone who thinks otherwise should come and meet some of these young casualties I represent on a regular basis.
-also, as we over protect our children, we seperate ourselves more and more from the rest of the community. This splits our kids away from the available social networks and playmates - encouraging further isolation.
When you have the mass media constantly scaring people about sexual predators that prey on children, is it small wonder why parents nowadays are absolutely scared about letting their children go out and play in the neighborhood? Small wonder why the only time you see children at a playground nowadays is with very strict parental supervision....
I think it should be pointed out that the key element here is "Top children's authors, including best-seller Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), have written an open letter to the British Government". Conflict of interests anyone? I mean come on. Yea its likely true kids are "growing" up faster these days. Instead of reading childish books that are far to simplistic for them they move on to something fun that can challenge their minds. Tip for you "Top children's authors" take a hint from "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling. Write books that are an enjoyable read and that are complex enough to interest "kids" and maybe your books will be read again. Until then the games will just show you how inadequate your work is at enticing the younger generations into reading it.
"I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts." - Mark Twain
WOOOOOOOSHHHHHHH!!!!!
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Up until widespread schooling began in the 17th and 18th centuries, the modern concept of childhoood, as a time of play and learning lasting well into your teens, didn't really exist. "Real" childhood, that period where you are more of a burden than a help to your agrarian family, only lasted until you were old enough to start doing chores around the farm. By the time you were in your teens, you were probably starting to think about starting a family of your own.
While there is some controversy about whether modern childhood was "invented" in the 18th century, it certainly changed quite a lot. The changing standard of childhood is a little better understood in Japan, where the concept of modern childhood was largely introduced by globalization in the 19th century, and was thus studied a little more rigorously than in Europe and America, where it was a more organic process.
What many of us now consider "childhood" (school and play, with hardly any work until late teens) is really a 20th century phenomenon - once the West de-ruralized and mechanized, the amount of work needed to be performed on a daily basis dwindled to the point where child labor, at home or away, wasn't really needed or desired. The Western 1950s-70s were the absolute high-water mark for a childhood of outdoor leisure - not surprisingly, exactly the time when Pullman (and I, and a large chunk of Slashdot) grew up.
As with any nostalgia trip, Pullman (mis)remembers all the highlights of these times, but not the downsides like the often crushing boredom of having absolutely nothing to do on a rainy weekend (unless, like us, your were a geek and read a lot).
Maybe playing Madden 2007 on a rainy day leads to less creative thought than reading "The Mad Scientists Club" for the fifth time, but I don't think Pullman convincingly makes that case.
not only wii, DDR, Guitar-Hero, Singstar, etc. There is a market for new ways to interact with a game. Bongos in the NGC are fun, much more for kids, IMHO, the problem is not the electronics, the fear of the parents i believe is far worse.
DON'T PANIC
The reason these kids are inside playing games is they are not welcome outside.
If they play outside, either their parents get too worried about their kids being "safe" or they are viewed as a threat by the adult population.
Every time kids find something to do that is not a church or school approved ultra-supervised activity, they get hassled for it. (Or worse.)
If they find a place to skateboard, they get hastled by cops or property owners.
If they go to the mall to hang out, they get hastled by security guards.
There are no places where a kid can go to play without getting crap for it.
Fix that problem, without the overbearing supervision that most authoritarians want, and they might play less video games.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
So much variety. Encourage a rounded upbringing. And if technology leads to a narrowing of focus then that is bad. But tech can lead to a widening of focus, that is good.
No easy path through these waters, GPS guidance installed or not.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Yea, yea Pullman, we all know yer deep, and with deepness comes pretentious liberal-arty technosnobbery. "Oh think of the children, they should be out exercising their imaginations, not playing mindless things on their computers." Like a working knowledge of the literary cannon equals having imagination.
Newsflash buddy: I'm a gamer. I've been one my whole life. Some of my first memories are playing Pac-Man on the old table top consoles, with my knees folded up under me so I could actually see what was going on. I'm also a published author, I acted Shakespeare in college, I married someone who has a masters in fricking STORYTELLING. I've got a degree in Philosophy and Computer Science. I've got three lvl 60's in WoW, and I am a hardcore rocket bitch who's mowed down his share of innocent bystanders in GTA. I read yer books, and I've read better.
So I want to know, I really want to know, what my life of gaming has "cost" me? I guess I could have been a one dimensional liberal arts geek, utterly convinced of my own self-worth, and so narrowminded as to think that there is only one way to grow into a mature well-rounded adult...Though knowing as many pretentious snobs as I know, "well-rounded" and "mature" seem to be optional.
Why is it that knowledge of the arts makes you "well-rounded" and knowledge of the sciences doesn't? I think well-rounded means you know both not just the fluffy stuff. Guess that's just me.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
is to make sure that electronics (TV is included in this and has been for GENERATIONS)is not the only thing that their children, and themselves, play with.
... we firmly encourage them to both switch between them frequently and to just go and play. Which they do. They both like "making movies" at all times of the day (and night -we have to stop them from playing! so they get some sleep) and other than an occasional automated exclamation from a Rescue Heroes toy (fully timed to annoy us of course) they have full imaginative control of their lives.
Our children 5 & 8 have the toys but
Any child that "just sits down in front of the " for the whole of his waking experience has other problems and "it" is just an electronic pacifier.
Ask the questions, especially of the child if possible:
Why does the child, within their individual predisposition, need this?
Why does the child, as a participant in the "real" world, need this?
It is not modern electronics that are the problem, it is how corporations package and sell electronics as passive consumer products. To learn and thrive, children need less of "do not open, do not copy, no consumer-servicable componentents inside" and more of a "let's take it apart and fix it" mentality.
That "Let's fix it" attitude is certainly possible with modern electronics, just look Make Magazine as an example. We just need to do a better job of teaching "Let's fix it" to our children.
I don't know. But personally, I think childhood should be like a calvin and hobbes strip.
Considering humans probably used to bred as soon as they were capable I think a more accurate statement would be: Humans are once again suceeding in throwing off artificial barriers to "adulthood".
The teacher of said dirt-walking class will have to be rated as "highly qualified," i.e., possess at least a bachelors degree and pass a state test demonstrating knowledge of the subject.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
I have recently acquired stepchildren. Suddenly I'm a parent to two adolescents.
Through trial and error, I have found that what kids NEED is what they crave: Parental attention. These kids love doing nearly anything that involves me helping them out. Whether its schoolwork, some little art activity, building something (I DO have a big box of LEGOs), taking a walk, made-up games, whatever. They are ecstatic that someone will spend time and attention on them.
So if their your kids, your stepkids, your neices and nephews, your friends kids, whatever. Just listen to them, play a game with them (spontaneous made-up games are a favorite), teach them something cool. They'll grow up all right, and you'll be that really cool person who they admire from their childhood.
The increase in ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, and Autism would seem to indicate that children are being "revved" beyond their abilities.
I don't think it's the "fault" of electronic entertainment, but rather the incessant push to not merely succeed, but to excel. Those children with a variety of educational/entertainment/sport activities end up more balanced, but are still stressed.
Another part of the problem is that parents and authorities would rather push pills for ADD/ADHD than punish a child. When we twitched around in our seats in school, we got punished and learned to pay attention (sort of.) Now they flag a "problem" and stuff the kid full of pills.
The truly scary thing is that statistics are now showing that the ADD/ADHD "patients" grow up to suffer an increase in cocaine and meth addiction problems. Not surprising when you realize that ADD/ADHD medications are speed, so they're just trying to maintain the addiction developed by the educational and medical systems that would rather drug children than deal with the problems.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
...that has been an issue as old as the ages. Kids always want to be bigger, faster and stronger. they always want to be like adults. They will grow up too fast whether we like it or not.
The real issue is that kids are increasingly being exposed to adult situations and ideas way sooner than previous generations and it has been progressing steadily. Kids are dealing with adult themes and situations earlier and earlier in life. The question we should be asking is why, not how or whether it really is happening or not.
Many parents use electronics like computers and video games as babysitters and becoming increasinly less involved in thier kids lives. This indirectly puts more stress and decision making requirements on a child that is not mentally mature enough to handle such things. On top of that, while video games, movies and the Internet do not directly cause violence and other deplorable behavior, they do expose kids to such themes and ideas. Since more and more kids are lacking a closer level of parental supervision, these themes are being plugged in to kids heads at an age when they should be questioning them but can't because they lack the parental authority figure to go to for guidance. Hence they attempt to make sense of it themselves. Since everyone tells them these things in these mediums are bad, it is confusing for a child who sees these things glorified by not only the industries present but also the adults that they tend to look to for both active and passive levels of guidance. When they see adults who seem to garner enjoyment from them, what kind of mixed message does it send? Does the child question it and if they do, who do they question? The babysitter? The daycare teacher?
Blaming the industries for poor parenting habits will not put the blame in the correct spot and will not fix the problem because the problem nor the solution are there. The problem and solution are in the home and if parents are so worried about kids "growing up too fast" then why don't they start treating thier kids like kids and teach, nuture and raise thier children to be fine, upstanding adults?
Electronics have not brought the death of childhood. Egotistical, self-absorbed pseudo-parents have brought the death of childhood. The lack of parental guidance for today's youths has many causes. Those such as single parenthood are not to blame. Those are different cicumstances. However, I have several co-workers who have spouses that also work and they send thier young children to day care for 8-12 hours a day and even on weekends just so they can do what they want to do. How is that behavior good for teaching a child responsiblity? How is it good for the cognitive development of the child? How is it good for the social development of the child? Leaving the child to fend for itself in an environment that does not offer the emotional security of the parent/child relationship does not foster good decision making processes. It only serves to put children in positions where they need to act like adults to navigate many stressful and sometimes hostile social environments. What is even more amazing is that these intelligent, highly educated adults can not figure out why thier children are "acting out" and basically exhibiting all the signs of classic abadonment issues.
The author of this article blames electronics and continually passes the buck on why our children seem to be missing thier childhood. Electronics and technology are not to blame. The only thing they have done is make it easier for parents to neglect thier children.
Kids these days are using the consumer-oriented electronic "toys" because the world they live in is dominated by consumer oriented electronic devices. You've got to use it to learn it.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
With a post like this, here you will just attract hordes of unwashed sociopaths who will tell you that your daughter is so fucked because she doesnt chainsaw people in half. And how this will inhibit her personal growth.
Which of course means you are exactly right.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
"They think nothing of drinking a four-pack of Redbull and lying about happy-slapping strangers to their £200-an-hour psychotherapist. They cannot adjust to the ever accelerating pace of modern life, where the branded totems of their demographic (Nike, Sony, Apple) are worn like tribal markings. The corporate endorsement of their t-shirts can be the critical bridge to social acceptance in the eyes of their peers."
Huh? What's all this "cannot adjust to the ever accelerating pace of modern life"? Surely some applied logic here would tend to suggest that older people - i.e. adults - should be less able to cope with the ever accelerating change of life than kids? Shouldn't we all be freaking out and taking Prozac? Yup, some of us might be, but that's what's interesting about the world, we're all different I know some kids that get by just fine, and others that go off the rails, but there's nothing to suggest that they're not coping with the pace of modern life - in any case, what would they compare it to?
how is that possible?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It's marketing. Or the technology of Marketing. Originally VCR tapes just started with the movie, then 5 minutes of commercials and previews. Now it's up to 10 and 15 minutes for VCR tapes. DVD's have the same but the newer technology has removed the ability to fast forward over some of the content.
Some places it's hard to purchase a product without a oversized logo of the company. I think at some size or ratio of surface area, I should start getting paid to wear their clothing.
Marketing is highly aggressive, targeted, and pervasive.
Good luck finding their utopia for children. I think if you compare the life of a child in an industrialized country today, to centuries past (child labor abuse, etc.) -- heck, even to other children in underprivileged countries, I think a little video gaming is not that bad....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
my child was raised to educate himself through playing video games alone in his room from a young age. my wife and i feel that many modern parents spend far too much time trying to entertain their children, who themselves would rather be defining their own identities by using technology. this is often because the parents themselves do not have much in their lives and are bored.
our son is growing into a well-adjusted and emotionally literate young man. the skeptical may wish to view this home video of him relaxing and playing unreal tournament.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
If "modern" life is too harsh for children, I sugest sending up
chimneys, down coal mines and out onto the streets to beg for
food.
Why, in my day, we lived in a cardboard box and had to eat lumps
of coal!
return 0; }
What a beowulf cluster of these could do!!!
I grew up playing video games and still do play video games. I am still a very functional adult without any social problems. In fact it is video games that brought me to my current occupation which is software engineering! All of this hype about electronics and media ruining childrens childhoods is non-sense being spoken by parents that don't pay enough attention to their children! zero
IMHO...
I have three nephews. The two older ones (11 and 14) are definitely TV culture. The 14 year old thinks he's knows technology and his dad (my stinking brother!) lets him go with it even tho he knows it's not true. The kids knows some tricks about creating slide shows and crap like that but scoffs when I tell him he doesn't understand the technology. He isn't very good at much of anything outside of the common "media center" gimmicks that make people buy a 1200 dollar PC when all they really need is the Dell 300 dollar special. He has it in his head that he's going to progress and land a job in game development. He's in for a wicked surprise and I try to bring some light to this but, again, he scoffs and proclaims he's the best at computers in his junior high.
I had a computer in my life just as early as he did and yet to me the box wasn't an entertainment device. It was a Vic20. Maybe it was a hobbyist machine, I will give you that, but it certainly wasn't plug and play. I had the dorky little C= Basic programming book that came with the PC and just about anything I wanted I had to work to get. I cut my teeth on coding on this 4k wonder at a very early age and it turned into a lifetime interest and eventually my current career. Kids don't have to put up with that today. Sure, I had an Atari at the time too but it quickly gathered dust as I found that I can actually create stupid stuff and amuse myself for hours, never really understanding that I was laying the foundation for a true technical skill.
That's not the case with my nephews. They want the gratification but they lack the technical know-how to obtain it on their own without a Windows Help file. They never had to code a line to get something out of the machine. I wouldn't mind it so much if I felt that they had a future elsewhere, not everyone needs to be proficient with computers in their job, and that's fine. At the same time I just wish my nephew wouldn't be kidding himself about his potential future in the field. I guess he feels good about himself for knowing these simple tricks and he's probably be less than impressed to see what kind of programs I was kicking out on my Vic... mostly because he doesn't understand how much effort really was required to get even the simplest of effects out of it. I doubt he even considers the idea that it was different in my time too; I didn't have the internet and tons of great information and tutorials out there. For the first couple of years all I had was that dorky little C= Basic book but I ate it up. I had no Google to turn to when my programs kicked out errors that I didn't understand well enough to debug on my own. I had to sit and suffer to get it to work or move onto something that I could do and revisit the problem later.
It's not the technology in and of itself, it's the idea that there is so much potential but so little creative push to get kids to do something that builds skills and doesn't turn them into hollow-eyed Pixar drones. My brother and sister-in-law are the standard "tv as a babysitter" style parents and I'll have to admit that I think it damages kids to be exposed to too much gratification without and creative effort. Ultimately it's a parenting problem. They don't give the kids direction, they give into their whining and moaning and they just don't have the parental skills for sitting their kids down and explaining to them they they need to get on the ball. I don't think a kid needs to decide his life's work at 14 but he should have some skills associated with the direction he's going in.
As a bit of a side note: Has anyone else noticed that as "adult" as kids seem on the outside today they still seem to retain more of a childish attitude towards things? Sure they have the communications network going on that adults have but they don't do anything progressive with it.
Sorry to be so long winded.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
"Childhood" as we think of it today is a relatively new concept, brought about by the prosperity of western culture. In most societies, the children work just as the adults in order for survival. There weren't even any kids-style clothes until we were well into the 20th century -- the children used to be dressed just like adults after babyhood.
It's the parents job to moderate what their children do, participate in etc...
instead of doing their job(parenting)...they buy the kid little techno-gadgets to babysit them
and keep them busy to make their parenting easier...instead of spending quality time with their kids, the kids spend quality time with their techno-gadgets.
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
I agree.
My G.F kid sister behaves like the characters on TV.
I have noticed that in pretty much every situation, her response can be guessed by watching (american) TV for a few months. I don't think most people realize that the kids are emulating what they see on TV growing up.
I mean we see an op-ed once in a while saying TV is a bad influence and then everyone forgets about it. But it is quiet a revelation to actually meeting kids in real live, who behave like a collage of their favorite characters.
Another thing, I noticed is that the young people don't seem to know how to spend time on their own. By that I mean, when we were young, (I moved to the US a few years back), if we had nothing to do, we would do stuffs like:
Read a book.
Go outside and play.
Climb trees.
Eat fruits from the tree when hungry.
Climb fences.
and stuffs like that.
Now-a-days kids sit in front of the TV. or play computer/Console games, or go to shopping malls or eat outside.
I do think that in the long run, it will have an effect on the humans.
But since we cannot look into future we will NOT know what it is till we are there.
Just-a-jester
I had lots of fun messing with dinky BASIC programs on a TI-99/4a and saving them to a tape recorder when I was a little kid, starting around maybe 6 years old. I had lots more fun messing with dinky BASIC and Pascal programs on an IBM Model 5051 PC. But I did all of this with my dad (who always had some kind of fun electronics around the house from being an EE), not locked in my bedroom alone. And we got a Nintendo, and me & my brother & my dad spent lots of time playing that too. And due in large part to my dad's involvement, I've developed a love of programmable computer systems and networks, and now get paid to play with them.
But despite being a nerdy little kid with glasses and braces, I still got outside and spent a good portion of my childhood on my bicycle, or fishing, or building forts in the woods, or having all-weekend water gun fights with the kids from the next street over, or playing pickup games of football and basketball.
What worries me about kids growing up now (and I hear the same comments echoed from my 16 year old brother-in-law) is that so many of them spend so much time indoors. It's not like TV and VCRs and videogames and computers didn't exist in the middle-class suburban neighborhood where I grew up, and most kids spent at least some time watching or playing with them, but on a sunny summer day the local basketball courts and baseball fields and streets and woods and parks had lots of kids outside playing. When I drive through a residential neighborhood on a nice day in the summer, and there's hardly anyone outside, or on the game fields at the local elementary or middle or high school, it worries me.
