To think children are more immature now

[lesley33]

I am surprised all the time about how immature some children and teenagers are and how little some can do for themselves. AIBU in thinking this is because children/teenagers are so often over protected these days and so naturally take longer to grow up?

Hmmm. In some regards I agree with the fact that kids seem to be expected to do little for themselves/help out at home etc, and I am trying to get ds (4) to understand that this is OUR house and it is his job to help keep it tidy/ help with his specific chores eg tidying his toys after tea, not waking me up at the crack of dawn (I leave him out a snack and a drink and he is supposed to wait until my alarm goes before he makes noise or wakes me up).
However, it does kind of irritate me when people say we should be letting 3/4 year olds play in the street on their own, or not expect 2 year olds to hold a hand on busy roads.
When I was kid in the 80's we were out in the street, but then so were lots of other kids. There were way way fewer cars. A game of cricket for eg. would have to be interrupted every forty minutes or so to make way for a car. Nowadays it would be every four minutes in our street, and most importantly people who are driving drive faster, are not on the lookout for kids in the street and not expecting to see them.
I am not a helicopter parent, but nor am I a macho parent who thinks "well they have to learn sometime" and has my 2 year old wander along behind me on a main road, assuming he will simply follow me meekly. Ha!
Small children are capricious in the extreme. They can be really sensible, and then suddenly spot something of interest across the street and just run towards it.
I don't think a good way to learn responsibility is to look the other way while your kid is flattened by a 4 by 4, or causes an accident when said car swerves madly to avoid them.
You can teach responsibility by saying, at every curb, "ok, look left and right. Is anything coming?" And this way they begin to realise they have a responsibility for their own safety. I say a lot " I am not your eyes. Yopu have to judge for yourself" but I am still physically there.
It should be incremental.
The fact is that the roads now ARE NOT the same roads they were in the 80's. Sad but true.

SarahLundsredJumper Sun 02-Oct-11 19:48:50

My DC are 13 and 17 - If I get home late I know the cats,dogs,chickens etc will be fed and that my DC will have made some dinner etc.
They cycled to school in year 5 and 6 - alone -gasp !
Also got the bus to school -from year 7 onwards.

I think most of the SAHM of teenagers keep their kids immature so as to secure their own role-my SAHM friends drive their DC everywhere hmm
Its not in their best interests really.

You are absolutely right. It's only the SAHM who behave like this round here too. They are most definitely 'securing their roles' as you say. The working Mums, (especially the ones who've always worked) allow their children more freedom, which is far healthier. (and I speak as someone who was a SAHM for 9 years before I went back to work!)

This weekend my 17 year old went out with friends and swam in the river -watched Merlin with friends and then got a lift home.
My 13 year old went to his friends - they played cricket in the park .He then popped in to see if it was OK to go to another friends house- he went there watched Merlin had dinner and then came home.
All the friends are watching Merlin round ours next week !
I feel that I can trust my DC to let me know where they are - strict about phones being charged etc

"The fact is that the roads now ARE NOT the same roads they were in the 80's. Sad but true."

I think that depends where you live.
If you live in a cul de sac for example, you may find little traffic.

I live on the edge of a village / market town in the countryside on a road that goes nowhere. People driving here will be either going home / out or visiting. Here, children here normally play out from when they get to year 2. My daughter has at least 7 friends that she goes calling for and goes to the park with. They range in age from 6 to 8. This summer, she was out calling for friends every day that we were home. I find it hard to keep her in the house. I'm used to having random children turn up for tea, after playing out all day. This is true for most mums around here. The locals are used to children out playing, so cars do drive safely - and there are lots of speed bumps on our road which makes it a lot safer.

I think you and your kids are really lucky in that case Mowlem.
I also think that year 2 (6/7?) is a reasonable age for kids to play out, I just dont think 4 is, that's all.
It's a vicious circle really-the fewer kids who play out, the less car drivers are expecting to see them. I guess I just dont want to sacrifice mine for the sake of principle!
Interestingly, when ds was tiny and we lived on an council estate, the streets on the estate were full of children and anyone driving thru there knew that, so was much safer. Now we live somewhere much posher and I worry.

