So, do kids in Maine play outside? (fingerprints, home)

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

When I was a kid growing up in the city we had a small town kind of neighborhood. We were kicked out of the house and were not back in until mealtimes or inclement weather. We had street games, ball games, and games we invented ourselves. Sometimes at night, well actually evening, we had hide and seek games that the parents would watch from their porches because we were so entertaining.

Yeah, it was the same for me. I was kicked out the door by 9 am and was not allowed back in until 4 or 5 pm. It seemed like that with all of my friends. Yup, six years old and playing on the streets of LA without parental supervision. Sometimes I would even walk to the beach and swim in the ocean.

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

One of our 'nicest' homes, we lived 3 years in was a 'gated' apartment complex that had 12 foot concrete perimeter walls with barbed wire wrapped around the top of the perimeter walls. Any time that we stepped outside of that complex there were prostitutes standing around, we commonly heard shootings, sirens, and smoke drifted into our complex every day from firebombed automobiles burning. But the apartment was very nice inside, and we were very near wonderful site-seeing and tourist locations.

Where the heck was this? Beirut? Detroit?

[flycessna]

I live in a neighborhood in a city where at the bus stop their is 18 children just for the elementary school. I hardly see anyone outside during the winter. This is one of the biggest drawbacks for raising kids here. Add to this a rainy summer like the one we just had and life can be miserable.

But weather aside, I think a bigger factor is Maine does not offer much in the way for indoor activities. there are only a few places to take the kids too....we find ourselves doing the same thing over and over again....jokers in the mall once/twice a week, children’s museum once a month, ect.

As far as comparing ourchildren to when we were younger it is impossible. I AM one of the parents that shut the tv/games off and encourage them to Go outside and play....but when your the ONLY parent doing that its almost a lost cause. God would I kill to find that town where the kids are out playing, walking to school, exploring, ect. I personally think it is no more dangerous today then it was back then and if we all made our kids walk to school together and play outside things would be a lot better.

[fxtrader]

When I go upta Maine on the weekends it seems like a lot of my friends and relatives kids are out playing. It seems the ones that live in the country are more into ice fishing, snowmobiling, building snow forts, sliding, etc. The ones that live in bigger towns seem to be into whatever organized winter sport they enjoy like Basketball, hockey, gymnastics. I think a lot of it has to do with the parents and what they do. I don't see many kids out and about down in Connecticut during the week. It may be different on the weekends but thats when we are usually in Maine.

[Siobjuan]

I think the media is to blame for a lot of this. When we were growing up, you heard a story about someone who knew someone who had something happen to them and it was more of an urban legend. Some van was driving around with a guy dressed up as a clown and be careful of this or that. Now a child is kidnapped from a front yard in California and the entire world hears about it in an hour. Every detail is gone over and over until every parent in the country is so paranoid they won't or can't let their kids have any freedom at all.

One of the biggest reasons I relocated my family from the South Shore of Massachusetts to Central Maine is that I feel as long as my kids (13 &16) have their cell phones on them, they can go where ever they like and I'm okay with it. I know quite a few parents here who freak out if their teenage kids are not under adult supervision at all times and I let them know if they are going to spend the weekend at my house, they will more than likely walk into town by themselves. We've never had a problem.

IMHO kids these days NEED to have their freedom in order to make the decisions about who they want to be. Do they want to hang with the troublemakers or take go a different way? My kids are strong enough that they will tell their friends that they are not going to hang with them if they are going to shoplift or cause trouble. It's just not worth it to them.

By giving your kids limited independence, you find out just how far you can trust them and they learn to trust themselves. We've had a couple of incidents where other kids have gotten into fistfights in the neighborhood and our kids have always done the right thing. Either stepping in if it's a situation they could handle or getting an adult involved if it went past a point they were comfortable with. Kids are going to fight, it's the nature of the beast (so to speak), but parents have to give their kids a little freedom to get out an climb a tree or they will just keep getting plumper.