Even though this article is from the UK, I see the same sorts of pressures on parents here. Being a parent now, I'm concerned for the well-being of my kids, but that doesn't mean that fear and anxiety should govern your decisions. Kids are statistically safer from accidents now, but parents seem to be more and more paranoid about Something Happening To Your Kid. Kids should be free to play outside, raise hell, get into trouble and have unscheduled fun.
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
As others have pointed out already, it's simply not the new shiny electronics and media on tv that are killing the imagination of kids and their socializing, it's the parenting that does it. Every few years there will be more types of gizmos and other media that COULD destroy these two things in children, but it's up to the parents of that said child/children to moderate this kind of thing.
A perfect example is my kid: He plays on the computer, watches tv, ect., but I don't allow him to do these kinds of things ALL the time. I make sure he goes and plays outside riding bikes with other kids down the street, or play basketball, soccer, ect. I also only allow him to watch certain shows and see certain things on the computer (such as educational websites or tv broadcasts, or simple non-violent cartoons or lego games)...I believe when he becomes an adult he won't be anti-social or unimaginative. But, I do see other children's parents that don't monitor their kids and let them play video games and watch tv all day (and I never see these children playing with other kids). These kids I do believe are already anti-social, and will be even more so when they grow into adults if something isn't changed.
So to sum it up again, it's the parents that cause this, not the media and new electronics coming out...
but you've got highly trained/payed professionals doing everything in their power to grab the kid's attention. I mean, seriously, how do you as a parent compete with the multi-million dollar juggernaut that is Disney? Unless you toss 'em in a monastary the kids are going to see this crap, and it's going to sink in, because billions are spent making sure that it does.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I was born in 1970. I had the normal toys for that time period....tonka trucks, weebles, those little balsa gliders...
What I remember most about my childhood is being bored out of my mind. Sure, I had toys and I'd play with them. But, after 30 minutes, you're sick of rolling a truck around on the ground. Weebles wobble....but after about 5 minutes you really don't care. I wanted toys that would DO something. This required batteries though...and batteries would wear down..leaving the toy sitting around.
I remember me and my friends sitting around just long enough to figure out who in the neighborhood would let us into the air conditioned house....then going there and sitting down...hopefully watching TV.
The Atari 2600 was a GODSEND. I don't blame these kids today. I envy them. I wish that was MY childhood
So what does Slashdot think? Are kid growing up too fast nowadays because of them new-fangled technologies?
The problem is not that they are growing up too fast. Kids are being immersed in a consumer lifestyle that celebrates consumption of someone ELSE'S interpretation of the world. That does not equal growing up too fast.
Immersion in bullshit does not cause people to grow up too fast at all. It causes people to grow up too slowly.
I'm tired of having script kiddies join my DOTA games & WOW groups, only to utter obscenities and leave the first time they die.
Parents: take your kids outside, I'm trying to play a game here!
I saw a project once where two men took tablet-pc's, GPS dongles, GIS software and some mountain bikes and made real world Tron lightcycles. They didn't look as cool, but it kept track of where you and your ooponent had been and left a trail on the screens of the tablets (fastened onto the handles). That seems like it would really get kids into the outside and exercise. I know I would have never put up my bike if I had light cycles on it.
The modern concept of childhood is less than a century old. In the "golden age" of the past child labor was endemic and disease commonly wiped out several young children in each family.
In the same fashion, at the time of the idealized childhoods of "leave it to beaver" we were constantly informed that TV, and comic books were going to turn kids into homicidal gay couch potatos. In the 80's rap, crack and computers were going to breed a generation of "superpreadators". In the 90's the internet was going to rot their brains.
While I'm not saying that video games are perfect for children, obsessive and adictive personalities will find something to latch onto regardless of the tech level of the obsession.
I would submit that the far bigger threat is the cultural focus on jocks and bling as opposed to a deliberate focus on glorifying learning, literacy and cultural and scientific achievement.
Please read the real letter and not the CNet version.
The authors cite multiple negative influences on childhood which I'm sure many of us with children agree with; junk food, school targets (a big Government issue in the UK) and mass marketing
Video games are just one of the influences - and no way as bad as the others.
Or you can read the the BBC summary which is more accurate.
A lot of parents that I encounter shouldn't have children in the first place. I realize that the education and access isn't always present to prevent unwanted / unnecessary birth, and abortion / morning-after pill / Plan B aren't socially acceptable / available across the board yet either.. but seriously... A lot of people shouldn't have children in the first place.
They're not toys, they're not accessories and they're not marks of social status. I think our country would be a better place if adults were raised to recognize (and reject) out-moded lifestyles and aesthetics (i.e. "2.5 kids, a dog and a quiet house in a white suburban neighborhood is the American Dream (tm)"), as well as be encouraged to be selfish with regards to their life choices. People who by and far make poor parents truly don't want to be parents in the first place, and had they been encouraged to choose their career (or whatever) over squeezing out a couple of below-average fetuses to keep around the house and malnourish (mentally and physically), it would leave parenting up to the people who truly desire children / have the capacity to raise them effectively, and the world would be better off for it.
-Rylfaeth
Well,
/week and that is probably an overestimation. They do NOT use one of the many computers I have kicking around, the Sinclairs and Commodores are off limits, so is the MDA and the laptops.
:)
I have two daughters, 6 and 8. They share a gameboy (hell, I played Leisure Suit Larry and Elite as a kid!) and play around 2 hrs / week on it. They watch TV araound 5 hrs
But the real reason why they don't use the computer is because I am on it. Since having had kids I've gained around 45 lbs. I have become sedentary. I am turning into a fat bastard. How many of you and your co-workers are also fat, sendentary bastards like me? There's the real problem. We blame the kids instead of (collectively) looking in the mirror. My kids are fine, because I am a hypocrite, they don't do what I do
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - Ben Franklin
Pullman has it completely wrong - childhood has extended. As a near-40 year old my parents think it's weird that I still enjoy the occasional video game, or build Lego robots, or even read children's books such as Pullman's from time to time. People today no longer have to conform to old stereotypes of what it means to be an adult.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
This might as well be an inditement of modern society as a whole. Most of the statement can be just as much about adults as children. And it's true that children and adults probably don't spend enough time outside. But there is a trade off- the computer brings unsocial or antisocial games like grand theft auto which perhaps don't challenge the imagination as much as a good book does, but it also brings todays children a much greater sense of community than anyone has had before which DOES challenge the imagination. Just look at slashdot- teens who read slashdot get the direct opinions of other people from all over the world. For example, maybe if the American people had been allowed to speak with the Iraqi people over the internet, they would have had the imagination to be able to find an alternative to going to war.
When you have the mass media constantly scaring people about sexual predators that prey on children, is it small wonder why parents nowadays are absolutely scared about letting their children go out and play in the neighborhood? Small wonder why the only time you see children at a playground nowadays is with very strict parental supervision....
Look, I'm not saying the media isn't partially responsible - but we still make the choice to be scared. We still decide to react with fear or awareness.
Even if the media pumps out fearmongering, we still have the free will to choose NOT to be afraid. We have to break the cycle ourselves, because lord knows no one else will.
TRHOnline - Staggering Towards Brilliance
The author complaining about this writes what's basically "bible fancruft", stuff with elements of religion but kind of warped. Such writing is kind of a cop-out, because critics tend not to say "this is utter bullshit" about something with religious overtones, even when it would be appropriate. But really, this guy is writing non-canon fan fiction in the "bible universe". He could just as well be writing "Star Wars Tales #NNN".
Wikipedia: John Faa and Farder Coram are leaders of the community of river gyptians. When the gyptians' children are kidnapped by the Church to serve as experiments in the frozen outpost of Bolvangar, they mount a rescue expedition, bringing Lyra along.
That sounds like something from Everquest.
This guy is in no position to criticize crap in popular culture. He's selling crap popular culture.
They say that children desperately need 'real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in'.
Children desperately need good, competent parenting. Alcohol, drugs, video games and TV have all been around for many years. The form of technology or abuse may change but the results do not. If you don't raise your kids someone or something else will and the results may not be something you like.
I struggle with this. Raising kids is hard. The hardest part is figuring out how exactly you fit this whole other person into your life.
I think most people have trouble fitting themselves into their lives. They just don't have enough time to work, socialise, and relax to their own satisfaction. When you add a child on top of that, all kinds of mess comes out of it - and ultimately, your own self-interest carries more weight, so the children often end up on the losing end.
At some point, things need to be reduced and removed to make room. What screws that up is the general inability of most people to make real sacrifices... it's one thing to say you put your child first, but it's quite another to actually do it when you're down to your last few dollars. Even though this level of desperation is rarely an issue for most parents, there are innumerable little ways that parents deprive their children in ways mom and dad might not even notice: you can't afford the $4 bag of cookies your child wants, but you buy an $18 bottle of wine later in the same trip. Could you have perhaps gotten a $12 bottle of wine instead, and used the savings to buy cookies? Of course. The child sees and understands this, even if you don't, and by adolescence there's a massive buildup of frustration from it.
The message we give our children is that as adults, we get to do what we want, and children have to shut up and make do with what we deign to provide them. This doesn't just make our family lives difficult when the kids hit their teenage years, it also raises essentially infantile adults - they've been trained to be selfishly indulgent their whole lives.
I don't think there's an easy answer to this. I think you have to actually understand what you do and how it looks to your children, which unfortunately requires you to think about how other people view your behavior... and a lot of people just seem incapable of that.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
A long time ago, I attended courses taught by Joshua Meyrowitz at the University of New Hampshire. While I was there, he was working on a book entitled "Television and the Obliteration of Childhood" which appears to be either out-of-print or available at the University of North Carolina not in book form. His more recent "No Sense of Place" also speaks to this particular issue.
If Josh will be so kind as to correct any brain-scrambling on my part, it's his thesis that "childhood" may be defined as a limit on what one knows and/or can know and that, with enough knowledge one functions in society as an adult. Children, exposed to the same television programs as an adult, aren't "children," in the old-fashioned sense of the word as they are in posession of the same information that adults have. From an informational approach, videogames also serve as an "information leveler" like television and, in my case, may serve to actually increase the knowledge a child may have about the virtual world of videogames over that of an adult. I don't play video games, so my daughter may know more than me (though, at five she does not play any yet).
But just playing videogames does not necessarily confer information that is usable in society, though a recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that children who play games have a better chance at figuring out a risk-reward scenerio than those who do not.
So if you define "childhood" as playing ball or running around the block or playing kick the can and hide and seek, you may be on to something with respect to childhood's end. But I prefer Dr. Meyrowitz's definition. Because playing games in childhood (and adulthood) is normal behavior, whether real or virtual. My only concern about game-playing from the standpoint of a parent is that it not be something that atrophies muscles. There needs to be game-playing in childhood experience that builds muscles, too.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
A colleague at work is fond of asking people if they had Lego or Meccano when they were growing up. It seems that the vast majority of engineering types around here had Meccano growing up. I did.
At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, the big issue is parental involvement with their kids. Technology is a handy scapegoat, but it's really the parents. I see too many over-stimulated kids who don't know even how to calm down. Every minute of their days is programmed by their parents, who are too busy to interact with them and foist their responsibilities off on others.
I'm Auntie Laura several times over, and one thing all the members of our family's younger generation have learned growing up is that sometimes it's good to run around like a little hellion, and other times it's good to calm down and be quiet. Their parents were there for them, and it shows.
...laura
The problem is the parents. Not the games. I have four kids (yes, FOUR!) My son likes to play video games, but still gets more excercize than most children today, in fact he's in better shape than me. One of my daughters is into video games as well.
The problem is that it's normally either a single parent household, or both parents work full time which might as well be a single parent household.
In my kid's school, our kids are the ONLY ones in their classes who have all of the following:
Parents that aren't divorced or separated
Parents who haven't remarried at some point
Parents who aren't gay
Not to mention, even if there WERE two parents in each child's home, gay or not, I'm sure they would both be working full time.
My wife doesn't work outside the home, so she is there when the kids get home from school.
Typical parents even in a two parent household will both work, and really could care less where the kids are or what they are doing as long as they stay out of their hair and don't make too much noise.
Our kids play soccer, baseball and, softball. Two of them are in band. One is in pre-school two days a week for two hours each day. My oldest daughter just got her driver's license. My wife and I are very involved in our children's lives both in and out of school.
I've watched their friends get into trouble, fights, drugs, etc over the years. I've watched their friends get shipped off to the other parent. I've watched their friends get abused by their mom's new "boyfriend." I've watched a lot of pain and suffering.
This is one of the many reasons that our house is the hang-out spot. On any given day there's 6 or more kids at my house. Some of them even offer to do things around the house because they feel more at home with us than in their own house. I've had kids call me at 2AM bawling because their mom and her boyfriend got in another fight and ask if they can come over. I even had two move in for a month at the end of school last year, even though they lived only two blocks away.
If the parents aren't participating and just shove the kids away, video games progress beyond entertainment and become a pacifier. That and potato chips.
And don't tell me that financially both parents MUST work to survive. Most people just don't know how to curtail their consumerism when needed. We lived off $15k/year for 2 years without both going to work.
I think the answer is both yes and no. In a way, the digital world is allowing us to extend our childhood, by enabling us to continue enjoying pastimes further on into adulthood. From re-watching old TV shows we thought were gone forever, to counter-strike tournaments between co-workers at the office.
Conversely, the nature of childhood play has drastically changed for similar reasons. Kids get less exercise (I did) when their entertainment is obtainable without even leaving their room. Kids don't develop social skills while playing video games, unless you count the meaningless and often angry banter between players online. (Sure, there's polite conversation too, but it can't take the place of real human interaction.) I'm not so sure about a lack of creativity, because I still see creativity flourishing everywhere.
The rule here is the same as everywhere else: There's such thing as too much, so take it in moderation. Kids should not be allowed to spend all their time on video games or TV, just like they shouldn't be allowed to spend all their time hanging out in front of the mall or what have you. There's good in so many different things in life, but too much of a good thing is often a bad thing.
I'm surprised the progressive mindset of the average Slashdotter is so blindly ignorant to their own apocolyptic notions merely because of a difference of how one was raised, and a few bad incidents.
Possibly -- except that the social interaction is very different when a child plays almost exclusively with electronics. Physical activity is also important to one's health, and establishing a habit of exercise in a child bodes well for their future physical condition and health.
I couldn't agree with you more. The lack of exersize for anything but the fingers is at least partly responsible for the current generation of young adults that are 100 lbs overweight. At some point, there has to be a balance, and that balance will be achieved thru shorter lifespans and poorer overall health.
Yes, things are a bit different now compared to my pre-teen days, when I could, alone, get on the streetcar and go clear across Des Moines IA to go see my fraternal grandparents for an afternoon, and to get back on it near dinnertime and come home. Now, somebody would call the law & welfare would be on the scene before supper... And a fraction of a percent of such free-ranging children today would wind up molested. But back then, in the '40's, molesters didn't often make it to court, so there was less of it I believe. The childs father saw to that, and more than likely it was judged self-defense or justifiable.
Now, the law does little or nothing except prosecute that rightious parent. The end result is the kids are kept away from the potentially harmfull situations by restricting them to the house and handing them the newest video games yadda yadda. Me? I'd a hell of a lot better like to see them setting up jump ramps for their bicycles on a vacant lot, occasionally picking up a busted collarbone or such, along with the inevitable road rash. It'll heal with a bandaid and some triple-antibiotic salve. They'll understand the physical world a heck of a lot better when they've experienced the laws of nature up close and "damn that hurts" personal when they try to violate them, something they'll only visualize without comprehension about the hurt when they can take a video gun and blow the "bad" guys away by the hundreds in an afternoon of video gaming. And we wonder what makes somebody "go postal" & blow away their co-workers in wholesale numbers.
It took me 30 years to start getting overweight, I carried it for 40, and now its taking 10 to get rid of it. If I live that 10 years. But I went out and played in the summers, or worked the fields in season in my teens, something thats completely beyond the pale for todays kids that don't actually live on a farm.
Just one old farts opinion of course, take it for what its worth.
--
Cheers, Gene
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
How do we know this isn't the start of an evolutionary change in man in which we start to use our minds more than our body and our body simply fades out so were left as floating heads? I agree that its good for kids to get outside (I personally only go out cause I'm forced to go back and forth to work) but, if you really think about it, the more a kid stays inside, the more he plays his/her game (increasing hand-eye coordination and troubleshooting skills among other skills) or sits at his/her computer looking up interesting topics (teaching research skills and also learning more and more) the smarter the kid will be. I think all the 'anti-technology' opinions you read are people scared of being left behind.
Also, I believe this whole article is just a marketing ploy by authors. Like the comment to the post states "A child who spent all day reading violent books would not be well adjusted, but there is nothing to stop a child walking into Waterstones and buying a Bret Easton Ellis or Irvin Welsh book..." I think the authors are trying to discourage technology among kids to get them to buy thier books. And I've never personally read Philip Pullman but a quick wikipedia shows some similaritys between his books and most video games out there they both "[...]feature children facing adult moral choices, talking animals, religious allegories, parallel worlds, and the fate of those worlds hanging in the balance."
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
It's more of a death of good parenting.
God Be Gone
Odd thing for Pullman to say, given what the kids in his books are like.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
One aspect that I see, as a coach of younger athletes, is that, for a lot of them, winning and losing have lost their value. Without getting into a, "We had to walk uphill, both ways, in five feet of snow," old-folks mind-set, we played to win, when I was a kid. I _hated_ losing; still do. But for kids, now, having grown up with the video console at the house, with cheat sheets and "Save" functions, etc., it doesn't mean so much to lose; just hit "restart" and pick up where you last saved. At the very least, if kids had to earn their quarters - assuming you could play a game with a quarter, anymore - and had to go down to the video arcade and wait in line to play games, I think they'd take winning and losing a little more seriously.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
I would characterize it a little differently, I would say kids today are growing up "differently" than their parents, which is always true.