Its funny too, that some kids just are more sensible than others.
I had many older siblings, and was streetwise ( refusing to get into cars when I was asked too-and I was asked to) and with a healthy mistrust of adults, but was a total dingbat at most practical things, whereas my sister was, and is, much more competent, could cook, do shopping with no mishap, navigate unfamiliar streets etc.
There are naturally vast differences between different children, and this has to be taken into account.

I dont know anyone who would think it reasonable for a 4 year old to play out northernrock

Um..niceguy2-see above Sarah!

Well actually where I live this is not an unsual sight to have a 4yo on his own in the street. Or even worse the parents coming to see yu at 6.30 wondering if by any chance their dc is in your house (yes it has happened to one of my neighbourg.)
So if I was going with that, I would say Nooo. op is wrong.

but then at my dcs school, it is normal to hear parents of Y6 children being worried because they are going to see friends a few doors away. they have to have a mobile with them, just in case. they have to ring as soon as they arrive etc... none of them has taken a bus on their own before (Let alone a train or whatever) and the big event is a 3 days 'visit' with the school 'which thanksfully they only do in Y6 and now in Y4 like the other school in the same town'. And parents to comment that they know their dc won't have had a shpwer during that time and that's to be expected .

So I think it really depends on who yu are talking to.

I do think though that pressure from other parents makes it harder to actually let your dcs be independant as you are likely to be judged for that.

There weren't always fewer cars around in the olden days. Dh grew up in London where there were already more cars around in the 60s than in a quiet suburb in the 2010s- he still had more freedom than most children do today.

but totally agree that you have to look at the individual child and that it would be far easier if it weren't for other parents

This thing about roads being more dangerous is wrong anyway. There might be more cars but the speed limits have neen lowered, the brakes are better etc.. so all in all there are fewer pedestrians killed on the road now than in the 1960. So why is everyone convinced roads are more dangerous (for pedestrians)?

It's an issue with percieved risk not real risk. And the fact that, everyday, we can hear about this ccident, that child abbuction etc... that we would probably not have heard about in that way 40 years ago.

SarahLundsredJumper how dare you I could say worrying mums make their children to independent to young so they don't have to give up work eg leaving them for long hours on their own.

But I won't I am a sham and have every intention of making him stand on his own to feet.

Shams can sometimes do to much but so can working mum who hire au pairs or nanny who cook and clean and meet ever need

In some areas roads are busier. But I grew up in a city where we lived on a main road. I'm sure kids in quietier places had more freedom than me - in the 80's, but some children where I grew up had a lot less freedom than I had.

And where I lived the roads are safer now than in the past. Now there are speed bumps to slow cars down and make sure they don't speed and people tend not to drink and drive which used to be more common.

I'm glad to hear that there are places where children still get a lot of freedom.

But I do understand that it is difficult sometimes to give DC's freedom when other parents are judging you negatively.

Sarah
I am a SAHM, and my 7 year old rode 15 miles to school on a public bus and negotiated some tricky street crossings. I have left my kids home alone long before anyone I know, and I won't tell how old my son was when I let him stay home alone for a week.
Lots of parents who work like to infantilize their children, perhaps out of a sense of guilt. Many HE kids are starting their own businesses in their mid-teens, and they usually have fairly involved parents.
Don't generalize.

I agree that it starts when they are young. As someone said above you have to give children the space to grow and make their own mistakes. I am amazed at how cautious some parents are. dS1 is 2.5. He walks besides me on the pavement, doesn't hold my hand. Not because he wont but because I am pushing ds2 in the buggy. The only time I hold his hand is when we are crossing a busy road without signals. I dont bother a green man crossings. He has never run off. I don't expect him start now. But he was 'allowed to walk without hand holding since he learnt to walk at 17 months. Not on the pavement to start with but in the park.

