Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It

Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by watwut on Monday June 04, 2018 @02:50AM (#17225217)

The Germany attitude toward freedom for children is completely different then American one. In Germany, first graders are expected to walk to and from school by themselves. They play outside alone, and slide on giant slides while nobody cares about posted 10+ sign. They are not overprotective the way Americans are.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by poulsbohemian on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @05:50PM (#17251400)

I began walking to school (about a mile) from first grade onward. I also studied in Germany as a college student.

I walk two of my kids to school daily.

Why? It isn't really the kids I worry about, it's the idiot adults. Around their school there are:

-- School zone signs, indicating the 20MPH speed reduction area. -- Flashing yellow lights that only activate during school hours -- Middle-of-the-road barriers that indicate there is a school zone ahead -- Painted crosswalks -- Adults with crossing flags to indicate the crosswalk. Sometimes they even wear orange safety vests. -- The speed limit within a half-mile in all directions is 25MPH

Guess what? Cars still blow through in excess of 40MPH, even with kids present. I've been nearly run over on multiple occasions.

This is in a rural ("family values") community. It's pure anarchy, that's why I don't let my kids walk to school alone.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by theandrewbailey on Monday June 04, 2018 @11:22AM (#17228604)

Americans need laws to affirm that their kids can walk to and from school alone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/well/family/utah-passes-f...

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by bambataa on Monday June 04, 2018 @08:18AM (#17227028)

Germany also seems to make more of a thing out of forest kindergartens (Waldkindergarten), which sound amazing to me. Still supervised I suppose, but at least they’re outdoors.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by jacobolus on Monday June 04, 2018 @02:56AM (#17225238)

Funny enough, just yesterday some German tourists watched my not-quite-2 year old slide down a giant slide in San Francisco and remarked that they don't have such big slides where they live in Germany.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by javajosh on Monday June 04, 2018 @03:44AM (#17225436)

There are some seriously cool and dangerous looking playgrounds in Berlin. Many of them have ziplines, trampolines, and other long-since banned playthings. And I see kids on them almost every day.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by scandinavegan on Monday June 04, 2018 @04:16AM (#17225597)

We vacationed in Berlin last summer with two kids, and that place is famous for its fantastic playgrounds. It was rare to see the same designs repeated over and over as you do in other cities, and each playground was more or less unique.

As you say, stuff where you balance quite high up, but usually with a softer material on the ground than asphalt so that a fall isn't lethal. I never saw kids fall and hurt themselves, so I don't know what would happen if they fell from the maximum height, but they wouldn't die.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by wiredfool on Monday June 04, 2018 @05:01AM (#17225833)

We were in Germany last summer and I was amazed that they had a 5m diving platform at a public pool. (along with 3m & 1m springboards).

I had my (then) 10 and 12yr olds go for it, because I had no idea where else they'd ever get the chance to try.

(OTOH, I tried the 1m springboard and got water in my ear that took days to get out. I'm not as young as I once was)

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by namibj on Monday June 04, 2018 @06:17AM (#17226307)

At public pay-per-use pools we sometimes also have 7.5m and 10m platforms. As well as 5m springboards. They require deeper water, and are more expensive to build, but that's about it. E.g., near cologne there is an indoor pool with at least a 7.5m and 10m platform. I don't remember if the 5m one is a board or a concrete slab. But from 5m upwards it hurts on your feet if you hit the water at the wrong angle, and it only get's worse from there.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by wiredfool on Monday June 04, 2018 @06:29AM (#17226377)

It's not the building expense, it's the insurance.

I remember the 3m springboard taken out of my pool in the states in the 80's, and I can't remember ever seeing a diving board in use at a pool in Ireland.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by namibj on Monday June 04, 2018 @12:56PM (#17229772)

Uh, no, this is the reason I assume for why only some pools in Germany have them. But I pity the american bubble wrap culture. It makes my dislike for visiting the states just stronger.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by throwawayjava on Monday June 04, 2018 @01:10PM (#17229889)

> But I pity the american bubble wrap culture.

I don't see this in pools. 3m spring boards are still pretty common at pools in the US. My "nothing special" high school had 3m springs.

It's true that the 5m,7m,10m platforms are usually only found in sportsplex-type pools. They typically come as a package. But as you mentioned in an earlier comment, 5m+ starts the get actually dangerous. Flopping from 10m or even 7m without an agitator can do serious permanent damage. IMO a platform tower above 3m (or maybe 5m) is more "expensive sports equipment" than "general public recreational equipment".

I maybe could see a 5m platform as "general public recreational equipment", but 7 and 10 are definitely not. And there are just better ways to use time/money than building a 5m platform when you already have 3m spring boards.

American pools are moving away from exercise and toward recreation/amusement (i.e., switching out swimming lanes for "water playgrounds" and switching out diving boards for water slides). But that's a totally different phenomenon from "bubble wrap culture"; IMO those water playgrounds are way more dangerous than traditional pools (I've seen more than one kid injure themselves pretty seriously jumping off of the water playground into ~2ft water; that would never happen in a lane-swimming pool). And personally, I've had more injuries on water slides than on 1m or 3m spring boards.

So there's something annoying going on with American swimming pools, but it's not bubble wrap culture.

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by namibj on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @02:54PM (#17240852)

Agitator? Ugh... the 10m one where the 10yo kids were jumping had no waves. The water was perfectly flat. Or at least not deliberately agitated. There do seem to only be 3 of these in the local conurbation [0] (10 million population), giving 3.3 million inhabitants per tower, compared to 5.3 for the whole US. So yes, they might be more prevalent around here, but I don't know how open the facilities in the US are to the public/minors. They seem to be used for the Olympics and the associated training though.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine-Ruhr

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Re:Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It by throwawayjava on Friday June 08, 2018 @12:32PM (#17267083)

> the 10m one where the 10yo kids were jumping had no waves

I know many, many just-below-olympic level divers. Of those, one suffered "minor" injuries (deep bruising basically everywhere on their body and a burst ear drum) and one suffered major life-threatening internal injuries (collapsed lung) after landing on their belly/back from 10m.

The person with the less severe injuries flopped with the aerator on, which is probably the only reason the injuries weren't more serious.

Diving from 10m is absolutely dangerous, even for professionals, especially without an aerator.

> but I don't know how open the facilities in the US are to the public/minors.

In the USA, at the places I know of, untrained children are allowed to dive off of 10m platforms during "free swimming" times. But only straight dives, and only after they demonstrate straight dives off of 5m and 7m.

Which seems like a sensible compromise, given the risks.

(Exceptions are always possible. If you are training for platform diving, you can simply tell the life guard and they will let you do fancier dives from 10m.)

> giving 3.3 million inhabitants per tower, compared to 5.3 for the whole US

"conurbation vs. entire population" not a fair comparison -- a huge portion of the US population lives in rural areas that couldn't support a diving tower even if they wanted to.

All of the USA cities whose diving infrastructure I know about have between 1 million to 2 million inhabitants per tower. According to that metric, the USA is less risk averse about diving (but actually, it's really just a matter of wealth and interest, because diving is an expensive sport and platforms are actually specialized sports equipment).

Edit: Also, the wiki list of 10m platforms in the usa is out of date or just wrong. None of the 10m platforms I've used on a regular basis are on that list...

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