One of the modern differences is adults and kids are all spending a lot of time sitting around the glowing toob or walking around with a permanent sound track blasting in their ears where previously they did not (because they could not, those gadgets didn't exist).
This does seem to translate into a growing over weight, sedentary population, though, both kids and adults.
I grew up in the 'burbs but close to large open undeveloped spaces so spent many a happy summer with my brothers stealing lumber from construction sites and building tree houses and things like that. My wife has similar stories (sans lumber stealing).
A letter the gummit doesn't contribute to anything. As always, in every generation, the parents need to provide the guidence necssary to keep the kids healthy. IN the case of my wife and I, being ISPs and all, we have a huge room full of computers, one for each person and I have a couple. And we compute all the time. However, we also walk everytwhere, camp and go backpacking. A few years ago, wanting a place for our kids to roam outdoors as we had, we bought a few acres a few miles from Yosemite and spend weeks up there every year.
So: everything's cool in the proper dosage, parents: kick the kids outside and make them walk places and feed them good food. Government need not apply. End of story.
The child grows up these days compared to the 1970's like this:
They never seen a belt.
They never seen a firecracker.
They never shot a gun.
They never used a Cambell's soup can and a bucket of water and a firecracker.
They never used TWO Cambell's soup can's and a string.
They never carved two pieces of wood in a microwave dish shape and communicated.
They never played doorbell ditch'em.
They never played street basketball.
They never played street baseball.
They never played street football.
They never stold their parents car.
They never drank a beer.
They never pulled their fucking pants up and bought a belt.
They never had a brother in nam/cambodia.
They never had to do math on paper.
They never had to write on paper.
They never got expelled from school for fighting.
They never got an A in science.
They never got an A or alternatively an F in PE. (See Music)
They never got an A in English.
They never got an A in Music or F in Music and A in PE.
They never saw Bob Wilkens.
They never just bled and learned to stop the bleeding.
They never broke a bone.
They never built a real fucking waterproof treehouse.
They never built a car. Or engine.
They never fixed an analog stereo.
They never built a house.
They never worked a job as cutting grass.
They never rode a bike dangerously.
They never made a blood pact.
They never put shit in a bag and lit it on fire, rang the bell and ran.
They never drove to high school drunk or stoned or hungover.
They never swam naked.
They never held onto the poorly grounded freezer in the garage, with 20+ friends and passed the "shock" (60Hz 120V) around the circle.
They never hooked a transformer up backwards.
They never replaced a tube.
They never watched speed racer.
They never watched gilligan's island.
They never joined a gang.
They never left a gang. (not like now a days shit, kids gangs. not Crime gangs.)
Then never got a decent job.
They never paid for their car.
They never burned a vinyl record in science class.
They never learned binary when all there was was light bulbs and dial phones.
They never striped a speaker wire with their teeth.
They never striped a speaker wire with a lighter.
Can be found in Steven johnson's great book - "Everything Bad is Good for You".
Placing kids in front of the TV?
Heh.
Screw that noise. The TV is busy being used by me pwn1ng my 12-y/o son's little camping butt with his smarmy sniper-rife. I got yer number buddy, eat hot plasma!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That depends entirely on where you choose to raise your children. Our neighbourhood is safe enough that I feel no qualms about letting my children roam free at the park across the street or around the block on their bikes, and don't think twice when they holler in the door, "we're going over to so-and-so's house" as long as I know who so-and-so is and either a phone number to get ahold of them, or their address.
I certainly don't watch them like a hawk when they're outside for fear someone will snatch them away
As other posters have said, we can all choose not to be afraid, and teach our children not to be afraid as well, and a good portion of that is environment.
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
If Oakland is that bad, and you feel powerless to fix things, why do you still live there?
I wouldn't set foot in Oakland or Newark after dark, the same reason for both places. I understand that some portions of society feel that they cannot afford to move and there is one part of society (Jerry Brown, aka "Governor Moonbeam") who seems to like living there.
If the middle class people would just totally evacuate decaying cities such as Oakland and Newark, those cities will either have to give up and consider themselves a write off (which is where Oakland may already be) or they will have to clean up their acts to stop the loss and re-attract the middle class. Washington, DC used to be almost as bad as Oakland, it got itself out of the situation that it was in and today it is generally as safe as any city.
Sometimes I really get the feeling that a lot of people think that children are growing up faster and faster from generation to generation, to the point that these people would be hardly surprised if 50 years from now most kids had sex by the time they turn 7. I hate to state the obvious, but there's not really such a thing as kids growing up faster and faster, it's only the same ramblings that adults of each generation have tirelessly repeated.
I wished one day everybody would learn from history, realize that a few things about us never change and that their opinion about younger people is just the same one as people 2,500 years ago in Greece had about younger people of the same age, but I learnt from history that people don't learn from history.
You just got troll'd!
Like anything, it depends upon specifics....
I got an Apple ][ back in 1978 when I was 10. It had only a couple of crappy text games on it, and I wished I had more. So I taught myself to program.
Fast-forward 28 years, and I am still programming, making mid-six-figures in salary, and I never finished college.
Would I take away my early exposure to computers? Um, hell no. Will I give my 3-year-old a computer when he is ten? That depends upon whether or not I can "restrict" his usage to "productive" tasks and harmless media. So, probably.
But will I give him a Nintendo when he is ten? Absolutely not. My parents would never buy me an Atari console as a kid, making me save my lawn-mowing money up to buy one when I was sixteen. And you know what? By the time I bought that thing, I really didn't even play it that much because programming was so much more engrossing.
And I still thank my parents for being so discerning between types of electronic media. It makes all the difference. There's a good chance that if they had bought me an Atari at age ten instead of an Apple ][, I'd probably be a college dropout working at Starbucks instead of a highly recruited UI engineer.
So, like anything else, it depends. Bottom line: parents are around for a reason. Namely, to make the correct decisions involving the upbringing of their children. Sure it's easier to just buy them a console and plug them in for a few hours a day. But that's not what parenting is about at its core.
Novelist Michael Chabon has addressed both the idea of the death of childhood's 20th-century "golden age" and the role therein both of the electronic media and the at times crushing boredom of the era. He has also, for that matter, written about the work of Philip Pullman.
Having a 4 year old daughter who loves to surf cartoon sites and play games on the computer I often wondered about this. But if you listen to the stories she makes up and tells me, her imagination is intact. Not only that, I make sure to take her out into the "Real" world to play. We Geocache (or hunt for treasure, like pirates as she says), go hiking, etc. Hell, just the other day her swingset was a boat. I was the captain and she was my first mate. We saw mermaids and whales (all in the woods of North Carolina).
/. users I am a gadget/tech junkie and help encourage it in my daughter. So far it has just advanced her further in along than her peers whose parents don't allow them to play on the computer for the fear of the article. I do think parents can fall into the habit of letting the games, etc. babysit for them, but that is another discussion.
As with most
I'm sure Paris and Nicole will look just fine at 50 thanks to the wonders of modern technology, but what about the rest of the US's children, who are driven one block to school, even in the best of neighborhoods, and will be fat and diabetic by the time they are 30? I'm not putting my money on increasing life expectancies especially when the fattest and most diabetic are the ones least likely to have access to top shelf medical care.
If I had kids they could play all the video games they wanted, but the hardware would be powered off deep-cycle batteries charged by a stationary bicycle. You play, you ride.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Children aren't growing up too quickly, what's actually happening is they are emulating negative adult behaviors at ever younger ages. Big difference.
Children are infact taking longer to mentally mature than ever before, and positive adult behaviors are appearing at ever higher ages, or increasingly never at all.
A sexually active, dressed as a prostitute 12 year old of today is almost certainly mentally less grown up than a playing with dolls never been kissed 12 year old of 100 years ago.
Stranger danger.
First the feminists demonize men, to the point where today divorce courts favor women to be in custody because of the prevailing thought that men don't care as well. This led to the second age (late eighties and nineties) where men were considered to be out for themselves, and would hurt a child without an issue.
We are in the third age. Children have the status of gods to be worshipped, can do no wrong (except against another god) and a mere sigh from them can get a man arrested where men are now considered inherently evil. (Payback for Salem? And that city in Germany where they killed every last woman?)
It's no wonder that parents keep their children locked up inside and pander to their wishes. Politicians can get away with ridiculous things by say "its for the children", parents can get away with murder saying it was to protect their child, and children are not allowed to explore because that might not be ideal.
It's a sad sad predicament. And the only way out is to believe in the inherent good in other people. Sure there's bad people out there, but at least in this case, most crimes towards children are within the family, and a few more in the circle of friends. Strangers do almost no damage to children. (It's usually inflicted by psycologists anyway.)
And finally, parents have to learn to not relive their own supposed "bad childhood" through their children. They need to read the books on how to raise the child instead of how to still have fun once having them (like the despicable US "Child" magazine). Children are treasures that require care and time, not inconveniences to be exploited when the parent is down.
Have you read my journal today?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"sedentary, screen-based entertainment" TV has been around for 50 years now so this is nothing new.
For hundreds of thousands of years, you had all of about 13 years to 'grow up', and in those 13 years you were faced with death, distruction, disease, raping, pillaging and plunder. That's not even mentioning that you were put to were as soon as you could walk. This notion of "childhood" that the author speaks of when he says...
'pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past.'
ONLY existed in the recent past. There has only been a very brief moment in human history where 'childern' were not exposed to 'unsuitable' things. Have you ever read any childrens fairy tales that are more than ~50 years old? Obviously the author hasn't. Whenever I read articles like this, I just hope that these 'children' can do better at understanding the world than mine and my parents generation.
This kind of thing does make me think that, maybe, I shouldn't be so hard on these 'young earthers' who think the world is only 6000 years old. Since, there seeems to be an even larger group that thinks the world was created in 1950.
I can offer some first-hand anecdotal evidence which, typical of /. won't matter much but here goes.
My wife and both agreed that we flushed way too much of our youth staring at the TV and our child wasn't going to look back and say the same thing about her life. We also thought quite subjectively there wasn't anything worth watching for kids. If there is, you can get it on VCR/DVD So we:
1. Sold our TV and related furniture, diconnected the cable and bought a 12" tv/vcr. (later added dvd)
2. The TV we had was hard to watch because we got it out of a cabinet, plugged it in and sat at a table to watch it. That was true for -all- of us.
3. REPLACE TV WITH OTHER ACTIVITIES. This meant we -had- to get off our rear-ends, find and do stuff with/for our kid. This can be tough at the end of a work day when you were raised in front of a TV. I later discovered that I depended on TV to "watch" my child and setting up another personal regret where her childhood will fly by in front of the TV.
It's been 5+ years, she loves audio books, excels at school, she's imaginative, interactive, can live without TV, but will watch it when she wants to see something. We also found she doesn't play with kids in our neighborhood who watch alot of tv either. They are boring to her because they can't do imaginative play.
I don't really go for the "end-of-childhood" argument, but I know for a fact my daughter and my relationship with my daughter is richer for less personal electronics. Not to mention the extra dough saved every month.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
This writers seem to be focused on Leave it to Beaver and Dick and Jane concepts of childhood. In the minds of the writers, a childhood that only existed for children in some of Western Europe, the USA and Canada for a portion of the twentieth century is what we should be striving for. This is the childhood of a strange era where the psyches of civilization were ripped apart by two world wars, one of which involved the largest genocide in human history. Following those wars, the children were raised in the shadow of communism, in which the two most murderous states to ever exist (murderous in terms of the number of citizens killed by their governments) were attempting to expand their totalitarian ideals across the globe, creating a cold war that spawned two massive arsenals of nuclear weapons that on at least one occasion were nearly, and quite publicly, pushed the world to the edge of Armageddon.
Now the childhood of that era was not bad - it was certainly an improvement over the child labor that was prevalent in Europe throughout the middle ages and in Europe and the US during the industrial revolution. It was better than the lives of most children in the developing world (the majority of the world's children) are now, or are likely to be any time in the near future. However, it was still an exceptional time in history and should by no means be accepted as a period that should set the norms for childhood.
And also, on what basis do these writers state that children are losing their imaginations? Are they unaware of the adult artists and designers who have re-imagined the video games of their youth into the new books, artwork, clothing, and video games of today? What is it about the imaginings of the video game generation that makes them any less valid than the imaginings of creators like Mister Pullman? I get the impression that these authors are just jerking their proverbial knees and protesting against what they see as a threat to their livelihoods, and hoping to sell a lot of books to British libraries in the process.
I first read an article on binary math in Highlights magazine as a 6-year old in 1964 and have been hooked on this "computer language" ever since.
No, not the Calvin Klein scent.
I don't think technology is harmful to adolescents. Quite the contrary, technology as a tool can be extraordinarily helpful to the developing mind.
What is poisonous is obsession. If a child is allowed to focus too much on one thing, be it computers, games, sports, pr0n, or whatever, that's very unhealthy. It leads to a closed mind. Children need to be exposed to lots of different things, have multiple interests, and be encouraged to think about life from many angles.
Think about all the evils in this world. Almost all of them are due, in one form or another, to obsession. Obsession with religion (Islamic terrorists, right-wing nut-jobs), guns (Columbine), video games (ditto), obsession with obtaining great money and/or power (most of the people in government). If someone loves you, well that's nice. If they're obsessed with you, that's creepy.
Obsession is the root of all evil. The antidote is balance and variety.
I admit it. I did NOT read the article, or even the post. I stopped at the healine; "Consumer Electronics Cuasing the 'Death of Childhood'?"
NO.
Parents are causing it.
By not parenting.
Be INVOLVED in your children's lives! Help them learn to know how to use tools and toys RESPONSIBLY. Be RESPONSIBLE and provide your child with a VARIETY of interactive tools, include books and Lego's and action figures and Hot-Wheels to their world and put limits on the amount of time they spend with ANY of them.
"Waitress I need two more boat-drinks..."
was harsh and brutal for many people.
My great-uncle became "man of the house" at age ten, when his father died in a farm accident. Today, he'ld be given counselling; then, he was given a household full of siblings and a farm to take care of. And he did it, because that was his duty as a man. Today, nineteen year old men are still considered "kids". They've had the luxury of growing old without growing up.
Two of my dad's eight siblings died during or shortly after childbirth. Most of my parent's family ended up with farm related injuries and scars. My uncle is missing a leg from where it got caught in a baling machine. My cousin died down a well, trying to fix it so that his family could have clean drinking water.
We don't want the simple life back. It would kill half of us, and lead the other half back to an early grave. Kids today aren't being "forced to grow up too fast". Try taking on adult experience at age 14. Try getting through life with a grade 3 education, because your Dad made you go to work to earn money for the family before you even finished grade school, like happened to my Dad's father.
Then try whining to me about how kids are growing up "too fast" compared to their forefathers. I don't see it. To me, they're barely growing up at all.
The bigger issue of kids not playing outdoors and interacting with the real world is that they are developing no appreciation for their natural environment. How can we expect children who don't value the wonders of the great outdoors to be good envrionmental stewards in adulthood? I fear more for the natural world under their future care than from any spoliations meted out by the Bush administration.
If you have, then you know the whole trilogy focuses on two children, both running from violent, dangerous adults out to steal their souls essentially. They don't have any time to BE children, they're too busy saving the world(s). What's he trying to prove?
Slashdot linked to a story a few months ago about how kids just didn't grasp physics, weight and the like. Kids today have a hard time knowing which branch can bear their weight - or that standing too close to a horse can be dangerous. Video games just can't teach you everything about the analog world. In this week's retelling of survivors stories from the North WTC tower there was an especially telling scene; Financial analysts and lawyers looked on in disbelief as a janitor kicked his way through a sheetrock wall. They had been trapped for some time and it never occured to them to go THROUGH a wall. As the lawyer being interviewd said "I thought WE were the smart ones" We live more in our experiences than in the REAL world - The more experiences you have, the bigger your world.
"The Disappearance of Childhood" by Neil Postman looks at the effect of technology on childhood. Essentially, he says that childhood is an artificial construction by modern society (modern meaning the last 500 or so years) which was made possible by technology and is now being destroyed by technology. Children are able to be children because of secret knowledge. They don't know swear words or what they mean; they don't know what certain parts of the body look like (on grownups, that is) or where babies come from; they don't know that there are bad men who might kill them and eat them and videotape it all and post it on the Internet. They're naive, in other words. They also wear different clothes, play different games, use different language, and so on. As we erode the difference between children and adults, and start teaching younger children how to swear, how grownups have sex, how to play grownup games, and that there *ARE* bad men who might kill you, eat you, and post it online for the enjoyment of other bad men, they stop being children. They're just small adults. When you give up all the secrets and educate young children about the entire world and all the bad stuff in it, are you really doing them a favour?
Technology makes it harder and harder for adults to keep all these secrets from kids. They can hop onto an Internet connection and find out what a naked lady looks like or what mob bosses do to people who don't pay up their gambling debts. This takes away part of their childhood, although they don't yet have the maturity to handle this knowledge. There's always that kid in the schoolyard who teaches the others how to swear, but children now can potentially have access to unprecedented levels of "adult" media containing sex, violence, swearing, and all sorts of other fun stuff which they may not be emotionally ready to process.
I do think that childhood is something valuable that we shouldn't give up without a fight, but I won't argue that here because it would be an enormous post.
It's our job as parents to educate our children and prepare them for adulthood and The Real World. I just think that it should be done in stages. And when my son is 7 years old, I'll let him watch TV and play with whatever gaming console is the latest thing, but he'll also have to go out on his bike and play in the mud to know what it's like to be a little boy.
Children are the last minority. A child can be tried for murder as an adult at 12, but cannot get a job or a means of taking adult responsibility. In Houston, the schools are already starting to look like prisons; fences, guards, security systems, etc.. With curfew, they are under House Arrest from 10:00PM 'til 6:00AM, thus making their incarceration more complete.
d _paradox.htm The rest of the site is pretty interesting also.