He is allowed to use a knife and try to chop things under supervision, he stands at my electric cooker and flips chapatis on a hot pan.

Now I am not saying that everyone should do this but I do think kids should be allowed to do a lot more than is considered safe in today's risk averse society.

People are living much longer too, which has something to do with it I think.

When people only lived until 60, thirty was middle age, 16 young adulthood. Now fifty is middle-aged and thirty is a young-ish adult, and teens are children.

i disagree

i think we expect children to grow up far too quickly and expect them to act like adults then complain when they indulge in other adult activities.

that does not excuse bad behaviour but really children should be carefree and be allowed to be children while they are children not expect them to act like adults to suit our lives. 16 is far far to young to be able to get married, join the army and so on i really hope the age is raised along with the leaving school age which i beleive is changing to 18

there have always been overprotective parents but society has changed and its sad we can not give our children the freedom many of us had. we have also been encouraged to be more involved in every aspect of out childrens lives now i can see nothing wrong with that while allowing your child/children some freedom

totally agree that the army entrance age needs to change

but I think there are masses of other areas where we could expect more of our children- kettles haven't got more dangerous, ovens aren't more likely to burn than 20 years ago, getting cold and wet is about the same as it always was - but we are afraid of what other parents will think

I know teenagers who aren't allowed to stay at home alone or go out without an adult supervising. I'm glad to hear that there are places where posters don't know any families like this.

I actually think this country with kids/teenagers is a wierd mixture of asking them to deal with adult things far too soon e.g. sexualisation, and keeping them child like far too old in other ways e.g. not ebing allowed to go out alone, use kettles, etc.

This is anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure it can be backed up with statistical data...

Well, I don't know a single one of ds's contemporaries (or near contemporaries) who has died or been seriously injured in an accident.

I don't really want to think about how many of my own peers didn't make it beyond the first year seniors.

Yup the 70s/80s were great

Being allowed to do wheelies on the main road, or play silly buggers by a river doesn't make a child "less immature" (whaever that means)

Totally agree JenaiMarr.
Sometimes I think that those parents who had the safest, nicest childhoods are the quickest to be macho parents and brag about letting their two year old get the bus on their own
Personally, My sibs and I had a largely unsupervised childhood, which, while we escaped mostly unscathed, bar a couple of concussions, there were many near misses regarding riding bikes to the other end of town and playing in power stations, dangling off cliffs, narrowly escaping psychos trying to drag us down alleys at the age of nine or ten.
What this has done is actually make me more cautious, because I know the dangers that exist, and I also know how utterly daft kids can be.
And a two year old has no impulse control, so to the woman I saw crossing a main road in South London with her two year old toddling four feet behind her-you are a fucking idiot. All that effort pushing it out and you are prepared to let it go under that guy's massive SUV as he is revving his engine and can't even see your kid.

I agree that letting kids take completely unsupervised risks too soon does not make them more mature. Gradual incremental responsibility does.

I agree in gradual incremental responsibility. But you have to start when your children are young - not wait until they are teenagers before you let them do anything.

jenai and northern - I think parents can be too much the other way and when i was a child in the 70s and 80s there were some parents like this. So you have to be sensible.

But where I live it has gone too far the other way.

Immature may be the wrong word for it? But I come across teenagers who can't cope with lots of very ordinary situations because they have not been allowed to do so many things.

My own nephew is like this. He is 15 and is not allowed to be alone without an adult to supervise. But although he is sensible, because he has never had to negotiate anything alone, he probably wouldn't cope with being outside and something unusual happening. For example, if he caught the bus himself and during the journey realised he was on the wrong bus, I think he would find it hard to know what to do.

And I do meet other teenagers locally like this. When I was a teenager, I didn't anyone like this. Growing up is about learning to do things for yourself and cope with everyday situations that arise.