I'm sure their parents are trying to do what is best for their children, but it doesn't seem to be working.

It’s not like you’re releasing your child to be raised by the experiences of the village.

With that in mind, many parents are probably struggling to not have their kids consumed by the web during free time, esp during COVID lockdowns.

The other cool thing is all the natural parks and outdoor activities (skiing, biking, climbing.)

The downsides are the utter lack of nightlife (not really my jam anyway, but whatever) and all the damn Mormons (I am one.)

I still remember growing up, playing around the neighborhood, and a parent would call out the front door "Danny, dinner time!" and all the kids would scatter to get home for dinner.

#getoffmylawn #wheresmycane

I wouldn’t have called the cops on them since they weren’t causing any real trouble, but if my neighbors did, no one ever came. There are bigger problems in that town (like the feral fucking dogs) that the cops refused to do anything about.

But honestly, most of the neighbors were familiar with each other and let their kids roam pretty free. It was nice to see that places like that still exist.

“You don’t want to do this anymore? You need this for college, you shouldn’t quit everything you do, I wish I could have done this” etc.

Eventually it’s just easier to passively suffer whatever activity you dislike and just recognize the starting cost to trying new things is extreme.

> “ I try to tell them their old enough (most are teenagers) that they should start deciding for themselves what activities they participate in.”

I’d start with asking them about what their parents are like.

reminds me of my first meeting with my advisor at college to pick courses for freshman year. I came in with a few ideas for courses/majors that my dad thought were practical. my advisor picked up on this almost immediately and asked "okay, but what are you interested in?". we had a nice talk, but at the end I went back to picking from the list my dad approved of. my advisor was disappointed and insisted that I needed to chart my own path through college. my response: "yeah, but I need my dad to write the check".

I think parents bias to being risk-adverse in advice for their kids because they only experience the downside risk and little of the upside from potentially riskier paths. I think a good parent would communicate some of this, but that's not a skill everyone has.

A lot parents just don't know that much and are over confident (like most people) even if their intentions for their kid are good. Others leverage their power over their kids to force them into certain paths which isn't great either.

Even in more direct ways.

I remember getting yelled at in middle school because I would show up late to early morning jazz band practices I had to be driven to. I was ready to go 40min before we had to be there. I can't make my mom get me there on time.

I think adults forget kids are not independent.

They don't seem to like the idea that Scouts is supposed to be youth-run/led and that it's okay to fail as long as they learn from it and improve. The parents just don't want them to fail or be uncomfortable at all (it's not always dry and warm outside).

I just remember adults yelling at me as a kid for things like this. “You should take responsibility.” Etc.

At the time I didn’t know what to do.

I wish I had just said, “I have no control over my life”.

I think other adults can sometimes be clueless about what a kid’s family life is like.

Which seems the other side of helicopter parenting; kids don't get much of a say in deciding what they fill their free time with, so they don't develop an opinion in things like that.

Plus (and I'm going to sound old here, give me my cane so I can shake it), there's a lot more casual entertainment lying around the house nowadays to fill the voids in people's time. "doing nothing" is not much of a thing anymore, because people will casually browse their phone or turn on the TV or something. (I'm guilty of that as well).

In the previous generation, there would be a TV but not everything on there would catch the interest of everyone.

My son (now 26) always had summers free at minimum. While he was younger, he did go to a YMCA outdoor "adventure" day camp at a nearby lake park. Once he was in middle school, he stayed home. Sports 2-3 seasons, but he got to pick which one he played and never the crazy travel league stuff. In high school, he was free to do what he wanted (football for 2 years, guitar all 4, and a mix of rec league basketball and volleyball when he felt like it). Always plenty of time to ride his bike, play at the park, run around with friends. Starting in middle school, he'd often disappear across town on bike of skateboard for hours at a time. School was 2.5 miles away and he often opted to ride his skateboard instead of the bus.

I see kids today where every free moment is booked with stuff. All in some sisyphean effort to get into Harvard or something. I mean, sure, I get a desire to go to a top name uni, but the changes of little Johnnie getting in, regardless of extra-curricular, is so small that all the effort seems mostly wasted to me. I "only" went to UVA and turned out fine, IMO, so maybe I'm biased. I dunno.

IMO a lot of the admissions-centered thinking has propagated down the rankings further and further in recent years too. Anecdotally I've seen people over-scheduling their children for target schools in a tier below UVA. This attitude of course creates a terrible feedback cycle, as admissions gets more and more competitive. At some point I'd like to think the admit offices are sick of seeing so many prototypical candidates, but still you need to do something to stand out. Ideally the parent should advise the kid on this meta-info, without literally telling them what to pursue.