I lied about my age and joined the Army back in the '60's, and two months later had an Army GED. The State of Alaska granted me an actual Diploma when I turned 18. People used to laugh at people with GED's, but now you have to take a GED test before they will let you graduate (in Texas they call it TAKS), and it's not even as hard as the one I took back in the '60's! But if some kid showed up for his Freshman year of High School and passed the TAKS, do you think they'd let him graduate and get a job? NO! He still has to serve the rest of his sentence!
Just wait. The population of the US is getting older. It won't be too long before they lower the age at which young people can go to work to support the old folks on Social Security.
Check this out: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/multimedia/jtgsoun
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
> Are kid growing up too fast nowadays because of them new-fangled technologies?
I was raised on video games. Now I'm 30, and I still have no job and live with my parents.
I grew up more or less without the benefit of a computer, a cell or car phone, PDA, and so on; my family never saw much use for those things. We had a TV, and about all I watched on it was a few hours a day of cartoons. Otherwise I was expected to be outside playing.... by myself usually (other kids in the area were too young to play with, in my parents' opinion).
Then in Dec. 1986 my mom bought me a C64. Looking back, I'd have to say that I was better able to adapt to the world around me after I got that computer. The first thing I learned to do with it was type in programs out of Compute!'s Gazette, sure, but then my mom bought us a 300 baud modem. Next thing we knew, I was chatting on local multi-line BBS's, using message boards (yay Fidonet!), and visiting BBS get-togethers. Most of those I met were years older than me, but I didn't really care. Hell, my mom bought one of those music-activated laser projectors (you know, the ones with speakers and mirrors to deflect the beam) from one of my BBS contacts.
I think the problem lies not with the technology itself, but with the way kids are [self-]taught to use it, combined with the constant barrage of paedophile and other criminal threats. Today, kids sometimes post personal information on some big website where it's left sitting, ignored by the operators but quite visible to the low-lifes out there, but back in the day, Sysop's were generally pretty quick to delete questionable material (at least, in my experience). Plus, until 1989 rolled around and the Game Boy became popular, you couldn't take your video games out of the house anyway.
I don't know what the solution is, but better parenting can surely help. I mean, why DID you buy your kid that PSP? Is there some reason you let them spend 6+ hours a day on their home console or watching TV? Can you give me one good, valid reason why there's a TV and/or console in the kid's bedroom? Do you, as the parent, even know how to use a computer responsibly (meaning keeping it secure and staying away from malicious websites) so that you can teach your kids the same?
I'm sure there are plenty of other similar questions that need to be asked, and of course this isn't directed at the bulk of Slashdot readers, who I am sure are responsible parents (where applicable). It's just that these are the things my parents did with my sister and I, with the exception of my computer in my room (parents felt I was responsible enough to keep it there), and I'd like to think it helped.
Letting your kid outside to play with his friends is un-workable in dangerous, urban environments.
Yeah, sure. I grew up on tree farms and in rural areas until I was 13, and probably did more dangerous stuff in a day back then than my son who's now 15 has done growing up in Seattle. He's gone out to play with neighbor kids lots.
Back in the 70s, they tried to scare our parents into avoiding dangerous things like Colecovision, TI, and Commodore 64. I ended up buying my own Apple II+, but built S100 bus home computers at school with friends. They were convinced it would ruin us.
Now, you did raise a good point about too many parents driving their kids everywhere - I taught my son how to use a scooter (got one too), and we frequently walked to and from his school and the Boys & Girls Club. Unless you live in some freaky city, this is more the sedentary nature of Americans than of almost anyone living in the EU (they walk a lot more there).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Damn well said.
I wonder if this group of authors of children's literature has given any thought to worrying about children having "real play (as opposed to sedentary, text-and-pictures-on-paper-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in". Personally, I tend to believe (with no basis in fact) that the best things for kids are (in order) real, outside-with-others-and-nature play, followed by reading, followed by playing games, followed by watching TV/movies. I'm not at all sure *why* it is that reading seems better than playing games, but I think it's a question that really should be answered before trying to get rid of the games.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
People are living longer than ever, it's been quite some time since kids have been expected to crawl around in chimneys for their supper, people are getting smarter, especially in abstract puzzle-solving, and crime has been going down since one year after Doom came out.
What are they complaining about? It's just a bunch of traditionalist, nostalgia-waxing blowhardery. And, as pointed out above, a rather recent tradition, at that.
BSD: The most efficient way of subsidizing the enemy.
Playing with non electronic device > Playing with electronic device.
TV is a huge hypnosis device. Look at people when they watch TV. Zombies. Not just kids, adults too.
We used to have all 2000 channels. I watched tv all of the time, along with my wife. WE grew into overweight zombies......
Then we had a daughter. We got rid of the 2000 channels around the time she was 1 1/2, and was zombified by the big glowy thing. Now we have 22 channels (Very basic cable).
Since we made the move, we both have lost weight, and talk more to each other.
TV is a treat now. Not a way of life. You can build around a non-tech entertainment lifestyle, it takes a lot of work.
Interact with your kids > TV.
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
This doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Kids are absolutely *full* of energy, and I know my own daughter would love to play computer games that require a lot of moving and jumping around. The problem is, the gaming industry mostly ignores this idea because the people doing the coding, and the older generation of people picking out the games to purchase don't find it appealing. (How many "quality assurance testers" really look forward to a bunch of physical exertion to find bugs in the code, for that matter?)
o n
There were a few exceptions made, like Dance Dance Revolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revoluti
- Age: 11 (starting 6th grade)
- Number of months in his life, total, with TV in the house: 24 (last two years)
- Number of months in his life, total, with cable TV: 1 (I just got cable to watch CNN)
- Number of videogame systems (PS, XBox, etc) in the house: 0
- Number of computers in the house: 2
- Average number of different sports teams he plays on in one year: 5
- Average number of books checked out of the library at any given time: 3
It's not that he's technologically deficient - he has his iPod and as well as a cell phone. He uses the computer to check his email, do homework, and play games on Miniclip.com. When homework is done, we're outside playing catch (football, baseball, etc), or talking a walk in the park with his mother, or snowball fights when it's cold.When it comes to his friends, I encourage them to do outside activities. Since my son gets bored with TV and video games, he's chosen his friends (obviously) who have similar interests.
It's not that hard - all it takes is some focus from the parents. Of the time I spend away from my son, I spend >90% of it in front of a computer doing work or surfing the web. I'm much more nerdy that he is. When I was his ago, I had an Atari 2600, then later an Apple IIe, so I had my share of geek toys to play around with. But I also played outside, played with toys (Lego), played sports. My parents enforced some balance to my life, and I try to do the same for him.
If I am not mistaken childhood is the process whereby kids learn to become adults. If this process is accellerated successfully why would anyone dislike this? Are immaturity and ignorance virtues? I was a child, and yes I have children. What this article really demonstrates is how ignorant most people are about technolgies that affect society, and a resistance to change.
who have nothing to gain by demonizing non-literary forms of entertainment are complaining? Color me shocked.
Well, see, that's just the thing.
So you found one thing to support the idea that _this_ generation of kids is in trouble. But that's actually the whole funny thing: so did the previous generations. Every single generation had their own bogeyman they waved around as the downfall of the next generations. Every single generation found some X that they didn't have and the new generation has, and latched onto it as _the_ thing that will doom us all. Pretty much no matter how far you could go in time, you'd find generation N-2 whining, bitching and moaning about generation N. And if you went two more generations back, you'd find the N-2 generation presented as the decadent and doomed ones by generation N-4. And so on.
So you think that this one is certainly _the_ one that finally is a real threat. Funny thing is, so did they. They were invariably wrong. What makes you so sure, then, that your bogeyman is any different?
Even your argument that "Basically, the standard of living for most of modern western society is now so high that most of us are living like (or better than) the aristrocracy of the not very distant past." isn't actually that new. The same could be said at any point in time before. And probably some old fart at the time actually said it.
I can think of a _lot_ of inventions and changes in the past (starting with the fire, the wheel, pottery, animal husbandry, irrigation, etc, all the way to modern stuff like antibiotics) which had exactly the effect you describe: the resulting standard of living was better than even aristocracy lived before that.
In fact, most of those had bigger effects on the standard of living back then than consumer electronics have now. E.g., I bet that the effects of a tribe's discovering the fire were a lot bigger than the effects of the iPod. We're not just talking "it kept them warm", but cooking also allowed them to eat a _lot_ more vegetables than ever before. In a nutshell, yes, in one fell swoop, it raised the standard of living to a point that their grandfathers couldn't have even imagined before.
So it's happened before. And it's a safe complaint that someone has voiced the same complaint at the time. "Bla, bla, bla, people have it too easy these days, they're growing weak, flacid, weak-minded, obese, etc." I can just imagine an old caveman bitching all day about how these young hoodlums staying warm and cooking vegetables on fire lack the mental stimulation of _having_ to track an antelope through the snow. Uphill both ways. And we liked it that way. How the whole civilization will grow weak and stupid because of relying on fire instead of solving problems the old fashioned ways. How people will become loners and unable to function in society because they can just sleep near the fire instead of having to huddle together to stay warm in winter. Etc.
Or take weaponry. _Millions_ of years the primitive hominids had to basically play a game of stealth, and figure out ingenious ways to get a dead gazelle from the sabertooth tiger without becoming the second course for the tiger. Just because they had no natural weapons to actually kill either the tiger or the gazelle. And then suddenly one of them goes and invents a stone-tipped spear or knife, and everyone has all the meat they can hunt _and_ a means of self-defense, with no mental challenge whatsoever involved. Just hold the blunt end and thrust the pointy end at the prey or tiger. Gee, surely that will make the next generations stupid and weak.
But, again, the funny thing is that all that never actually happened. There have been bigger changes, bigger jumps in the life standard, and none of them actually made humanity become weak and stupid. In fact, some of the things I've mentioned (fire, stone tools, etc), we actually have evidence that they resulted in a _higher_ brain capacity. What makes you so sure that yours will be any different?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I have two children, one 7 months old and one just starting kindergarten a month or so shy of his 5th birthday. Essentially the only broadcast TV Boy#1 sees is PBS cartoons (we have basic cable plus Netflix), and we often feel like granola eating luddites compared to a lot of our friends. He has seen mainstream cartoons and movies at friends' houses (and we have the usual Pixar crowd plus some movies, which he likes although he usually wants to fast forward the scary parts), along with Playstation and Nintendo, and so far he has accepted that other families do things differently from his own.
He plays outside, paints, draws, runs, jumps, rides his bike, knows basic math (addition and subtraction with numbers less than 20 or so, and I am not sure how high he can count anymore). He knows his letters, and can recognize a bunch of words and is certainly "ready" to read, as the jargon has it. He loves to help me "build". He designed and I constructed a wooden garage for him out of off-cuts, and he got me to buzz round the edges of the roof with my router to give it a nice edge (he knew what the router was for, and could visualize the finished product), and I am trying to find tools he can safely use -- he constructs huge sculptures from offcuts and glue, which he calls "Star Wars things" and then spends several sessions painting them. He goes sledding, swims, jump off the diving board, eats all kinds of foods, and knows that any good breakfast wil have protein, carbs and some fruit.
He also knows Spiderman's real name is Peter Parker, can identify Batman at about 100 yards (as well as Batcat and Batdog, minor deities he and his preschoolmates include in the pantheon on the same footing as Batman himself), and can hum a passable rendition of the Star Wars theme, despite never having been provided with this information by his parents. And he went off to his first day of school with a Superman backpack -- so far as I can see his room has only one other superman, but about four spidermen and a couple of batmen... He can operate a digital camera (he took a lovely shot of his Mum and Boy#2 the other day -- and she tells me that he carefully asked to her to move as he composed the shot on the screen), and work the DVD player.
Bringing up kids is almost always about flexibility and compromise -- in the end, you have to live in your culture and times, even as you try to give your kids the tools they will need to navigate through the world. But a lot of what my son loves to do would not be a part of his life if he spent too much time in front of a screen -- and in the long run, it is much better to experience the natural world first hand than it is to watch it via some electronic simulacrum, as we learn through touch and smell, as well as just sight and sound.
But what I have seen is this. Kids we know with similar backgrounds to us who watch a lot of TV or spend a lot of screen time, are almost always more "jumpy" than kids who don't -- and I am not implying that Boy#1 is any sort of angel (he threw a fit in the supermarket over the weekend that had people turning and staring from a couple of ailses away, and I explained to him that behaving badly wouldn't get him what he wanted -- namely some sugary cereal with a cartoon character on the box), and more likely to initiate violent play -- which my kid will cheefully join in with, at least until he gets hurt.
And if you want to rail against the corruption of modern life, TV is not the only issue -- avoiding shitty convenience food is a huge part of raising happy and healthy kids. I never expected to be a nutrition nazi, but loading kids with sugar does terrible things to their attention span and plays havoc with their emotions as they come down from the rush...
The other thing I have noticed recently is that Boy #1 is completely unable to make a distrinction between a nature program and a commercial (and he certainly does learn from some of the TV he watches) -- he happily told me that "Peanuts is the best video ever" parroting a trai
One of the main differences between children and adults, aside from size, is a sense of community. Babies are utterly selfish because they have no concept of other people. As children grow, they slowly get the idea that other people are important, that other people want different things than the kid does, that those wishes are important, and so forth.
It's critical to put your child's welfare first -- make sure they have warm clothing, nutritious food, good medical care -- but they also desperately need to learn that they don't always get the $18 bag of cookies, that your desire for nice wine is the same as their desire for cookies. If they don't understand that, in their very bones, they spend the rest of their lives pissed off, on some level, that other people keep doing all this (to them) useless stuff and buying all this useless stuff.
I'm not saying feed your kids gravel. I'm saying that they need to learn compromise and the best ways for them to do that are by having other kids to play with (rather than computers and TV) and watching *you* compromise. Today, they get the bag of cookies, but next week, you get the wine and they don't get the cookies, because what you want is just as important as what they want, and hopefully a great deal more rational.
I've dated several very smart women who were only children, and let me tell you what: for almost every one of them, inability to compromise made them into tragic heros. They pushed in every situation, to get what they thought was the right solution, and usually they got exactly what they wanted, but sometimes they pissed a lot of people off and made a lot of unnecessary enemies who came back to haunt them later. There's nothing more valuable in interpersonal relations than learning how to compromise.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Back when I was a kid we didn't even have gravity - you had to hold onto something all the time or float away. Lost an older brother that way .. either that or food posion.
...
Walk uphill to school and uphill back.
I have a 4.5 year old boy and I'm constantly stopping myself from buying everything I would have killed or died for when I was a kid. Things that would cost a dedicated hobbiest 4 months of work and 1/2 year chore money is under $10!
Our one big advantage is I have a small hobbie farm - pigs, cows, horses, gease, and when the fox is away I sometimes have chickens. Barn cat, house cat, 3 dogs, morning and evening chores.
He has 'helped' me with then as soon as he was born, although keeping him safe often required more work then the chores. There is 150 ways to be serously hirt or killed around the barn, and safty (he is learning) is most important.
He has lots of neat toys, most of which are not played with. He plays with his tool set about as much as the rest and as soon as he is able to read we will go closed caption on the tv.
He and I play on the computer. I help him construct simple animations using Poser, and we have a digital camera he plays with, and getting better with.
I'm a firm believer that there is NOTHING that a person can't learn about and do, and yesterday we layed som PVC pumbing and made a apple pie from 'scratch'.
Your job as a parent is to help your kids become successful and happy adults, and who knows what you don't have to bother teaching them? Tell me what the future holds.
If only I could Spell!
and I had LEGO and books and games and action figures and cars and even excercise/getting out doors.
I dont know what it is with these people who say that video games are shutting out books and board games and jigsaw puzzles and sport and excercise and toys and such, I had all those things.
Your sister is not lucky - she's making lifestyle choices. Most people can make similar lifestyle choices as well. As I was telling a coworker yesterday "You can do anything you want to do, but not everything you might want to do. Choose wisely."
My wife and I made plans even before we married to live a simple life. From the beginning we lived on my income even though she was working professionally. This makes it possible for her to be a stay-at-home mom.
We give up some things, but frankly I don't miss what we have had to "give up."
Our kids have access to TV (heavily filtered via Tivo) and
access to a computer (internet access filtered by dansguardian)
Both of which have heavy usage restrictions -
Our kids love toys, have unstructured play time *every* day, do craft projects, physical activity (playing outside) and every room in the house has books. We read to our kids every day, and they love books.
In terms of lifestyle to support this, I'm a geek who chooses to:
1. Work close to home - Lots of great jobs in the greater DC area, but I work where I'm ~10mins from home
2. Earn less money - time with my wife and kids is precious and irreplaceable. I could earn lots more by consulting and traveling, but money is not the highest priority for our family
3. Buy and drive used cars - every new car becomes a used car when you drive it off the lot.
4. Don't buy anything (other than my house) on credit. If I don't have the money, I probably don't need it.
5. Work flexible, generally short hours - I work 40-50 hours/week - some of those from home. Occasional weekend and evening hours are required in this profession, and of course I do those.
6. Think about what commitments are required before taking on new activities in my personal life. How much time, effort, emotional energy and money will this take?
7. Simplify - if something is optional - say no. We spend far more time in our lives deciding what not to do than we do picking what *to* do.
8. Eat out occasionally, not all the time.
9. Shop smart - It's FAR cheaper to buy at Sams and the discount grocery store than to buy at the "open all the time, a store on every corner" store.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I have five kids and they will play outside 95% of the time. I do not own video games nor will I let my kids have free access to them. No I am not a prude and no I don't shelter my kids. There is something to be said about the innocence of children and letting them BE children until they actually GROW UP. They will have plenty of time to be adults when they get there... let's face it... childhood is only about 15-20% of your life... the rest is adulthood.... Let them have their childhood and let it be a real childhood, not a psudo-adulthood
...cut I don't know what (if anything) can or should be done about it. I grew up playing with Legos and building castles out of cardboard boxes and riding bikes and creating pyrotechnics with my chemistry set. I would not be as complete a person if I'd spent my childhood playing video games. I had an Odyssey and an Atari, and the neigbor kids got a Nintendo when they came out, but I didn't play that much. It's not just kids who are affected; I see these things happening to myself, now, too. Other than hanging out at the coffee shop and going hiking and backpacking, my life basically revolves around the computer. Sometimes I feel like it's not on the Internet, it doesn't matter!
