I guess it depends on where you live. This town is rural, pop 600. I see groups of kids all the time wandering the streets. Young kids play in the yard semi-supervised. Kids barely under pre-teen can walk to the park or ride bikes. There's the problem only of illegals passing through, but they don't hurt anybody. They might break into your house and steal clothes and food, or steal American looking clothes from your clothesline; but not if you have a dog and a fence.
My husband is a car enthusiast. I called him a nerdy mechanic for all the car parts he gets all excited about. Well, now he's trying to learn the oilfield machinery too. It's kind of his thing. It's a thing around here. Another thing around here is that the kids do 4-H. They raise goats and chickens, mainly, if they live in town and some 4-H kids raise cows and pigs at a ranch. They sell them and get prize money at the rodeo. The rodeo is funny. They start by calling all kids around 5yrs old into the arena. They let some chickens loose. Whoever catches it keeps it. Some kids are good. They catch it by the feet and carry them upside down.
Sometimes I'm bummed about the things we can't do. If we lived somewhere more civilized we'd leave the house and socialize every day. Our social life is at the playground at the mall a few times a month. Plus occasional events. But then we get back on this topic and I feel better. DS got the best of both worlds. He'll be able to write a computer program and turn the screwdriver to repair the hardware.
My 2c. If a sixteen year old wants to volunteer regardless of Maturity they should be encouraged. I've volunteered and volunteer organizations got some goofy charachters already there, and they're much older than 16. I wouldn't send a kid young enough to need a babysitter, but anyone older than that. I saw it mentioned that it would be for a school application not by choice. In that case I think maybe visiting the elderly, volunteering in a nursing home? Is visiting considered a community service?