Or to put it another way, teenage apathy prevalence is probably pre-teen survivor bias.

My child was over Cub Scouts by Bears.

But more than a decade later, my grown-ass child hangs out with several of the Eagles. They are close friends.

There are also super competitive clubs, but huge amount of them is not like that. My own kids go to clubs like that, my friends kid go to clubs like that. The teacher typically acts seriously and attempts to teach you what is possible during that time.

But scouting is whole another level, occupying afternooms, weekends and plus giving "homework" projects. The kids were either fully into it or left.

Pretty much everything else can be done at summer camp (1 week a summer) or maybe a merit badge fair on a Saturday once a year.

Sure, you might have to keep a log for a month of your chores, or do a home improvement project for the Family Life merit badge, but it never felt like a time sink as a kid, and didn't occupy all my afternoons. I essentially never had "homework" from Scouts.

Maybe some troops are really gung-ho, but there are plenty of troops that aren't. Troops are not allowed to set requirements that aren't in the Scout Handbook, if they are, there's the district, the council, and ultimately the national office that can put a stop to it or revoke the unit's charter.

On a more general note, I can recommend Jared Diamond's 'The World Until Yesterday' - it covers similar topics to the bbc article and more.

By the time I was older in Scouts, my siblings were in college and my parent could drive me to wherever, or at least to the meeting place where I could carpool. The times when my parent wasn't available, I took the city bus.

I imagine if one of my siblings was was the same age and our parent could only drive one of us, the other would take the bus.

The first time I took the bus, my parent went with me to show me how, and then let me do it myself going forward.

Basically, you are 16 and want to spend whole weekend out of house including during the night. Not doing it without parental permission seems normal to me.

Nor it seems new. My gradma or grandpa definitely could not just spend whole night and weekend away just by own decision. They would expect my parents to ask them for permission. I was expected the same.

From another one of my comments:

> I always just told my parent that I was doing something just so they knew where I was - not necessarily asking for permission, but that gave them the chance to veto it (which they only did one time as punishment when I got in trouble at school).

> I think that parents need to teach their kids how to be responsible and autonomous, and treat them like they are their own person

Also, we are talking here about overnight camping. It is not the same out for few hours. 16 years old being expected to sleep at home by default does not strike me as overly controlling.

So I would ask. I mean, idea that 16-17 years old goes for campout without asking parents strikes me as wtf.

I always just told my parent that I was doing something just so they knew where I was - not necessarily asking for permission, but that gave them the chance to veto it (which they only did one time as punishment when I got in trouble at school).

I think that parents need to teach their kids how to be responsible and autonomous, and treat them like they are their own person, because they need to be to have any chance at being successful.

It's a weird and tricky balance that one has to strike, in the US, in 2021 ...

On the one hand, I feel strongly that kids should have free time and energy to explore and experiment and I am reinforced daily in my instinct that a "bored" kid is just another 10 minutes away from doing something interesting and magical.

On the other hand, as my oldest children reach pre-teen age, and I pay more attention to their pre-teen peers, I find myself agreeing with the "idle hands are the devils playground" heuristic. I want my teenage children busy doing constructive and healthy things.

But it gets complicated ... you can't just plug your kid onto a age 12 or age 13 baseball or hockey team. Those kids have been playing the sport (and playing the sport together) since they were 4 or 5. Your kid will not make the team or will be conspicuously out of place. So if you've been free-ranging it for their first ten years you're going to need to get more creative as you transition to the teenage years...

I have seen things like mountain biking and BJJ be good options...

When I was in school, very few kids specialized, even through high school. The top football players were also the best wrestlers or basketball players, and most also played baseball or track or lacrosse. Few of them did school basketball and then AAU the remainder of the year.

My son stuck to club/rec basketball (instead of the school team) and volleyball (school team, but mens volleyball prior to high school isn't really a thing in DC).

And, like you said, there's always cycling, martial arms, or track/field (typically takes all interested).

I also agree with keeping kids active/engaged. But, to me, that means supporting them as they pick their own activities, not scheduling every second of their non-school time.

Edit - many of the kids specializing before high school are pretty obviously NOT destined for scholarship athletics. There's really no point to it, IMO. I coached football and basketball for much of my son's youth. Of all the kids I coached, 1 went on to NCAA D1 sports (and that was to W&M, where he still had to meet stringent academic standards).

In the breadth phase, you instruct the kid to study the topic of interest at a distance, collect information, attend events casually and give some reports explaining what they like. Make the thing of "pursuing an interest" just a little bit academic and intentional on their part. With a lot of topics they'll have their fill and loosen their grip pretty quickly, and when that happens, allow them to go on to the next thing.