So, instead of punishing people for doing something, you want to play mind games with them to subvert their will to do that thing?
By all means, if people want out we should help them. But trying to force people to want out (which is what such a system would do) is unreasonable.
I was with you until that cookie thing. Even given an infinite supply of money, I don't think the parent ought to get the kid cookies. Does s/he need the cookies? If little Billy were tugging on my sleeve asking for his $4 cough syrup or something, yeah, but cookies? More directly, how is buying cookies for your kid not indulging them? I would have thought that giving one's kid everything it wanted would train it to expect satisfaction---resulting in an infantile adult. Speaking as a person who, as a child, got nearly everything he wanted, it's important to not give your child everything they ask for. Then again, it really isn't my place to tell anyone how to raise their children, so I think I'll just retract everything I just said.
With the advancing of technology in the world, kids are exposed to more complex situations/activities at a younger age. Also learning about corruption and violence is apart of growing up and maturing, So being exposed to more violence and corruption at a younger age will cause children to be less innocent and mature faster.
Yes, consumer electronics, kids, and parents are killing childhood for kids. (i) Parents are all too often just sitting their kids in front of the computer/dvd/vcr/game console/tv/etc and not doing their job as parents, evidenced by article and other sources. (ii) Kids are also not getting out enough, not getting enough exercise, etc - evidenced by obesity among kids, and the willingness of parents and schools to too quickly classify kids that just need to get out and run around more as ADHD or ADD. (Some parents and schools have taken to putting kids on drugs for ADD/ADHD simply to keep the kid still when all the kid really needs is to get off the tv/dvd/computer/etc and run around outside. Sad, but true.) (iii) Parents are not spending enough time at home with kids, and being the example they should be - this is partially caused by the divorces occurring, but also caused by jobs and the long commutes sometimes demanded by jobs (e.g. the WDC, NYC, and LA areas).
Now, I am not saying that all parents are doing this, or that all schools are doing this. Just a lot more than should be, and parents/schools/doctors/etc are letting them get away with it. The result, however, will be that the kids lives will be ruined in the long run. For example, most kids (and I've had friends go through this) that have been labeled ADD or ADHD will find it very difficult to get a job just because the ADD and ADHD was on their record. (Now, I am not saying that employers are right in that, but they find a way to disqualify a lot of people legally with that being the true reason. As I said, I've had friends go through it - and they don't get work until they find someone willing to work with someone that had ADD or ADHD.)
As to the poster(s) that suggests it safer in urban areas - I grew up just outside Paterson, NJ. We didn't have a game console, were not allowed to watch much TV, didn't have a VCR player or computer. We were outside quite a bit, and all the better for it. Parents have to do their job in raising kids - part of that is teaching them how to live in the world, how to survive in that urban area (however safe or dangerous it may be), etc. If you don't do your job as a parent, and don't get them off the TV/etc, then you will only be hurting the future by denying the potential in the kids.
To draw a very good example of what the article is speaking of, a few years ago Lego produced a few movies - Bionicles - and started releasing sets based on the characters in the movie. Why? They were seeing a slump in sales related to a lack of imagination in kids. Kids had been so spoon fed ideas that they were losing the ability to be creative and think of ideas on how to create stuff with Legos, Lincoln Logs, etc. As a result, sales of such toys were dropping, and Lego produced a movie and Lego sets based on it to help gain kids interests back - hoping kids would grab on enough to be able to transfer to the other, more expensive sets. (I don't know if it worked, but it did pick up their bottom line so far as I am aware.)
So - stop spoon feeding kids entertainment. Let them innovate with their own minds and be creative just like generations of kids in the past have been.
I know that I, for one, will not let my kids have a computer/tv/dvd/vcr/etc in their room, and will limit my own household to two TVs - actually projects hidden in the walls if I do what I really want to do. I know they'll be over at friends and TV will be like "all the rage", but I can minimize its use in my own home and guide them towards other activities - riding bikes, swimming, fishing, reading, etc - that stimulate their own minds and let them be kids, not technology junkies.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Apparently the author needs to get outside as much as they claim children do. At least they need to come visit my office and observe all the adult "children" I work with. Inattentive, irresponsible, blaming, unmotivated, distracted, inconsiderate, thankless, selfish, adult, "children". My experiences outside of the office don't exactly fill me with hope for rest of society either.
childhood dead??? try endless childhood instead.
Great story. Thanks for sharing it.
The simple reality is that people have different interests, and if you want to encourage your children to put down their gameboys you have to find activities that they find interesting, not activities you find interesting and simply want to force them into enjoying. So lay off [d]espairing at their lack of interests when you don't even know what their interests are.
I think it's important to also note that the government's compulsory schooling system treats all children the same, no matter their interests. John Holt realized while team teaching in the 1950's that most of his students were bored and frightened - bored because they didn't care about the current lesson, and frightened because the authority figure was making demands of them. According to Holt, the children were intent only on trying to figure out what the teacher wanted, and whether they should try to give it to them.
Holt wrote a couple books - How Children Fail (1964!), How Children Learn, What Do I Do Monday?, etc. At first he tried to fix the schools. Then he gave up, and became an advocate of "unschooling", where the child chooses what and how they want to learn. Doesn't work for all children, but it does work spectacularly well for many.
I myself was tied down for years in "school" - 11 years of government schools, 2 years of private high school, 3.5 years at the university. On the one hand, I'm kinda bitter about all the time I was locked up, but on the other, I realize that it's hard to appreciate spring without a long, cold winter.
Also see Gatto's Seven Lesson Schoolteacher: "The third lesson I teach kids is indifference. I teach children
not to care about anything too much, even though they want to make it
appear that they do. How I do this is very subtle..."
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Pullman needs to be more careful throwing these arguments around. They are the same ones used to demonize movies, novels, even the act of writing itself (Thanks, Plato!).
Nominate that one for the best of Slashdot.
I see an upcoming innovation in geek land.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Until having a kid myself, I thought the same thing. I thought that parents should spend more time supervising their kids rather than plopping them in front of the TV/PC without supervision...
Now I realize that this was too unrealistic for most people, including myself and my wife.
In order to maintain a reasonable standard of living, many couples both have to work now. It wasn't like this before the 70's. Care to guess what happened? Women's lib. Women working put pressure on wages such that now, basically women have to work for the family to have the same standard of living they would have had before with only the man working. This began a slippery slope because the more women worked, the more wages came to only reflect half of a family income, and thus the more other women had to work.
Needless to say, this puts a strain on everyone, and leaves little time or energy for playing with and supervising the kids. Without a social stigma attached to working women, the market will force most families to have both parents work. The only way out is a movement pushing married people to have one spouse of the two stay at home, which I don't see happening.
So say the neurobiologists:
d f
b rain/book_newsci.htm
"Scientific Background
We draw on the latest discoveries in the neural sciences, linguistics, psychology and anthropology and apply them in the world of business.
Recent discoveries in the field of the neural sciences teach us that:
Emotion is the trigger to action
The rational system follows the emotional system
Present actions are driven by past experiences
Present experiences dictate our emerging needs
The Imprint analysis incorporates this knowledge of the human mind to determine people's emerging needs and 'entry-points' for effective communication."
From:
http://www.culturalimprint.com/about.html
Who have a fascinating (and scary, since the marketin world is actively using this theory) article:
http://www.culturalimprint.com/emerging%20needs.p
The question is, what kind of cultural imprinting are kids getting these days?
Further references are Rapaille's book "The Culture Code"
http://www.randomhouse.com/broadway/culturecode/
And LeDoux's book "The Emotional Brain":
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux/the_emotional_
I have 5 kids - 11,8,6 & 10 month old twins. I can say that there are pressures on me as a parent that my parents did not have to contend with. With Michael Jackson's balcony stunt, and Britney Spears tripping in public while carrying her kid, and the media circus that followed both, I think that parents are unwilling to let their kids take physical risks today that wouldn't have mattered 30 years ago. When I was a kid, my kness were regularly covered with scabs, I've had my share of slings, stitches, bruises and the ocassional black eye. Last week my 8 year old gets stomped on the face in football practice by someone's cleat, and ends up with a black eye. A subsequent trip to the doctor for school vaccinations found my wife and I with a doctor's disapproving look as she interrogated my son about the cause of the black eye. When I was a kid, if you fell and hurt yourself doing something physical, you got a "better be more careful next time" lecture aimed at the kid. Nowadays it seems that allowing your child into an arena that has the possibility of physical injury is as bad as causing the injury yourself.
w s/news.html?">in_article_id=397240&in_page_id=1766 &in_page_id=1766&expand=true
Not to mention that you never know how local authorities are going to handle instances of perceived misbehavior. In my day, if you got busted by an authority figure, you got yelled at, and maybe a call to the parents. Today it seems that you can get in a lot more trouble for just climbing a tree.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/ne
My kids also have a plethora of consumer devices, game cube, ps2, game boys, mp3 players, etc. They also have bats, balls, gloves, bicycles, etc., as well as memberships to local museums, botanic garden, zoo, library cards, etc. They spend more time with the consumer devices then I did as a kid, but I'm spending more time with consumer devices then I did as a kid as well. Life is changing, times are changing. If you removed all of the consumer devices we have now, I doubt my kids would be spending any more time outside then they do now. Society has changed as a whole, it's not just one element that has caused it to be.
You know, this has got to be said, but for most of the human history, "kids" just stopped being kids at various ages between 12 and 16.
E.g., in ancient Egypt, the age of marriage was 12 for girls and 15 for boys. That's it. That was the age when you'd be supposed to be mature enough to care for your own family, not just for an iPod. Forget having your mom pack you lunch and watch you playing with dolls. At age 12 as a girl you'd be supposed to cook lunch for your husband, and raise your own real kids, not dolls.
And you can find examples where even more responsibility was bestowed upon people at such ages. Ivan The Terrible IIRC became tzar at the age of 16. (Although that's just the age when he took a new title. He was Grand Duke of Muskowy earlier.) At 16 years old Alexander The Great was left a regent, i.e., someone with the full powers of a King, as his father went abroad to war. Etc. There are plenty of generals and kings and admirals that got their power and shaped the destiny of nations even earlier than that, a lot of them as early as 12 or 13.
So basically what I'm saying is that:
1. If all that consumer electronics do is getting some people to act like adults in their teen years... GOOD! Biologically the _are_ adults, and have the brain and body of an adult. (It's not even a human-only thing. Any other species of mammal is the same: the age at which the body becomes fertile is the age when the brain and body have evolved, and the animal is perfectly capable of fending for itself and raising its own offspring.) Forcing someone to keep behaving and thinking like a kid at that age, is more detrimental than having them start acting like an adult.
2. If all the evil adult stuff there is that they get to watch TV and listen to music on an iPod... GOOD! Compared to what humans had to do in their teen years for _millions_ of years, that's still a pampered existence.
The modern aberration of artifficially forcing someone to be a kid until their 20's, is just a speck at the scale of human existence. Even looking back only 10,000 years, to the time of the first cities, a century of redefined "childhood" barely covers 1% of that time. For the other 99% of that time interval, that "kid" would be at the age where he gets to raise his own family, work in the fields, and occasionally take arms and fight for his country. Not just mock combat with toy swords, but real combat with sharp steel swords. Deadly stuff. So if all the dangers of the modern era are an iPod, a cell phone, and a Nintendo DS, heh, I don't see that much harm coming from that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I haven't had cable or broadcast TV (where I live you get about 2.5 channels without cable) in about ten years, but I've watched plenty of movies (and TV shows on DVD) at home during that time.
:)
Initially, my cable service was included in my apartment rent, then they reduced my rent (!) by $22 and unbundled the cable service. The cable company continued the service for free for at least six months, then finally shut it off after receiving no response to their exhortations and incentives. I could easily afford it, but during the cable era, I'd found that my interests were broad enough that I could usually find something marginally interesting to watch, and without TV I had a lot more time.
Fast forward ten years, and we just gave away our TV; it hadn't been turned on in months. If we want to watch video content, we use a 17" laptop or 20" widescreen LCD monitor. Between prompt DVD releases and, uh... alternative means of acquiring content, I just don't feel the need to "tune in," and I certainly don't miss advertising.
I don't plan to get another TV or cable when my son is "old enough" to watch either; I've decided that I want him to learn his culture from people I like, rather than the random jerks who've managed to stumble into the limelight.
We've all heard factoids about the number of hours of TV per day, hours of advertising per year, number of murders, etc. that the average child sees. I, for one, welcome^W don't plan to have an average child.
I spend my childhood playing with PCs, game consoles, and any gadgets I could get my hands on. I watched a fair bit of TV by geek standards, but I wasn't really raised by it like a lot of kids - and TV is no substitute for parenting.
Still, if anything most of these things only fuelled my overactive imagination. If anything prematurely ended my childhood it was going to an elementary school with a prison-like culture. The only out-of-class attention a student gets is for quick troubleshooting, anywhere unsupervised is lawless, and if something bad happens, it doesn't matter who's at fault - just grab someone nearby and give them detention because it's quicker and sets an example.
So... video games taught me to use more abstract and deep problem-solving skills than in my everyday life, and showed me a form of active entertainment more exciting than passively watching TV like a zombie. School taught me to always evaluate someone as a potential threat, never trust someone's motives, and always be armed. I'll let you decide who the more positive influence was.
This article sounds like it was written by Jack Thompson or some other crusader - they're afraid that when they look at kids today, they don't see the world when they were kids - playing with yo-yos and marbles or whatever (which I didn't exactly skip in my tech-heavy childhood either.) It's not like these evil machines are sucking their brains out. Also, this "we're diminishing their childhood!" argument is usually a knee-jerk conclusion made with only a gut feeling. I think if anything, now we're trying too hard to shelter kids and isolate them from the real world, potentially leaving them confused and inept as adults unless someone fills them in on everything they were sheltered from (and wouldn't THAT be traumatic?) As is typical, the media isn't giving kids enough credit on their own - they may be naive, but they're not stupid.
It is hard to be cute about a topic, when your own children are involved. But about 2500 years ago some greek dude said, "A Sound Mind, and A Sound Body." I speak from experience, "Get your children into some kind of sport, 3 to 4 times a week. And make certain you check your child's homework, DAILY." It 'IS' a time sink, and 'A' money pit; But it is better than the alternative. And I speak from that view point experience, also. Childhood does not have to be handled like a death march, all a parent has to do is smile, look down, and say, "Your doing it right, and doing it good. So, how does feel to be Brave?" Your child will respond in a positive manner; That you can relax to.
"your mileage may vary" - Unknown
Oh, for the old times when six year-olds went out and got their hands dirty down in the coal mines. Not to mention the fun and frivolity of joining the navy as soon as one hits fourteen. :)
I find kids are really confined these days, both physically and mentally.
Yes, there are more crazy people out and all that so the space that our kids can run around in is a lot smaller. Who doesn't remember playing street-hockey (you got me, i'm a canuck) with the neighbours, running in the undeveloped parts of the neighborhood, can't do that so much now, understandably, but you can still do things if the parents came out and kept an eye on the kids. Lots of kids play soccer, you can do the same thing with your neighbours for just about any type of activity - say street hockey - the kids pay and the adults can sit and relax on the sidelines chatting. Don't see much of that though. In a similar vein, I remember knowing everyone on my street block, not best buddies but knew who they were, and if they seemed like decent people. How many people/kids can say that now.
Now my big problem with replacing leisure activity with video games etc is that they are all very confining. Some are fairly open-ended but are still limited in the way that the game designer lets a user interact with the virtual world. When you compare games like GTA and Oblivion with the real world, they are extremely shallow. Yeah you can go everywhere and see the sights but actual interaction is very limited. You go crazy in GTA and start shooting everyone the only thing that starts happening is that progressively more powerful force tries to subdue you (police, swat, fbi, army) but you don't ever see a child running to the mother you just shot with an rpg, you don't see and hear the dying dog wailing on the side of the street, you don't vigilante stalkers or not-plaing-by-the-rules-cops coming after you etc. Yes those are extreme examples, and I don't ever want to see the first two examples in GTA ever, but things like this on a smaller scale can be seen in the real life all the time, and it lets children extrapolate things to much larger events. This is limiting the scope of interaction that a child experiences, the world is billions shades of gray, video games are at best 4-bit colour, tv generally much worse. There are lots of positives in video games too, but as always everything in moderation.
Even Lego is getting very limited. I remember Lego just being only the square bricks, none of this put 5 pieces together and you have a star wars racer. I remember building lots of stuff that looked like nothing what it was supposed to, and didn't make any real sense, but it was fun and let me experiment (kept build a uss enterprise on an 8 wheel off road independent suspension system for the longest time, so I could drive it all over my room without getting stuck on other Lego bricks etc) Whatever happened to their Technics (maybe with an x) line, I loved the little air pump pneumatics ones.
What happened? I'm only 27.
They aren't patients. They don't have a disease. They made a choice and should have to endure the payoffs and consequences just like the rest of us. That's not to say that I wouldn't help someone who really wanted out, but we should all be held accountable for any burden we place on society.
Obviously everyone born since the 70s are in danger of becoming completely débile http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/debile.htm .
The world as it is today promotes this sitution.
What can we do, the most important thing is that commerce thrives and makes us all Happy.
Just because drugs are prevalent doesn't necessarily mean its a good way to raise your children.
Read Epikuros and find that the solution is to conquering your suffering, not pampering your lusts.
I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat eating Jellybeans, watching the whole caboodle go down the drain, in say 2050. Hell, I'll be 80 by then so I won't have much of a future anyway.
Now where are those damn contraceptives when you need'em?
.... "Is it a bad thing?"
Let's face it, the world is changing. Having our kids grow up like they used to fifty years ago might be a heartwarming prospect, but it might also be hamstringing them, considering people who grew up fifty years ago are, largely, having troubles adapting.