[mollysmiles]

I can't imagine living anywhere where I couldn't let my kids out to play in their own neighborhood... that's not much of a childhood. But, if the parents never had that experience, I guess they wouldn't know any different. That's sad.

[Elcarim]

When my oldest was 14, I VERY reluctantly opted to let her walk to a friend's house, only 3 1/2 blocks down our street. I could see her the whole way, so it would prabably be ok. I stood on the edge of the driveway to watch. To my complete horror, two blocks into her trip, a man in a brown pickup truck stopped and offered her a ride. I saw her turn and point to me as I started rapidly toward her, and he sped off.

That's where we live now. There are many reasons children don't get to be outside as they should, and it's really sad. We CAN change some of those and should!

[frogcreekwoods]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

That's where we live now. There are many reasons children don't get to be outside as they should, and it's really sad. We CAN change some of those and should!

I'm sorry I haven't kept track - "where we live now" is in Maine? Or Texas?

It is really sad.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by K-Luv

... Where the heck was this? Beirut? Detroit?

Naples Italy.

My last duty station was in Naples Italy. I was stationed there for 3 years. My family lived in a 600 unit apartment complex just outside of Napoli in a suburb called Guigliano.

Napoli had an estimated population of 4 million, while Guigliano had only 250,000 people.

We were about 90 minute drive from Roma.

Living overseas for a while can be a good learning experience for children.

Though I prefer Maine.

[Casper1212]

There's a lot of reasons kids don't play outside like we did when we were young. Among them are the attractions of TV, video games, computers and other things. But one very real reason for kids staying inside is if you live in a place where it just isn't safe for them to go out unsupervised, sometimes because they aren't old enough to look out for themselves, and sometimes because there are people out there who can't be trusted around your kids. Either way, the kids suffer for it. Past times like a trip to Chucky Cheese or the movies gets expensive and boring after a while.
So what do you do? Often, Mom and/or Dad don't have the time to go outside with the kids to let them just play in the yard. We often have neighbors we don't know well enough to speak to ourselves, much less let our kids go visit them.
What did we do for fun when we were kids? We had neighbors who lived half a mile away and I was forever begging to go visit. We ran wild in the woods, together or alone. We went to the lake to swim, and when we were old enough, we learned to safely use a gun and went hunting. My dad loved to take us on Sunday picnics into the backwoods he knew so well from working for the forest service. A rainy day was the one day when Mom let us stay inside and read a book, when we weren't helping with the housework. Where did all that go?
As for living in a town where the kids spend more free time outside than in, I agree. You just don't see it anymore. Except in the town we live in, where everybody knows everybody else, usually because they're related to them. Kids go out wandering around town, riding horses, skateboarding, and surprise, surprise, seldom getting into trouble. People go out for walks late a night when it finally cools off enough to be outside. The only danger you worry about is getting hit by a rock thrown up from under the tire of a passing vehicle. Unfortunately, this place is the exception rather than the rule.
I haven't seen much of Calais, but from what little I did see, and the few people I met, it might not be too different. People all seem to know each other. Everybody can tell you what the inside of everybody else's house looks like, so they must visit. A lot. Everywhere we went, people took the time to stop and talk, even if it was just for a moment. Even with three feet of snow, people were still outside, walking the streets, snowmobiling, digging out their mailboxes and walkways and driveways, shopping, whatever. And manners. I had the door held for me so often that I wasn't sure if I was still in Maine, or back in Texas. People were more than just polite. They went out of their way to help with whatever they could.
I'll say it again. I hate leaving the town where we live now. But I don't think I'm giving up as much as I expected to.

[Connecticut Pam]

I raised my son in Maine until he was 11 years old and then we moved back home to Connecticut. YES kids up there played outside and I assume they still do. They pretty much do the same stuff up there that kids do down here, probably better because there isn't so much for them to get into. However, I see maybe you are planning to move to the Portland area? Portland is a pretty good sized city. I lived in Aroostook County in a town that had only 300 people!