If they can't shut up about it, that's when you go towards the depth phase and push them towards a more intensive effort, to take the class, read the book, join the club. Set modest goals that still take a committment, and indicate that it's very likely that some kids will be ahead or pick up the material faster. They should still report how things go and get your feedback so that you can spot issues, or teach them how to seek out good feedback where you lack competence. But there's a definite thing here of getting them to see the struggle itself as something rewarding, not the outcome like "being the best" or "making a career". Because if they get a feel for that, they will reach adulthood with some sense of balance and intention to what they pursue and why and a sense of their strengths and weaknesses.

You're a good parent to notice and think about these things.

Sounds like a wealthy thing, not a Western thing.

The only thing I'm really jealous of from spending time around people who've grown up with more money is that, assuming your family are basically nice, it's much easier to brush over any cracks or for the children to mentally seperate themselves e.g. The house I grew up is fairly miniscule, the first thing I noticed visiting a large house was not only that they had (say) a music room [so separation] but also that the children could hide within the house outside of earshot of their parents.

I'm going off of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class#Three-level_econo...

As used in the early 1900s - I realize the term was coined even earlier than that - it referred to what today we'd likely call upper-middle-class (or if you're a fan of Engles, the bourgeoisie). White-collar, professional, well-educated, but not rich/powerful/nobility. It excluded almost the entirety of the working-class (even those who, by income, were well above poverty).

More recently, usage in the US has trended towards anybody above poverty but not quite rich (and choose your own definition of rich to suit your point). Which itself includes a massive span of incomes and lifestyles.

most people tend to think what they have isn't quite enough, twice as much would be just right, and anything more than that is excessive.

Generally those with a significant net worth live more modest lives - older cars (they might buy new, but that is because they know if they do the maintenance it will last for 15-20 years). The house might be nice for the neighborhood, but it won't be in the rich part of town. They might vacation twice a year, but they will be cheap vacations. The difference goes into funding their retirement plan, and some other savings.

Source:

https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2020-compensation-overvie...

Even with $600k to $800k ($4k to $6k per month loan payments) of student loans, they should be able to pull off a decent lifestyle and be positive net worth by their mid 40s.

In addition to student loans, there's the house payment. People tend to buy a house based on what they can be approved for, not based off of a budget number they developed before talking to a bank. A 300k salary will get you pre-approved for a a lot of house in the US. Docs and Lawyers also fall into the trap of buying practices, so that's another factor.

The biggest factor you're missing in your assumption, though, is that personal finance problems are largely behavioral. There's a parallel with personal health. The difference is that people know more about how to lose weight and be healthy - and still don't do it - then people who actually know how to make good financial decisions. Even those who know they shouldn't buy things they can't afford, routinely do so for whatever reason they have been told or have invented.

For what it's worth, the study by Ramsey Solutions says that the top 5 careers for becoming a millionaire are engineers, teachers, CPAs, attorneys, and management. While some of those are vague and capture a large range of professions, Docs are conspicuously missing.

But if you line up 100 teachers or CPAs and 100 doctors in the USA, you can sure as hell bet the doctors will be far wealthier than the teachers or CPAs.

It's a fact that US doctors, across the whole population of doctors, earn $200k+ per year, and outside of software engineers, I don't think any of the Ramsey careers earn anywhere near as much as a population (unless management includes high level execs in F500 companies?). Docs are conspicuously missing because Ramsey is trying to sell something to people with lower to moderate incomes/high debt, such as teachers/CPA/attorneys, etc and they're not targeting doctors. Doctors would never need the Ramsey website.

See the difference in advice on a website like whitecoatinvestor.com vs Ramsey.

As for assumptions about personal finance behaviors, I'm sure some doctors are bad at it, just like every other profession. But I would need some pretty firm evidence that doctors who are by any measure, very highly motivated and intelligent individuals, are somehow so poor at managing their finances that they squander $100k+ per year.

Can you provide your definition so that I can frame your comments with it?

Having $1M after decades of working at or near retirement age is the bare minimum one needs for a “decent” retirement if they want to continue their lifestyle. I know 90% of Americans don’t come close to it, but if you want security of quality of life and not worry about medical expenses, $1M will not go far in many of the places in the US that are popular.

On the other hand, when I’m putting together a real estate deal and I need a few hundred thousand dollars, I have many doctors I can call who might be able to pony up, but no teacher is going to be able to come up with that kind of investment. I know a couple of outlier engineers and CPAs who can come up with that that, but nowhere near the amount of doctors, especially as a percentage of all engineers and CPAs.