So.... is it bad that they're changing?
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
If anything, childhood is changing due to many different factors.
Lazy parents are one big factor, but hopefully the media will realize it's capability to push the responsibility of parenting back onto the parents. Technology is always used for it's devious capabilities before it is used for it's positive influences. Some good television programming could begin to make parents feel more responsible for their kids. Try something like having a show on how raising kids in front of the TV makes them fat. Show what gorging on junk food does to people. It just takes money.
Technology is becoming smaller and cheaper. Convergence devices have an aesthetic that kids like. Just one device to do whatever they want. Just wait until a smartphone can be a PSP as well (or the PSP becomes a smartphone, whichever comes first).
Technology impacts children as they are not afraid of it. They post their lives to MySpace and don't bother filtering things. The biggest change to childhood that we don't understand yet is how our youth are expressing their independance and individuality by broadcasting it around the world. Give these youth five years to realize what they've done, and then they will be pulling for major changes in the way they are governed. Children aren't stupid, but people seem to think they are.
People like to be connected. Our children are now connected in ways that we weren't. It is up to us to figure out how to raise our children who are no longer ignorant of the world. They've long since lost their ignorance. Now we just need adults to realize this and start being involved, instead of legislating.
Neutiquam erro
I don't think there's an easy answer to this. I think you have to actually understand what you do and how it looks to your children, which unfortunately requires you to think about how other people view your behavior... and a lot of people just seem incapable of that.
I think what you're mentioning here (perhaps accidentally) describes a little theory I've developed. For a long time now teachers and parents have been pounding the "you're special" and "just be yourself" messages into kids until they've developed this "I don't care what anyone else thinks, I'm me and I'm pursuing happiness" attitude. We celebrate attitudes like that in adults, too. I think this is a perversion of an idea that was supposed to make you always comfortable enough to do the right thing, regardless of outcome, into an idea that you don't owe anyone anything and anyone who expects anything of you (most of all sacrifice) is trying to prevent you from "being you".
I think we owe everyone arounds us something. I owe it to my neighbors to take my garbage out, keep my music down to a sane level and return their dog if I see him running down the street. I owe it to my parents to come help move furniture when they call. When I have kids, I'll owe it to them to make sure they get what they need, when they need it. In turn, each one of these people has certain responsibilities.
In an effort to bolster childrens sense of self-worth by ridding them of shame or guilt, we've thrown out responsibility with the bath water. I think we SHOULD care about what people think of us, and might have to start teaching kids that.
Just a thought I had.
Actually, it did.
It's not widely known, but when prohibition was enacted the number and severity of household violence went down- way down, and when prohibition was repealed, household violence went back up. You know, wife beating, kid slapping, etc.
Then news doesn't report that kind of stuff. They report the gangster wars and other fantastic newspaper-selling drama.
I get disgusted when people talk about legalizing drugs as if that would make the problem go away. Really? Do you honestly think that as many people would smoke if cigarettes were illegal?
For those people who think that "recreational drugs" should be legal, you've probably never seen the true face of addiction and how it can ruin lives. I have. I know people who've died from lung cancer because they couldn't stop smoking. All while the tobacco companies silently and secretly increase the niccotine content- and addictiveness of cigarettes.
Sure, I'm a republican. At least I used to be, before they shot off the scale and left me in the middle. I believe in free-market forces. But think about this- Abraham Lincoln's quote: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
With six billion people on the planet, the Internet and cheap transportation, you can make a damn good living fooling some of the people some of the time. Case in point: Phishing and spam.
We need governments and laws to help prevent the little guys from being trampled and turned into a virtual serfdom society "owned" by the corporations. That's why we have laws requiring drugs to be prescribed by licensed doctors. Even then, abuse is rampant, and all too many doctors are happy to make money off the elderly and less intellectually gifted people by prescribing things and ordering procedures that they don't need. Why is niccotine- one of the most addictive substances on the planet- not a controlled substance? Because the government makes too much money off the taxes, and the economies of several states depend on it, and it's our biggest export. It's a death and disease inducing corruption that should not be allowed to continue.
Legalize other drugs like crack and pot, and you're just giving the governemnt and big corporations free reign to virtually enslave the population of lesser intellects, take whatever money those serfs manage to earn, and keep the school system inferior to produce still more slaves.
I seriously doubt that modern societies culture of movies & games are destroying childhood for our kids, and rather believe it is causing the death of adulthood. No matter how bad kids want to copy adult fashion, play the latest game or watch the latest movie. Thats what kids have done since the dawn of time: They copy adults and play games and listen to stories. Heck, I doubt there are many people who can say they became adults from playing games and watching movies. They are learning at an accelerated pace compared to adults, and as such tend to go through material a lot faster and have a greater need for stimulation.
100 Years ago kids were expected to help with the parents work, and it wasn't uncommon for a teenager to have to take care of his whole family do to death of parents etc... It's only in the past century that we have had the luxury to try and give our children as care free a childhood as possible. On the other hand, as our society progresses, you have more and more adults spending more and more time and money on leisure activies. Some studies have shown that, especialy in fields where constant learning and updating is a must, that the usual maturing and stabilizing of the mind in adulthood is being slowed or delayed to allow for more mental flexibility and quicker learning. So I seriously doubt that our media centered society is robing our children of thier childhood.
I have to wonder... with playgrounds shrinking, becoming safer, more padded, and less featured, with recess periods where kids literally stay indoors in a long, plain room and run back and forth for exercise, where anything potentially dangerous from firecrackers to sparklers to cap guns to water guns get banned... in a world where we don't let kids leave our sight or even try anything potentially dangerous... ...if we don't let them play video games, then exactly WTF can they do? I mean, most forms of play that were popular when any of us were growing up are considered "too dangerous" now, are we supposed to just put the kids into a safe, quiet, triple-armor-plated sensory deprivation tank until they hit 18, then dump them out and say "ok... go find a job and start working for a living!"
I think we've spent enough time as a society worrying about what we should keep our kids from doing. Guidelines are great for those who need them, but if anything is in danger these days, I'd say it's common-sense parenting.
Huzzah! Carlin's rants should be a mandatory semester course in High School, College, AND in planned parenting!
Seeing I have an entire room of the house converted into a library and I read at over 4k WPM (well, I used to, I've slowed down with middle age) I think I'm down with the whole "expose your child to reading" thing.
/Jhereg/ series this year; so he's not a total loss...
I *did* actually get my son to read the
Clear, Dark Skies
"I dunno honey, what's a tounge? Do you mean tongue? Keep your tongue outa there."
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
This has been happening for a while, as a matter of fact. Our ancestors most certainly rued the day when bows replaced the REAL experience of a spear. And, in fact, the spear itself is an evil influence on child, as they lose the experience of hand-to-hand fights.
Kids need to live in the real world? What, exactly, is the real world THIS guy lived in? Did he help in the farm? Did he hunt? Or, perhaps, were his experiences adjusted to his day and age?
Yeah, go ahead, take the kids away from the computer, the console, the Nintendo DS. Take away their cell phone, their mp3 player. Is not as if you need to operate gadgets like these in one's adult life today, nor is it any important to be familiar with them, able to learn and adapt to new gadgets.
Let them play ball on the streets. After all, if you REALLY want to get ahead in life, you'd better be a sports star. Or, of course, have a hit rock band, but that would require intimacy with all sort of sound equipments, many of them digital, as a matter of fact.
Really, this is all very tiring. It just doesn't seem to occur to people that their children WILL GROW UP IN A DIFFERENT WAY.
So, you, who happens to be reading this, and have stayed with me so far... do me a favor, would you? Would you PLEASE remember that your children will not grow up like you did, *the same way you did not grow up as your parents*? I'm sorry if you think driving a car is a rite of manhood, but the matter of fact is that they'll just teleport themselves to were they want to be, OR be there virtually. Deal with it, and don't bother the rest of us.
(8-DCS)
I don't agree with the notion that children are "becoming adults too fast". That is a claim that has been made every year that I can remember and was pinned on everything from teh interweb to TV, Rap, and even D&D. If we really want to talk about the rate at which kids mature we might keep in mind that for much of our recent history children were basically small farmhands and were expected to work full days in the fields as soon as they could stand. We forget that our own child labor laws make special exemptions for family farms. Such kids are also quite aware othings like where baby ducks come from, things that are supposedly too "adult" for most minds.
With respect to the sedentary nature of play I think that is an issue. In my experience an increaisng proportion of children are sitting more than before and aren't excercizing enough or exploring the outside world enough. Some of this I think can be chalked up to video games and movie entertainment. A lot of it can be ckaled up to increasing (sub)urbanization which puts families out in areas with a lot of houses and not much else, places where kids have nowhere to go until they can drive and are probably banned from going out after that. A lot of it also can be placed on parenting and culture. I've noticed an increasing number of parents and towns imposing greater restrictions on teens for fear of "gang violence" or "teh pot". One town I used to live in happily banned teens from being out after dark and even being in large numbers at any non-church event. When confronted with the fact that this left teens with nothing to do but sit at home the City Council said "good".
In my experience exploration especially physical activity is an essential part of ones mental development, and the maintentance of physical health is intimately tied with one's mental health. I feel that too many people ignore that and are apt to raise unhappy couch potatos.
... so it IS the same old complaint, then?
1. The same things could be said and _have_ been said before.
E.g., a Pope actually considered the crossbow to be such a devastating new weapon that he forbade, upon penalty of excommunication, the use against fellow christians. I'm sure someone somewhere was feverishly praying that people have the mental agility and cultural perspective to not use such a destructive new weapon wrong.
E.g., someone thought that the Armageddon is nigh if the good Christians don't appease God by freeing His tomb from the infidels' occupation. It proved quite a popular idea too, as the exodus of people to join the first Crusade showed. I'm sure a lot of people prayed that others have the wisdom and cultural perspective to do the right thing there... i.e., take arms and prevent the end of the world at the hands of a pissed-off God.
Sometimes they were even right too. The consequences, for example, of greed to get the wares out of a ship before the quarantine ended, has caused a Black Death outbreak in Marseille that wiped out some 75% of the city and the whole county it was in. So, yeah, consequences for bad judgment could be dire in old times too.
Humanity has somehow survived anyway.
2. Again, the "connecting the dots" has been before, at least for the last 3000 years. Probably longer, but that's how long we have written records about it. Someone felt the dots connecting when starting from all sorts of other stuff. E.g., there's been quite some heavy-duty dot-connecting that caused the aforementioned Crusades. Don't take it as an insult. Connecting dots is, after all, a human trait and one of the big advantage the species has. But then again, in this particular domain it's invariably been wrong before, so I'm still not too concerned.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I believe it's up to the parents to handle this. My wife and I love real toys: there's a wooden train, normal playing cars, blocks, stuffed animals... For now, that's easy (our son is only 2+ years old). It'll get harder, but we don't plan on putting him in front of a computer (or is it behind?) for a long time. Especially not as primary toy/entertainment. A Bob the Builder dvd every now and then is more than enough. He enjoys running around with his cars and other toys plenty.
Here's the secret to immortality:
Actually, the message you want to give to kids is that it's good to grow up, become independent, and be able to purchase the things you want. As parents, we're responsible for giving kids what they need, which means a safe environment, educational opportunities, and, of course, love and attention.
I think it all boils down to crappy parenting.
I will let my kids play the Nintendo Wii, it'll help them create hand eye coordination, and depending on the game maybe a work out along they way. Also Legos are a staple toy that all kids should play with. It creates imagination as they stray from the original designs the company packages in with the pieces.
I don't plan to give them every toy they ask for either. This just makes them think they can have anything they want. It's sad how you almost have to watch your kids every minute they're outside of the house. I remember when I was a kid I'd bike to my friend's house almost daily and then we'd bike around town to the park and play there, or sit around and play Nintendo or Legos.
Now-a-days people tend to shun letting your kids play around like that because someone might kidnap them. Because of this and lazy parents who know they can buy their kids off get them toys like cell phones, ipods, and new games or movies to play with and just let the kids entertain themselves. The idea of family is going away. I plan to spend time with my kinds and when I'm not at least I'll give them something better than a random television program to entertain their minds.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
They did make good choices but luck does come into. Now there little girl is in school my sister chooses to work part time. She works at my office helping with shipping. She has extremely flexible hours. However her husband could get hurt, loose his job, or get killed. The best of choices can be but to the test by a little bad luck. Not everyone is blessed with the good fortune that my sister has had.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
In the middle ages, and yet today in many cultures around the world, a male was/is considered an adult when he's around 13-years old, while a female was usually thought about as an adult somewhat earlier, around 12 or 11 years old. Even in USA's XIX century, a boy was considered just a small man, and taught to behave as an actual one from a very early age, having to use small but adult-looking clothes from as soon as 5-years old. Also, families took their children to watch criminals being hanged, or to learn the proper way to kill a cow, as a way to teach them what life was like. Were you to tell someone at the time that nowadays we would think of a 17.9-years old as a "minor" and he would laugh at you on such nonsense.
The contemporaneous problem isn't that childhood is diminishing. Quite the opposite. We're now watching the phenomenon of "adultescence", where people stay acting and thinking as teens way after their 20th anniversary, sometimes even into their 30th's. For me this seems a necessary consequence of making 14 through 17-year olds to "be childrens", not the adults they should naturally be. The more we make this distortion reproduce itself, the more its effects will expand into later ages. After all, haven't some politicians tried enacting laws prohibiting things to people below 25-years of age? It's just a matter of time until they succeed.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Kids have a genuine need for real toys and mud and water and sand to play with. If all they ever interact with is a computer, not only will they be more likely to become overweight, they won't have a single learned concept in physics.
I believe that the article that davecor66 is referring to is "Failing to teach them how to handle real life". If you haven't read it, then read it now!
If I ever have kids, I'm kicking them outside the minute that they discover out the existence of computer games.
I predict most people saying 'no' are under 22 years of age and live in urban areas.
Most people saying 'yes' are near or over 30 and spent their childhood in a rural area with woods, creeks, rivers, lakes etc (Little House on the Prarie/Bonanza type stuff).
I base this on absolutely nothing.
Even though I don't even live in America I have dreams of someday (having kids and then) taking my kids on Summer Vacation cross country road trips in the US then Canada then Europe. Seeking out the most 'middle of nowhere'/wilderness location I can find where they better interact with people & the environment if they wanna have any hope of enjoying the trip.
Yes, it's a difficult issue -- do you move to the suburbs so your kids can play outside more freely, but you commute for two hours wasting gas (and time you can spend with your kids), contributing to exurban spawl and living somewhere that should be arable cropland or open space?
City-dwellers always seem to be mentally trapped in this false dichotomy of either "live in the big city" or "live in the suburbs and commute to the big city", with an offhand notion in the back of their heads of "unless you want to live out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with no running water much less broadband internet".
What is excluded here, that makes this a false dichotomy, is the people who live in small towns and medium-sized cities which are NOT huge urban jungles, nor are they satellite sprawls around them. Rather they are self-sufficient towns and cities big enough that you can live and work around the same place (a 10-20 minute drive), but not so incredibly dense that you can't let your children run free in the front yard or even, heaven forbid, your neighbor's yards, where their friends live.
For reference and to give you an idea what I'm talking about, I grew up in Ojai, CA (small town, maybe a little too small but good for raising a family), and now live in Santa Barbara, CA (a medium-sized city with an abundance of colleges), though I hope to move back to Ojai when I'm done with school. Most of the cities in California that I've seen seem to be in that range, besides the obvious huge ones (Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc), and there's an hour or two (by freeway) of open countryside and farmland dotted by smaller towns between each of the medium-sized ones. Maybe it's different elsewhere, but out here we're not limited to just "big city" or "suburbs".
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Are you tripping because you mum didn't buy cheap wine so you could stuff your face with cookies?
dvds and video games are so attractive - at a very primal level, the motion, the lights, the adrenaline are compelling. It's the same rush you get in sports, but without the physical effort.
For someone of my generation - whose mental habits were formed before video tapes and video games, the harm is limited. But when a child is exposed to them it is much harder for that child to form the same mental disciplines.
Still, it's hard to prove causation. My kids are clearly learning less at their schools than I did in mine; but is that the teaching or the video games or just the rose-colored lenses of memory?
Clear, Dark Skies
Yes.
Up until the middle part of the last century, childhood for the poor, unwashed masses consisted of helping out on the farm and then, in Victorian times, hunching over dangerous machinery in dark factories with little to eat and even less education. Basically, childhood was hell, and certainly not something that we would want to call a childhood today.
However I do believe that the current situation is indeed preventing society from leveraging the opportunity for greater leisure time afforded by greater overall affluence and healthcare in society, by squandering our childrens' time on mind-numbing electronic entertainments, which deprive them of opportunities for proper social interaction. Many kids today that I have the opportunity to interact with are only interested in what electronics I have. Once they get ahold of the computer, I know I'll never get them away and I will be basically ignored.
It does take concious parenting to control this, and it needs to be controlled from the earliest age, but sometimes it's too easy for a parent to turn to electonics as robotic babysitters. This has been going on since the invention of television, but now with so many choices of computerised mental engagement it's become epidemic.
Cheers
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
But back then, in the '40's, molesters didn't often make it to court, so there was less of it I believe. The childs father saw to that, and more than likely it was judged self-defense or justifiable.
Now, the law does little or nothing except prosecute that rightious parent.
I would suspect that the situation back then was the same as it is now: a child is far more likely to be molested by a parent (or close relative) than by a stranger. You saw less of it because back then there was more of a tendency for children to not speak up (because they weren't educated about such things as they are now) or for people to look the other way.
