What is wrong with kids being kids (legal, SAHM, teenagers)
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OK, so without all the hair-splitting about the length of school day, etc. are you saying kids are over-scheduled or not? And, I got the impression the OP is not talking about HS kids. He is talking about young kids. Only the ages of 4 years, 10 months, and 6 weeks were mentioned, I believe. Maybe it was 10 weeks, not months.
That's a good question. I think in the past more time was spent on informal, unstructured play with friends and neighbors. Now as more kids are doing more activities, that is no longer possible. I know when my children have a free afternoon it is nigh impossible to find a friend who is also free for a playdate.
The level of intensity of activities is different too. If you want your kid involved in various sports, it's often quite difficult to get them onto a team after 6th grade, they will have to start before that.
That's pretty close for my kids, and most kids I know.
My kids walk out of the door at 6.55 each morning, the bus leaves at 7, and walk in the door at 2.55pm.
They swim for between 1hr and 30 mins to 1hr and 45 mins 6 days a week. They do piano, Odyssey of the Mind, Boy Souts and Girl Scouts, and my 5th grader does between one and two hours of homework a day.
Pretty much the norm for kids around here.
My own child was very busy as well. But I can differentiate between her and her friends (and my own students) from the national average given by the bureau of labor statistics
They are not in the nation. I have given proof of this.
And sports are not mandatory they are a choice, same with piano, and other activities. To claim they are somehow equivalent to the kids of 100 years ago who HAD to work on farms, at factories, etc is a disservice to both groups.
Kids today have so much more leisure time they have the CHOICE to fill that time with afterschool activities. That does not remotely mean they have LESS time than kids who had to work 100 years ago.
Who the hell cares if 100 years ago kids picked oranges off a tree and these days they play year round competitive sports, doesn't matter if it is the same activity, they are still busy for the same amount of hours if not more.
There is so much more pressure these days.
Pressure to have all the cool gadgets, to look hot and cool, to fit in, whatever.
Those pressures were not there 100 years ago, kids did not have those things to worry about.
Again, I don't think the OP is talking about HS kids.
Maybe, but he did mention high school. Elementary school kids are even less likely to be in sports for hours a day after school. OTOH they have the largest increase in nightly homework of any group (likely due to the increase in high stakes testing).
But I still say the idea of the romanticized nuclear family, was a short lived ideal unable to be practiced on a wide scale. Never the norm for the middle class anywhere else in the world and not even the norm for this country throughout the majority of its history.
Who the hell cares if 100 years ago kids picked oranges off a tree and these days they play year round competitive sports, doesn't matter if it is the same activity, they are still busy for the same amount of hours if not more.
There is so much more pressure these days.
Pressure to have all the cool gadgets, to look hot and cool, to fit in, whatever.
Those pressures were not there 100 years ago, kids did not have those things to worry about.
OMG
If you think you have it harder than the kids who worked in factories for 14 hr a day you are crazy. Second, you continue to ignore FACTS. The majority of kids DO NOT play "year round competitive sports". Less than a 1/4 do that.
Yes, its tough to be a kid, I have never claimed otherwise, but we have seen from your other posts just how entitled you feel. OTOH I am going to be going in Monday with munchkins and juice for my students because not one of them is like that, I am profoundly grateful for that.
OK, so without all the hair-splitting about the length of school day, etc. are you saying kids are over-scheduled or not? And, I got the impression the OP is not talking about HS kids. He is talking about young kids. Only the ages of 4 years, 10 months, and 6 weeks were mentioned, I believe. Maybe it was 10 weeks, not months.
As compared to what?
"Over" scheduled implies more than an accepted value. I don't know what that could be accept a comparision
So to the 50s or 60s? Sure. Any other time period, no.
It's part of a generation cycle. Today's 20 somethings millennials had a mostly unstructeded childhood but they also saw the trend toward increasing structure. Now today's children (late-wave Millennials and early wave Homelands) are becoming increasingly overprotected by society. Thus leading to an overstructered childhood.
The same thing happened with the GI and Silent generations back in the 1920s-1940s.
Then when today's Homelands come of age and have children, they'll begin the trend towards being more relaxed in how they raise their kids.
Generation type...How they are raised.
Prophets... Indulged and more freedom during childhood. Parents loosen up. Baby boomers are an example.
Nomads... Underprotected by society. Generation X.
Heros... Increasingly protected by society. Millennial generation.
Artists... Overprotected by society. Homeland generation (current elementary aged kids and babies).
It's part of a generation cycle. Today's 20 somethings millennials had a mostly unstructeded childhood but they also saw the trend toward increasing structure. Now today's children (late-wave Millennials and early wave Homelands) are becoming increasingly overprotected by society. Thus leading to an overstructered childhood.
The same thing happened with the GI and Silent generations back in the 1920s-1940s.
Then when today's Homelands come of age and have children, they'll begin the trend towards being more relaxed in how they raise their kids.
Those pressures were not there 100 years ago, kids did not have those things to worry about.
Different kind of pressure but there WAS pressure on children 100 years ago (and more). The industrial revolution put kids to work in dangerous jobs in factories. There was the pressure not to get killed or maimed by the punch press you were working. At the age of 10. There was also the pressure to work 14 hour (or more) days with no breaks mandated by law. There was the pressure of having to work as a child so you could eat and have shelter.
Want to talk about the pressure of picking cotton when you were 10? I've talked to people who had to do it. In the mid 20th century. Right now, in this country, children as young as 14 are allowed to pick crops legally. Stoop labor picking strawberries. They work to help support their families. Think they have pressure?
Today's "pressure" of worrying about having the right phone? Minor by comparison IMHO.
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