It’s just crazy to me to hear of the profession where all members are higher earners that are at $200k on the low end be put in the same bucket as teachers whose median might be $60k to $80k, in high cost of living areas.

Not that real estate is a bad investment, but a single high value deal has no diversity and so it a bad investment. If you are putting several hundred thousand into a single investment your net worth really should be closer to ten million than one.

Note that I said some doctors above. If only 1% of doctors are good with money/investments, that is a lot of doctors, and they will in general have more money than any teacher.

Student loans are the reason for this. Physicians have to pay a great deal for school in USA.

And straight out of university, you really can’t look at the average, because the income distribution of lawyers is extremely bimodal in the US: https://www.biglawinvestor.com/bimodal-salary-distribution-c...

Bottom line, based on numerous personal experiences and pay data, I do not expect lawyer/doctor families to have the quality of life the person I was responding to claim they have, on average.

If you are asking about the difference between $10k and $20k that is a big difference. If you are asking about $60k vs $600k, the difference is not nearly as big even though the first is double, with the second is 10x.

Here’s an alternate search result with similar findings:

https://c8y.doxcdn.com/image/upload/Press%20Blog/Research%20...

The students gaining admissions to top unis are largely self-motivated, extremely smart, and would have chosen high-quality activities on their own.

Looking back at my own childhood, I chose my sports, music, and other activities. My parents enabled them, but never forced me into them. Would forcing me to play an additional sport, or forcing me to attend after-school tutoring made the difference between UVA and Harvard? I doubt it. And what did attending UVA instead of Harvard cost me? Hard to say for sure, but I'm inclined to say "not much" as I'm happily upper-middle-class as it is.

And considering my high school peers who did attend Ivies and similar, most of them either smarter or harder working than me.

I remember reading a study about this exact topic and it turns out name brand has little to do with career success in meritocratic career paths - i.e., upper-middle white collar professionals such as engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc.

I guess my conclusion is to be aware of your child's personality. If they aspire to be an engineer, they could probably go anywhere, even gasp Virginia Tech and do fine. However if they aspire to be a politician, then they'd probably be best served to attend the highest grade institution they can so they can be socialized into that in-group.

Flashes back to massive football losses... "It's alright, it's ok, we're gonna be your boss someday!" College students can be such insecure jerks.

(but, yeah, totally agree - the vast majority of students will do just fine with a degree from Big State U)

Also, I do find it bad when parents push their child from an overly young age into some specific thing, but at the same time the reality is, that both physical and mental development improvements in such a young age have a really profound effect. So looking at a 5 years old play the violin is sad in one way, but at the same time at his/her teenage years he/she can choose (at least hopefully) to continue the efforts and with an inner motivation he/she can have a bright future, much more than only starting it at 10+ years old.

As a child who had lots of free time due to living in a place with a lack of structured activities for kids, I really envy kids who can take advantage of such resources enough to have a packed daily schedule.

Yeah, the smaller the kid, the more direction they're going to need. But a 5th grader should be able to pick their activities within reason.

I mentioned it in another thread, but when I was coaching youth sports, I saw two huge (IMO) problems... first, kids specializing at a young age - 5th and 6th graders playing a single sport 9+ months of the year (vs mixing it up). Related to that was a disturbing frequency of overuse injuries in younger athletes. Baseball players coming back from summer with stress fractures in their spines from too much pitching practice and things like that.

And also a whole lot of straight-A students being forced to attend extra-curricular tutoring. I'm sure in some regions, it might be necessary to learn advanced subjects, but Fairfax County schools have robust GT/AP/honors programs and allow dual enrollment at the local community college - very few kids are running out of available maths classes, etc.

And with a robust state college system (UVA, W&M, VT, GMU, JMU, and on and on), the "penalty" for not getting into Stanford isn't much (for the majority of subjects).

Anyways, all anecdotal, but of my son's peers, the kids with the overbooked schedules didn't really go to colleges any more prestigious than anybody else. Most just ended up at one of the several excellent state colleges.

For real, I've heard some horror stories about e.g. Chinese parents pulling their kids through the grinder.

I did have "unofficial summer camps", I did play some music instruments (without teachers), I did play a lot of soccer (without teams, just in the street)... I (and the kids in my neighbourhood) did all of these without adults.

I couldnt imagine not letting my own child not do these things if they wanted to.

I think the number one thing you can do for your kid is to live in a neighborhood with lots of other kids.

I'm guessing "summer camp" for most other kids is of a longer duration?