There's also some very bad things to come of this. One of my father's friends was accused of molesting a young girl about 12 years old (at the time I was around 8 or 9, but I still remember the situation). The girl's father stopped this man on a dirt road with a hunting rifle and made him get out the truck, at which point he told him to run and proceeded to fatally shoot him in the back after he made it 50-60 yards. A week later the girl admitted to making the whole thing up. Apparently he had yelled at her for messing with something in his yard and she wanted to get back at him. You can be damn sure that "rightious parent" went straight to jail.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I'm a father of a 3.5 year old girl who does occasionally get to watch TV or even play video games. But the majority of play time for her is to be used playing with toys, indoors or outdoors. Almost all her toys are traditional sort with no batteries or electronics (about 4 battery-powered toys that I can think of). She gets read to regularly and is now "reading" on her own (more like making up stories as she looks at the books). We encourage that sort of play heartily.
I feel many parents take the easy way out and do allow their kids to spend a lot of time watching TV or playing video games. Often my daughter wants me to play with her and will not always be in the mood to play on her own. She's not old enough to play outside without a ward, and the neighbor children aren't always available for playing. So sometimes she does get to watch some TV while I work on our bills or do some other mundane task requiring my full attention. However, even then she's restricted to specific shows (Tivo KidZone) such as Sesame Street or The Wiggles. For parents who don't have the time or patience to spend a lot of time with their kids and seek out alternative play options, the TV is a guaranteed way to distract a child.
Frankly, I don't think it's so much that kids can be developmentally damaged by spending too much time watching TV and playing video games. It's that their parents don't pay them enough attention, or simply don't interact with them enough.
In the darkness of future past, The magician longs to see. One chants between two worlds, "Fire, walk with me!"
I must say that technology is essential. I read these comments about parents raising their kids on rather dry servings - no TV, no games, limited computer access? You must think of the QUALITY of the TV, Games, and Web access you want to give them, not the quantity as much. On the web I'll partake in Forums, slashdot, BBC, Wikipedia, one gaming site, and CNN. Hell, I can spend several hours just reading every last reply in Slashdot, or spidering through related articles, etc. etc. However, I come out the better for it - a wide variety of views on a wide variety of rather important current events. Same with Wiki - I'll just surf through articles for kicks. The web is a great source of cultural exchange if used wisely - forums and IM lets you talk with people half way around the world (Though, of course, we use it for our friends a couple blocks away too!). Contrary to popular belief, TV is very entertaining and useful without some bloody idiotic "children's package" or somesuch. History Channel is full of interesting shows (Actually, part of a day was spent between my father and myself watching history channels whilst exchanging factoids about whatever given topic was being focused on). As stated before, CNN, BBC, etc. all make for good watches some of the time. Of course, I indulge as well, in Sci Fi channel mostly, why? Because it's fun, and it doesn't focus wholly on violence. (Though, it is still an important aspect in some shows) I play a lot of different video games, but I don't feel the worse for it. My initial reading and writing ability started out before I entered school - I played Text Adventures and old Graphic Adventures (The ones where you still typed the commands). Even though these were getting somewhat old by the time I started, i found them immensely fun. And, since I didn't go to walkthroughs whenever I was stuck, I commited immense amounts of brainpower to solving some puzzle. Most of the newer games (which i play too) lack this quality. However, even a FPS shooter can be converted into a thinking excercise if you don't just run and gun. Of course, more noteworthy examples would be the like of HoMMV or CivV, where you have a lot of management and logistics to worry about. In comparison to school, I think this have served me better for many things - excluding certain things such as writing good essays (Not grammatically, but formwise, etc. etc.) School possibly has been a waste of time for 3 or 4 periods of each day. HOpefully, college will prove better.
Child molestation and kidnappings have gone down, and are happening now at a lower incidence than in the past. It is just reported more now -- for the ratings. And it's working.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The child "needs" the cookies about as much as the parent "needs" the wine.
There's often a question of how a child's life might be ruined when their childhood is taken away.
While I doubt I will ever have children, having been around my sister's children for most of my life I've given thought to raising children of my own.
I believe that children should be allowed to have a childhood. A period of time when they don't have to worry about the stresses one faces as an adult or even simply as a teen.
With the demands of more advanced disciplines required to earn a good living, it seems to me that children must leave childhood behind earlier and earlier in order to put all their effort into learning and school.
As a teen I realised when I began to enjoy reading novels that I'd missed out. I'd been asleep for my entire childhood. I felt that it was lost years.
If electronic devices are a way to experience more ideas and cultures and if this is really what brings us out of the "sleep" we are often in as children, then I suppose it is indeed causing the "death of childhood"
Is it a bad thing? I don't know. In my own experience though, I can't help but think that a headstart on other people might be a good thing.
At some point, things need to be reduced and removed to make room. What screws that up is the general inability of most people to make real sacrifices... it's one thing to say you put your child first, but it's quite another to actually do it when you're down to your last few dollars. Even though this level of desperation is rarely an issue for most parents, there are innumerable little ways that parents deprive their children in ways mom and dad might not even notice: you can't afford the $4 bag of cookies your child wants, but you buy an $18 bottle of wine later in the same trip. Could you have perhaps gotten a $12 bottle of wine instead, and used the savings to buy cookies? Of course. The child sees and understands this, even if you don't, and by adolescence there's a massive buildup of frustration from it.
You obviously don't have kids. My girl is in girl scouts. I have to buy about $100+ of cookies when that happens. For school they are selling cookie dough, we spent $98 on that. My boy is starting boy scouts and will be selling popcorn. I have less than $3 in checking and $0 in my pocket for lunch till I get paid. I'm thrilled when I can spend $50 on an item, much less $250+. I'm just thankful the kids also want a Wii otherwise I wouldn't be getting one. I know that I'm not the best parent, but at least I can play video games with my kids. I spend more time playing video games with my kids and being around them than my dad spent around me.
And lets not forget the people who wrote this letter are having their financial well being threatened by the very thing they are complaining about...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Its entirely possible about the child keeping quiet. And straight to jail for the father sent the girl a message, but I'm not sure what the message was. Could have been a demo on seeing how easy it was to get somebody you don't like killed.
OTOH, the weapon of choice that I heard about on a couple of occasions was a handy piece of firewood. Basicly used as an attention getter. It usually worked fairly well.
--
Cheers, Gene
If the current crop of 18-24 year-olds that have grown up with entertaining themselves with interactive electronic devices is an accurate indicator for the future, the desire for social interaction has not been extinguished, as social networking sites are both among the most popular sites on the Internet for this demographic and these sites comprise the primary use of modern computing technology for this group.
WTF, another yahoo that wants to treat perfectly normal growth behaviour with a cocktail of pharmecuticals, coming equipped with a referrer link to profit from his comment. Certain drugs can treat shyness indeed. So does liquor, you want to dose up a child with 40-proof? Die in a fucking fire, please.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
It's not the childs fault. It's the parents that let their children sit for hours on end playing video games. I'm of the Atari 2600 generation and my parents used to get my fat lazy ass up and off the floor to go play outside at least 1/2 the day. The other 1/2 I was allowed to veg out in front of the mind numbing screen.
Hear hear!
"Why bother fixing social ills when those of us who truly count can just sit in gated communities playing video games and watching piped-in cable tv about how horrible it is outside their little beige world? Poverty? Drugs? Bad public schools? Fuck that, not with my taxes; I need lower taxes so I can buy gas for my 6000 pound SUV!"
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Could have been a demo on seeing how easy it was to get somebody you don't like killed.
That's my point though. If he had been given a fair trial, the truth would have likely came out. Lying children often break down when questioned by a lawyer. Instead an idiot decided to take the law into his own hands and an innocent man died because of it. That was my whole point about the molester's "not making it to trial". If they've never made it to trial, then you don't know if they really did anything or not. Vigilantism is never a good thing (lookup the Rosewood Massacre for a prime example).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Right! I had to get up in the morning, at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill and pay millowner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our dad would kill us and dance about on our graves, singing Hallelujah!
When I visited Europe a few years ago I was struck by how many Europeans treated raising and parenting the younger generation as a group activity. I saw grown-up strangers correct the behavior of children in public places and the children respected this correction.
This form of communal parenting is not even close to acceptable in the United States. For over two years I've been walking my dog, twice a day, in some fields next to my house. A neighbor of mine has sent her young grandchildren to play in that same area (after I cleaned up all the broken glass). That neighbor wanted me to stop walking there now that her grandkids play there because I am a "stranger". When it was clear I wasn't going to stop walking my dog, she forbid her grandkids from speaking to me.
I talked with the grandmother and even gave her my card so she would know my name, address, and phone number in case, god forbid, something happened to her grandkids and she was worried I was somehow involved. My intent was not to convince her I was not a pederast ("I am not a liar") but to ease some of her fears since I sure wasn't going to stop walking my dog just for her.
I much prefer not being bothered with interacting with those kids when I'm out walking but I'm struck by the extremely different attitudes toward raising children I've seen in Europe and America.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Hear hear!
All of you blowhards spouting off about "shoot 'em, who needs crack heads anyways?" should go rent the DVD of City of God. It's about these exact same problems in Brazil, in the worst cocaine-fueled gun-filled neighborhoods. But don't bother watching the movie (well, okay, it's a good movie, but it's just entertainment). Instead, watch the documentary under the extras menu. I know, I know, all those subtitles are just such a burden, pause it and you can keep up.
They interview and tell the stories of a street cop, various kids/drug dealers (of which there are an infinite amount), and the chief of police for the city. He plainly states that after his years of watching this problem from both the street side and the political side, the whole reason drugs are illegal is to keep the poor under control. No other reason at all.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
This is a very difficult subject for me.
I started playing video games before I was a year old, and have been using computers since I learned how to read at age 3. It was rare that I would rather go outside than read, play video games, or do whatever on the computer. I felt that going outside to play was a waste of time that could better be spent learning from books and the internet, or honing my video game or computer skills; because I knew it was possible that I'd maybe someday get a job as a writer or in the computer or video game industry, but highly doutfull I'd ever get a job as a professional sport player, swingset tester, etc. If my parents had forced me to go outside and play, it would have just made me resent going outside.
I will support my child in whatever he/she enjoys doing. If my child likes going outside and playing, I will support that. However, if my child likes playing video games, I want to raise a child that I'll be proud to have join my clans/guilds in 5 or 6 years; and It's going to be pretty hard for me to encourage my child to go outside and play when I can relate to not wanting to go outside, and when deep down I feel that his/her time could be better spent honing his/her video game or computer skills if that's what they want to do in life.
It's true! Damn you, Microsoft!
I had a miserable childhood, and were it not for electronics, and more specifically the internet I don't know how I could have survived this long. It provided an escapist outlet for me, and a way to interact with people on my intellectual level, that I couldn't find out in the real world. It allowed me to become a functioning member of society, that I don't think I could have become otherwise.
And there's another problem...
[cue music] When I was a kid, you went to the playground and there were just kids there. If you got a splinter (remember playgrounds made of wood and not plastic?) you either pulled it out or ran home crying. If you ran home crying, the other kids would tease you when you came back.
If you were a little ass, some other kid would make you eat dirt. You learnt not to be an ass. If you played a game and disputed the rules, you either negotiated, capitulated, or ran home crying.
In other words, I think I learnt a lot of lessons on the playground. I wonder how many today's kids learn when mommy or daddy is sitting right there, ready to solve all their problems for them.
Children aren't growing faster. They are only absorving more information. Why? Because there is more information avaliable. The world is much more complex now than it used to be, and children are adapting to that complexity. Of course they think about sex earlier, because they discover it earlier. What's the problem?
Do you think the next generation will suffer from lack of physical activity? Look at the growth of academies! Never the youngs were so concerned about their health.
Isolation? Only because some people can't see the internet as a medium of comunication. Children are conected to the world, exchanging ideas with others, faster than ever. Now it's always possible to find a group of like-minded individuals (no matter where you are or what you think, you can always find a group to share your ideas).
Lack of imagination? Are you kidding? Computers are the most efficient device (till now) in developing the imagination. Children imagination have gone beyond pictures, now they are creating concepts. In a superficial analises it looks like they are less imaginative because they don't waste time drawing pictures, they expend their time composing pictures.
All in all, the next generation is about efficiency. A more efficient childhood. A lost? Not at all. That's called evolution.
I *live* in one of those stupid suburban towns. Worse yet, Delmar (my town, duh) orbits the city of Albany, which itself has no reason for existence beyond its function as state capital. The kids seem to have nothing to do besides drink, fuck, and exclude other kids from the aforementioned activities. I really miss my old suburb, which at least had sidewalks everywhere and a movie theater.
This is complete nonsense. If anything i'd argue that the education system deprives children of their childhood. Being forced to make life changing decisions at 14 and 16 ensures that childhood stops at 13.
"No, no, no, don't tug on that! You never know what it might be attached to."
Because a better place to live costs more than a lot of people can afford just for the down payment.
Childhood is extended in pleasure and liesure and abbreviated in responsibility, innocence, and whole-person growth.
The details:
Childhood is extended in liesure due to the need for most to complete umpteen years of schooling.
Childhood is abberviated in responsibility due to the Industrial Revolution.
Childhood is extended in pleasure and abberviated in innocence and due to the pill, post-1990 MTV, and easy access to pornography.
Childhood is abbreviated in whole-person growth due to videogames, sprawl, the Internet, and 500 channels of TV.
...I better go turn the TV off and take my son outside.
...exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past.
The very, very recent past, perhaps, but really it wasn't so long ago that seeing real life violence and death (and probably sex) was a common occurance. It wasn't SO long ago that 12 was considered an adult. I'm not saying that that was necessarily a good thing, but rather that a) Children are by no means growing up faster* and b) Even if they were, that's only a "bad thing" when compared to the values of our immediate ancestors.
Children (and humans in general) have an amazing capacity to adapt their level of normalcy. By that, I don't mean that they accept violence as OKAY, but rather they accept the fact that it exists in the world and learn to cope appropriately. It's only the children (and people) who are sheltered from the harsh realities of life who grow up with poor coping mechanisms and have trouble dealing with things. (The Flanders' kids are an exaggerated, but humorously accurate example.) Children in disfunctional/abusive families are far more likely to be a danger to themselves and others as they grow up.
That's all just my personal observation, of course, and I still cringe when my kids see something distasteful on TV, but I grew up in a very sheltered environment, and I can honestly say it did little for me. I was a step behind everyone else throughout most of my adolescence as far as my knowledge of, acceptance of, and skills to deal with the real world. It's natural to want to protect children, but it's equally important, and entirely possible, to expose them to the world at the same time. Furthermore, it's not "always better" to err on the side of caution; sometimes kids need to learn things the hard way. It may not be the most pleasant method of learning, but it's by far the most effective. I'm not advocating that people let their kids play in traffic (although if they're so inclined, then it might not be such a bad idea), but just like everything else, you have to find a balance between security and safety. I think that's something that our country in particular has a huge problem doing.
* If anything society (in the US at least) is constantly trying to extend the length of "childhood." Drinking ages are almost universally 21 throughout the US (with a few exceptions), and there's a huge push to raise the driving age as well. Meanwhile minors are consistantly tried as adults, which sends a very mixed message: You have all of the responsibility of an adult, but none of the privelages.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
"...and establishing a habit of exercise in a child ..."
I wonder if the Wii has a controller setting for "corpulent adolescent?"
Imagine the Star Wars Kid actually playing a game while he twitched and spun like an epileptic chipmunk.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
it seems to me that a lot of them relate to specific social conditions causing / allowing our kids to become something less than what we expect. Maybe this is true in some societies (USA, I'm pointing at you.... but not exclusively). I have two extremely active teenagers, one a state basketball player, plays 4 times a week, the other into jazz dancing at least three times a week. Both are fit, intelligent, and have an active social life. They also play computer games, and have since they were very young. It's a matter of balance. Oh, and living in a relatively "safe" society, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. That's all, it's simple.
I'm in to sadism, bestiality and necrophilia. Am I flogging a dead horse?
Mr. Pullman --
Although I have some sympathy for your sentiments expressed in the letter, I am more alarmed at the content and agenda espoused by your own writings, targeted at children.
The "His Dark Materials" trilogy (which I have read), is dark, shallow and agressive agenda fiction. In your own words, you hoped to create an atheist alternative to the "Chronicles of Narnia", which you have several personal issues with.
Regardless of ideology, you are neither the author nor scholar that Lewis is. While an Adults (and Christian children) may see religious themes in the works of Lewis, the Narnia books work on the level of children's fiction, with no direct allusions to Christ, God, or organized religion of any kind.
On the other hand, your ham-fisted works give us the following:
1. A god who is evil
2. That god is the god of human organized religion
3. Children whose mission it is to "kill god"
4. Priests and other representatives of this religion (Anglican, it seems) torture and kill children by removing part of their souls.
You talk about children growing up too fast. I believe that your books force issues on children that they are not prepared to deal with, by presenting them with a morality play slanted heavily in your own political/ideological agenda.
It is one thing for adults to discuss these things intelligently, it is another to hide your propaganda in thinly veiled hate-creeds posing as children's fiction.
I am not for censorship. I do not argue with anyone's right to believe what they want. I just argue that anyone who deals with children as a target audience has an obligation to deal with them on an intellectually honest level, and not stuff propaganda down their throats.
My best example is one you are familiar with, in that C.S. Lewis approached his fantasy and adult writings differently. Christian children do not like being preached at when they want to be entertained. I assume Atheist children don't either.
This is typical luddite crap. Just because his brain is too slow to cope with the modern age doesn't mean kids can't. And then he calls upon the GOVERNMENT to do something, oh noes, think of the children! Damn British socialism...
While I don't totally disagree with the sentiments in the letter, there are more important contributors to the "death of childhood". I am speaking partially from personal experience here.
Some facts about the United States:
* One in four children live below the poverty line. Most of these kids do not have adequate food and clothing.
* There are at least 100,000 children in need of adoptive parents.
* One million children *anually* experience their parents' divorce.
And things are not really getting much better. Poverty, unstable home life, violent neighborhoods, reductions in school lunch allowances, etc. etc. This is just in the USA. The situation in many other parts of the world can be much worse (pressing children into warfare or slavery, rape, etc.).
I can see how things like video games and the media could be harmful to children's development, but this is something that parents (even poor parents) still have a lot of control over.
The child "needs" the cookies about as much as the parent "needs" the wine.
