In Switzerland you'd get called by the teacher if you don't let your kid walk by itself to kindergarten, because independence and learning and all.

We just moved to Sweden from Missouri; yesterday I picked up our 3yo from daycare and had this exchange:

Kid: <Happily playing with clay>

Teacher: Oh, by the way, he fell out of a small tree today, he was climbing and fell, so he may have a small bruise, just so you are aware

Me: Oh ok. What tree?

Teacher: Oh we took them to <forest 5 miles from daycare> and grilled hot dogs today!

Kid: I found a snail!

God! This is so AWESOME!!! Freedom

I have visited nurseries that don't let kids go out to the playground when it rains... in the UK! I suspect some of my child classmates were Gremlins.

Wednesday is forest trip day, weather schmeather. Once after a stormy Wednesday the kindergarten stayed closed for the rest of the week as most of the involved - kids and educators - got a cold. Still Switzerland yes.

LOL. We've got Gremlins here in Belgrade, Serbia too.

But in my kid's preschool (for 5-6 year olds), when they were presenting a plan for this year and how they'll be crossing the street to another of their buildings for a few hours, one of the parents was worried they'll do that even if it rains or snows!

When asked how will they bring their kid to preschool not dressed for the elements, it was (not-surprisingly) "by car". I guess going outside is limited to sunny weather for their kids!

To be fair I have nothing against this especially in kindergarten's muddy garden, everything will be completely dirty and kids wet, some of them may not have change and even in free time I am not really fan of playing outside in rain, everything is slipper, easy to fall down and make yourself dirty or hurt yourself when climbing on slippery stuff. I don't mind if they go for walk in waterproof stuff in rain.

Have you seen the open recess space ? ( kids playing in a non enclosed area, just delimited with poles )

How did they get to that forest 5 miles away?

The city has buses specifically equipped for small kids / toddlers, which the various daycares take turns using

Could it be the deluge of televised fear-inducing content ? A great deal anxiety feeds on this distorted view of "what's happening".

But go and have a walk. What do you see "happening" ? nothing.

Well, part of the problem is our infrastructure choices over the past many decades. When you build suburbs that are very isolated from places you need to go and then need to drive to literally everything you do, nearly everyone starts viewing normal activities like walking to a grocery store as abnormal. As a result, kids can’t actually go anywhere until they turn 16 and get a car. :/

There are a lot of excellent videos about this sad problem, like this: https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw

But at the end of the day, when it’s not actually possible to be independent every day, you just loose this culture. And countries that made different infrastructure and development decisions 6 decades ago are in a much better place today — it doesn’t have to be this way.

I think this is a very important point. City planning/the space we live in is basically presetting the architecture of our daily life.