0 members (),
86
guests, and
12
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
S |
M |
T |
W |
T |
F |
S |
|
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
12
|
13
|
14
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
19
|
20
|
21
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
26
|
27
|
28
|
29
|
30
|
31
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 47
Junior Member
|
Junior Member
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 47 |
Yes squishys, that what I meant. I really feel embarrassed that I didn't proof read and acted like such a moron.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898
Member
|
Member
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898 |
Just to jump in where angels should maybe fear to tread, I've been happy to send my DS into ordinary gents toilets alone since he reached the age where I felt it wasn't quite on to take him into the ladies, which is probably about when he turned 6. Have definitely hovered outside and been ready to rush in if necessary, and preferred it if DH were with us, but sometimes it's necessary (and I've been a lot more anxious about "can't undo the lock on the cubicle door" than about being attacked). Stranger attacks in toilets happen, but they are nationwide news when they happen for a reason: they are very, very rare.
I guess most of us feel other people's risk assessment is weird!
Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 47
Junior Member
|
Junior Member
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 47 |
And I think its fine if you let yours go alone, or go in with yours... The point was I looked like an arse saying moms shouldn't go into a public restroom with their kid and was appalled by it, when what I meant was an entirely different situation ...b lay blah blah.
I let my boys go into the women's alone if we are somewhere that doesn't have a family restroom. They are small for their age and it's not caused a problem. The entire men's room thing has been a little weirder to navigate. I have three boys and one girl.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 2,035
Member
|
Member
Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 2,035 |
I have two boys. It depends where we are and how many people are around. I am happy to take them in the women's until they are 7 but my oldest is big for age so at 6 he really looks too old while my youngest might pass for 7 when he 9 or 10.
I let my kids take risks at playground etc but I am far more involved than my parents were. I wish my parents had been more involved in my education though.
Last edited by puffin; 01/25/14 02:34 PM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898
Member
|
Member
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898 |
My DH and I have different enough assessments of what's OK at the playground that DS would beg me to stay behind because if he went with just Daddy he'd be allowed to do more of his favourite things! (We're talking about using equipment not how it was intended to be used - climbing on the roof of a structure designed to be crawled into, at a height where if he did fall, it could be serious - but he and DH agree he probably won't fall...) DH and I each feel pretty strongly and there's no objective truth to be had, so we've just had to settle for making it an educational point about risk assessment! Which it probably is - there's a lot to be said for being aware of the existence of different reasonable points of view and of the notion of deciding to do something that carries risks in knowledge of those risks.
Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 1,228
Member
|
Member
Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 1,228 |
Recently we drove to a scenic location, on a flat plateau, and at the edge was a sheer cliff drop of several hundred feet, in it's natural state, i.e. no man-made safety barrier to stop you falling straight off the edge several hundred feet to near certain death. We explained to our children the danger and admonished them to stay well back from the edge. Suddenly, when about 30 feet from the edge, DD2 started to run straight towards the edge, with her "hahahaha I being siwwy" giggle. I sprinted and caught her with about 5 or 10 feet to spare. There are real dangers in the world, and parents need to protect their children. The following advice is so unbelievably idiotic that I am at a loss for words. 2. We rescue too quickly
Today’s generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did 30 years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. When we rescue too quickly and over-indulge our children with “assistance,” we remove the need for them to navigate hardships and solve problems on their own. It’s parenting for the short-term and it sorely misses the point of leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Sooner or later, kids get used to someone rescuing them: “If I fail or fall short, an adult will smooth things over and remove any consequences for my misconduct.” When in reality, this isn’t even remotely close to how the world works, and therefore it disables our kids from becoming competent adults.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
Member
|
Member
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181 |
Well....
we do and we don't. Obviously, clear and present catastrophic danger isn't what they are talking about there. So no, I'm not handing my 10yo a $20 and telling her to "figure it out" if she wants to go to the downtown library, and I'm going to rescue a toddler who looks to be flirting with drowning by risking being knocked over in 45F surf.
I'm also going to offer COACHING from the sidelines when that seems appropriate. I also respect my child's decisions about things that don't really matter very much, or have such minor adverse risks that they are completely affordable. Like whether or not to play a particular sport, what to wear to an event, how to style her hair, how much (or how) to study for a midterm, that kind of thing. I've also let her LIVE WITH some bad decisions. I could have "fixed" some of them but did not. On purpose. So that she could learn what it is to have to live with a decision that you hadn't thought through very well.
She opted to be slow in the shower one morning on an international trip. It was BITTERLY cold, and she left herself too little time to locate SOCKS and put them on before meeting the bus at the appointed time. Too bad. She got to walk around Dublin in the BITTER cold all day with no socks. She now knows that the world won't always wait for her-- and that she MUST prioritize her own needs so that something like that doesn't happen again. She also learned in a hurry that complaining only made people LAUGH at her for being so disorganized. It was pretty gentle teasing, but it taught her something important. It wasn't MY job to make sure she had socks on at 13yo. It was her job, and she had been a flake about it... what did she expect? SYMPATHY? Hardly forthcoming. It was above freezing, she was in no real danger of anything but being uncomfortable. I thought it was a lovely lesson.
I'm like McGyvver crossed with a Swiss Army knife-- I had an extra pair of sock in my day pack. But I never said a word, and I certainly didn't offer them to her. I did offer her a band-aid the next morning, just in case she had any blisters. But she didn't.
In contrast, however, I went head to head with one VERY nasty gate agent just before boarding a trans-Atlantic flight so that she'd have some measure of safety during a flight that had 600 miles over nothing but open water. THAT was not a job for a 13yo with anaphylaxis history. KWIM?
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,157
Member
|
Member
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 2,157 |
I didn't read all the responses here but mostly agree with the article. However, the part about safety kind of grated on my nerves. There are some precautions that we take now as parents that weren't done 30 years ago. WE survived lying in the back on our parents' station wagon with no seatbelt on, but we were lucky. A lot of kids weren't. The precautions that we take now are there for a reason, and a lot of them aren't difficult. 10 seconds or 30 seconds can save a life. DS fractured his skull snow tubing. In the PICU the neurosurgeon told me he should have been wearing a helmet. DS was unconscious for about 6 hours and his eyes were pointed in 2 different directions when he woke up, but the neurosurgeon told us he was lucky, he had another kid who was in much worse shape after sledding. No one else on that hill had on a helmet so we would have looked like weirdos being the only one putting helmets on our kids. But if we had taken 30 seconds to slap a helmet on his head we could have saved ourselves and DS about 8 months of drama. He had brain damage, and with the type of fracture he had he could have died or gone into a vegetative state if he had smacked his head just a little bit harder. We still don't know if he is completely recovered a year later. Now whenever I hear of anyone going snow tubing I get a bit of PTSD and launch into a lecture about how dangerous it is and how kids should have helmets, there should be lanes so no collisions with other tubes, etc. I have become more helicopterish and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if it prevents another accident.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,489
Member
|
Member
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,489 |
Also, I hate it when people compare kids "these days" to kids 30 years ago; it is a very different time we live in. I don't care what anyone says, it is absolutely more dangerous in this world, today. How is today's world 'absolutely more dangerous'? By what measure? From what? In what location? In the US? In big cities? Are kids in more danger or everyone? Just as you hate to compare kids to kids 30 years ago, I hate anyone saying that life now is somehow more dangerous, they just "know it". The media has really done a great job trying to scare us the past 13 years, but I'm not convinced we are actually any more danger than we were 30 years ago. Here is one page that compiles many crime statics showing that violence in the US is actually down from the 1980's. http://www.freerangekids.com/crime-statistics/
|
|
|
|
|