The child's incessant whining about his need for cookies causes the parent's need for the wine to increase dramatically.
There are some interesting theories about extended childhoods I've read as well. Namely, that young people now (myself included) aren't *EVER* reaching what we would traditionally think of as "adulthood."
The author of the paper claimed that in the past, peoples thought processes and opinions and personalities would become fixed. The author went on to claim that as a byproduct of the rate of change of the world, this fixing process is not occuring in younger people.
I'd argue that in many ways this is a good thing. There are many good qualities that children have that the "real world" beats out of them as they become adults. There are also many good qualities that people learn as they become adults that children don't tend to have. If people can grow up in the good ways (learning to be responsible and considerate) without losing their "innocence" (the positive childlike qualities - curiosity, adaptability, seeing wonder and beauty in the world), then we'll have a much better crop of people.
Unfortunately it looks like we're losing a lot of the good adult qualities too, but then, people throughout history have always been irresponsible and inconsiderate when they could get away with it, so maybe the only difference now is that people can get away with it. I still hold out hope that it's at least theoretically possible to raise a child to retain the good qualities of childhood while also learning the important lessons of adulthood.
There's also an interesting parallel here to something I recall reading once, about humans being a neotenous species of ape - basically, humans are like chips who never "grow up" in many ways, even as we do grow larger and developmentally mature in other ways. Perhaps we've still been sociologically forced to grow up, life's hardships giving us psychological scars which mar the childlike innocence we're capable of, but maybe that necessity is lightening up now, and we might one day see a generation of people who can see the world through children's eyes for their entire lives.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Yes, kids understand that you have the means to purchase the cookies. They absolutely don't understand anything about budgeting. Hell, a lot of adults in America don't understand much about budgeting. Besides, who cares if kids learn that children have to do what they're told and adults get to do what they want... it's true isn't it? Giving children a sense of entitlement doesn't do them any favors later on in life.
In fact, whether you get your children cookies or not is a tangential issue (at best) to good parenting. Good parenting is not about analyzing how each minor decision is going to play out in their psyche over the next 50 years. Not only are 99.99% of parents wholly unqualified in child psychology, but every child is different and you have no way of seeing all ends. Meanwhile, while you've been obsessing over how to mold your child into the perfect human being, you're ignoring the basics: spending lots of time with your child, paying attention to them, empathizing with their desires.. basically showing that you love them. Giving your children material things is an awful substitute for love. The fact is that it's impossible to be a perfect parent, and your children will most likely grow up to have some issues. But if you genuinely cared for them then they will forgive your mistakes, and if you were cold, distant or resentful, even on a subconscious level, they will probably return the favor no matter how many bags of cookies or ponies you buy them.
I love it when rich hypocrits criticise the very source of their wealth. The minute he gets a movie deal he'll spout about how wonderful it is and he'll take the money happily. Hollywood will market it as Hollywood does, and he'll justify his work as art.
http://www.rte.ie/arts/2006/0731/kidmann.html
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
People seem to forget that this namby-pamby 'childhood' idea is only a recent invention in and of itself. Look at the Victorian era for an idea of what I mean.
How good is the public transit out of the city? A lot of these suburbs sound like they're too far away from work for somebody who uses a bicycle.
Prolonged childhood is a historically recent phenomenon, and it's far from obvious that it's a good thing. Unfortunately, it looks like that children are becoming "mini-adults" because adults are becoming ever more infantile, not the other way around. And, unfortunately, there are no signs that that trend is reversing. If anything, people are moving out, getting married, settling down, etc. later and later in life.
I think it would be a good thing if kids were forced to shoulder adult responsibilities earlier in life. In fact, the US is really unusual in how late people are considered adults. Even in Europe, the age of consent and drinking age is usually around 16, and even younger in some countries. In other parts of the world, it's even younger.
I have 3 kids - 2 of whom are old enough to watch tv. Oldest is 5, middle is 3 and they used to watch on average around 4 hours of tv a day. I was uncomfortable with how much they watched but figured I wasn't the one at home with them all day so I daren't raise it with her....
My wife however, got sick of tantrums, fights etc and decided to remove the TV. Not just turn it off - REMOVE it from the room - it now sits in our bedroom under a blanket. This was 3 weeks ago.
What happened? Nuclear war? Nope - the opposite, the kids whined off and on for a week and then forgot about it. They are both more pleasant to be around - less tantrums, use their imaginations more, play better together and have vastly improved with their reading, drawing and creative play. We're loving it - they get one movie a week as a treat and get to wach it on Friday nights with pizza. TV, DVD's etc are now viewed as a big deal and they enjoy them more.
We're sold - I don't even miss the stupid thing and I'm convinced our kids are better off for it.
(No we're not Amish)
working hard or hardly working?
...adults are more like children nowadays.
...per se. It's how it's being used, mostly without any real supervision. It's holding shiny things up to kids and letting them play with them while you go out and do whatever it is you do, not really paying attention to the hidden dangers of the shiny objects.
In this case, the shiny objects, like any tool, can be used for whatever, and without supervision, used to access that information you want to withold until they are "old enough" to understand.
And dig they will, to learn more about what they fantasize their adulthood to be.
Kind of like when I was young and read "adult" books.
No not really........ everyday I see all of the "comments" section, the flame wars, the ePenis fights. The futile attempt to make what you say mean something. Either way I know it is ridiculous but this topic at best needs to have some serious attention.
I am the father of a 4 year old son. It is tough enough trying to watch what comes out of my mouth let alone what is on tv these days. Wow I sound old (26 years old). Working in the IT field gives you a good vantage point of some of the TRUE filth on the net, buttons to click to claim that your 18. All of these rediculous attempts to shade the R rated from the lil girls and guys out there.
I worry and am a great pessimistic person at best. This topic scares me to death. Information + youth + unguided = ???? who knows I guess it all comes down to the child's mind and how they think what is right and wrong.
In an effort to bolster childrens sense of self-worth by ridding them of shame or guilt, we've thrown out responsibility with the bath water. I think we SHOULD care about what people think of us, and might have to start teaching kids that.
While you might be right it has been my general observation that people who care the most what others think of them are the least responsible. Sure they'll act busy when you're watching, and say all the right things for your sad tale, but most of the time it ends there. It's the people who live by their own moral campus rather that actually follow threw. After all, for them it's a matter of doing the right thing, not of looking good.
DDR and Big Brain Academy.
Problem solved.
But seriously, what we need to do is just stop having so many damned kids that we have to live in huge, corrupt cities where there's no backyard or open fields for the kids to explore. Suburbia exists for a reason. Small towns exist for a reason.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The only bit of wisdom that I would add is that what I've found over the years is: you need balance between two things: consuming and producing. The underlying issue with TV and many other consumer eletronics is the "consume" in them. It is important to consume in life: food, information, etc. The quality is important, too. But equally important is that we produce something. It can be a sculpture (like your older son), or a painting, or photograph, or a program. And so on. There needs to be this balance between producing and consuming. Real growth in life comes from consuming some things and then investing ourselves into producing something with passion. From that comes skill, and from skill comes products which are things that we can share with others. From that sharing comes the network of relationships that we build with people in our life.
I think today really is different from 50 years ago, and 100, and 500, and 1000 years ago for only one reason. The volume of available information has increased so tremendously that without the proper skills, we do not know how to preserve the balance of consuming and producing. A lot of parents do not have this skill because the available information threshold for children only exploded very recently, so we are in a tremendous state of flux. But I can say with some certainty, that our children will learn the necessity of this balance, and they will develop this skill for balance and pass it on to their children. Right now, we adults may wrestle with the right degree of balance between outdoor activities and playing WoW or PSP, but when our children make it through to adulthood and the working world, their immune system will be stronger than ours likely was and they will have learned to keep balance in this rapidly changing world.
For sure we can help with that. We've got the maturity to save them some growing pains and take the edge of some of the lessons, but they will learn the important lessons sure enough. The one major lesson I think is tremendously important to pass on is the importance of producing something, some creative work that comes from a passion for some topic. Some kids naturally come to that, but others get lost in the sea of consumerism.
Given the end of your post about introducing your children to the joys of creative work, you know this lesson already and will pass it on. Not everyone realizes it, though. I know a lot of parents that are adrift in a sea of time pressure. They measure their children's success by the approval of other's ("If he gets A's in class, I did a good job raising him.") How easy to relieve ourselves from personal responsibility in critically thinking about how well we have equipped our child to find happiness in the world! Such things are the fast food of parenting in the broader sense. How can we pass on lessons of balance when our own life is not balanced itself? Can't! We should be worrying less about what the effect of consumerism is on our children and more about its affect on us, so we can find balance and pass on that.
It is such a strange thing that our standard of living has consistently risen, but the amount of quality time people devote to their children's success has not increased and has probably dwindled. Such is the liberty of a modern society. The freedom to measure our success by our ability to be the greatest consumer on the block...and there we see it. Can't teach our children balance between producing and consuming when we are busy measuring our success by the ability to consume. Our media programs us to do this.
Ever see a commercial that was trying to sell you on the idea of sitting down and writing a book, or drawing a picture, or making a sculpture? Without the subtext that they want you to buy something? It's laughable isn't it? Just utterly insane in our society. We don't spend our money advertise the merits of producing. We spend our money to motivate further consumerism. We spend our m
Good questions in the main article. Depriving English children of their childhood, trying to make white caucasians fit into the Chinese line-up-by-the-thousands for morning jump n' jacks is what we have allowed to happen. Computers aren't too blame. It's us. By going overboard acceptance of everyone else's methods, and the politically correct garbage, we forgot who we were, forgot what was best for us & our children. We transferred our adult inadequacies into the children, pushing them to learn guitar with fat fingers.
5 . It is a non-political message for all to read and have new hope that we are about to all draw a second wind, get our bearings, re-establish familial priorities.
The Hell's Boomerang of the BOTH PARENTS HAVE TO WORK generation is coming home. Parents become surreal caricatures of parents the child doesn't see til it's bedtime, and even then the parents are too physically wasted & mentally drained from a dog eat dog day the children don't even rate a nighttime book reading. We are reaping what we are sowing by forgetting what we are sireing. Capitalism is killing us all, family member by family member, generation by generation. This will begin to turn around soon as we get completely off fossil fuels-powered engines that poisons us all, diminishes and degrades us to where we lose sight of what used to be our forefather's/mother's priorities. That day of Energy Freedom is a lot closer than most people know > http://www.newpath4.com/ . Here is a post I made on December 20, 2005 about Energy Freedom and what it will mean > http://www.renewamerica.us/bb/viewtopic.php?t=397
Industrial Age 2 + How-to Stop Malignant Cancers.
The concept of childhood has only been around for about 100 years. I don't really see the problem. If anything it'd be nice that hte ever increasing term of "childhood" start decreasing back to a much more reasonable level ending around 12-something rather than 20-something.
Please read H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine".
I mean the book. Not the movie.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35/35.txt
Read it all the way through. It is alarmingly relevant to this particular discussion.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Let me lay in with my experiences with gaming and how they IMPROVED my imagination and helped me see a worlds beyond the closed walls I lived in for 16 years of my life.
My mother was, and is still unfortunately mentally unstable. She became increasingly so as she grew older. She didn't have the skills or the capacity to take care of me, her two sisters and ailing mother on her side. Unable to coupe with work and what it took to take care of a child she kept me locked in my room when I wasn't required to go to school. She, on many occasions tried to take me out of school, and it was only at the behest of school officials and councilors, and my own force of will that I was able to come back and finish high school.
Being someone well under the poverty line, single with a child, with 3 other people living in the same roof, government money rained in. Every way money could be fleeced from the welfare department, family children services, my estranged father was used. Which should have been a life line. It should have paid for school, college, doctors, and necessities. But being someone in her diminished capacity she squandered the money on collectibles from her youth, a house well beyond she could afford, and new cars. The one thing she did for me is kept me occupied, and the best way to do that in the late 80's through the 90's was with gaming systems. I had every system the day of release and a large library of games. I also eventually got a computer with Internet access.
And that's what saved me. Where I come from, there's close to no jobs, no good schools, and almost no growth. The majority of people extort welfare and usually turn to drugs and theft to get by. Being manager of a Sonic's or McDonald's is a big thing around here. Outside of that the only thing you can be is a nurse at the local hospital (Phoebe is the largest private real estate owner and only truly successful business in the region, other manufactures are all shutting down or not hiring) or join the Marines. Ask anyone from here and they'll all tell you the same thing, you don't get anything out of life, you'll never leave town, and you shouldn't try. Above all, you should never try, you just waste the energy it takes to get up in the morning to go to crummy job to get by.
All of those people grew up in almost the same environment, whether it was substance abuse, or general poverty, one way or another their parents and household was broken with few exceptions. But all of those people just feed the cycle. They drop out, they smoke weed, they have kids before their 21, they work at Burger King, they hate their life.
But I didn't, and you know why. Because when Crono, Marle, and Lucca found Lavos bringing the world to an end in the future, they didn't go Well shit, life's a bitch. and went home and smoked crack. I wanted to go to school, watched the History Channel, and used the Internet to learn (and, gasp, didn't look up porn all day). Why? Because Snake knew 6 languages, had a vast knowledge of culture and history, and was a motherfucking bad ass. I wanted to be that bad ass. Anyone who wishes they could be Solid Snake should know what Manhattan means. And after I finished school I've worked non-stop to start my own business, which is about to come to fruition instead of sticking with some shithole job, I've spent my time and money working for something that will pay off better in the long run. And take a guess why? Because Tommy Vercetti did that's why. He didn't take lip from anyone who was in his way, he didn't do drugs, and above all let anything get in the way of what he needed to do to climb to the top.
Games did more than give me good role models when there wasn't any at hand ether. If it weren't for video games I wouldn't have been exposed to classical music, and would have been stuck with this watered down rap and rock companies push on us these days. I wouldn't have learned how to read and write as fast as I did without a hands-on parent. I wouldn't have been exposed to a pl
When you have the mass media constantly scaring people about sexual predators that prey on children, is it small wonder why parents nowadays are absolutely scared about letting their children go out and play in the neighborhood? Small wonder why the only time you see children at a playground nowadays is with very strict parental supervision....
It's not just the parents who at fault here. I live in a pretty quiet, crime-free area, and once I figured my 9 year old knew enough to handle herself crossing the road, I let her start walking to her friends house on the next block, with rules on what time to be back, letting adults know, etc.
A few weeks later I've got Child Protection and police at my door, and I'm charged with child endangerment, as someone has reported my daughter being seen alone on the street. Oh, and because it's a child protection investigation, I am not allowed to know who has said what about me, just at various points as I explained what I was doing they would say, "That doesn't match our information."
I pointed out that I had walked to my friend's houses as a child, and was told, "Abused children grow into abusive parents", and was made to sit though a lecture on breaking the cycle of abuse.
Finally the charges were dropped, after it was pointed out that they'd be laughed out of court for trying to have me jailed for letting my daughter walk down the street, in broad daylight. But I'm now listed as a child abuser, and the school and neighbours have been 'warned' about me.
I have to raise my children absolutely by the book now, or they'll be taken away from me. And a lot of that is that I can't let them do many of the things I did as a child, they spend far too much time locked away inside, without room to properly grow up.
If I try to let them spread their wings and learn to fly, they'll be shut away from me forever, in the name of their own safety.
The only thing that can be said that we're losing is our environment and natural resources. That is something that future generations may have much worse than us. People are exposed to far more industrial chemicals than before and are exposed to less and less of our natural environment. This may ultimately have a negative impact on the health of future generations.
You mean, comparing to monotonous diets, dangerous chemicals as everyday items (lead pipes, caustic cleaners, asbestos), backbreaking work,...?
Of course there are dangers ahead, but following the spirit of the thread, a "more natural life" suck big time.
Some of this comes from an unrealistic view of what constitutes a 'reasonable' standard of living. (Driven largely by advertising I suspect.) I know several young couples who view themselves as deprived because they have to buy and drive used cars, don't have the latest and greatest (and largest) TV, etc... etc... I know anecdotal evidence isn't worth much - but I see that attitude far more often than I don't.
In my humble opinion the worst attack on growing up in the UK society are the new *broken* attitudes to childhood.
To avoid being branded a paedophile...
You cannot talk with children who aren't your own, If they fall down, you cannot pick them up and if its sunny you cannot apply sun block because you cannot be seen touching.
To avoid being branded a bad parent..
You cannot discipline even your own kids beyond gentle verbal persuasion. I quick poll of parents that I know indicates that this is not always effective - which leads to behavioural problems in the child.
To avoid being sued...
Trees are cut down to prevent risk of damage when branches fall off. Games such as conkers are banned from school. Running is banned. Contact sports are banned.
Bad Science and hysteria...
Hooping cough may kill or permanently damage thousands because of a non reproducable non peer-reviewed article about dangers in innoculations.
I'm glad its behind me, but I feel sorry for my children who are disadvantaged by well-meaning idiots.
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
In Mexico City, a dangerous town if there is one, children have played on the streets for generations.
The dangers of urban environments are greatly overrated, specially in developped countries.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You offer only the stick solution. A "solution: that is descredited because it is not working.
The medical profession involvement is necessary in order to cure an addiction problem that forces individuals into crime. Addiction is a sickness, you are not going to solve it locking somebody up in a cell for a couple of months or with some community service.
Substance addictions are not "mind games" or a matter or having a strong will. Addictions are physical in nature. Go without food for 3 or 4 days and you may begin to understand how an addict feels. You would pretty much do anything in your power to get some food, even commiting some crime. Well, I need to go no further, because I think I have made my point.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
DIY is not a hobby. It is punishment.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Odd statistic I picked up a few days ago. The chance of dying in a plane crash is about the same as dying during a 12 mile automobile trip.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
> they've developed this "I don't care what anyone else thinks,
> I'm me and I'm pursuing happiness" attitude.
Not being selfish, not yet too mindful of what others _think_, but to actively _love_ others...
From the Bible:
"Owe no man any thing but to love one another for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law"
http://scripturetext.com/romans/13-8.htm