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VorpalBunny posted:Which is why more kids should do stuff like camping. I know so many parents of toddlers and young kinds who don't do outdoorsy stuff because of the hassle, so then their kids don't like getting dirty or hate to explore stuff. I take my kids to the desert a few times a year and let them clamber up rocks and fall face-first in the dirt. My 16 month old would spend his entire life outside if he could. He freaks the gently caress out when we won't go outside with him because the weather isn't good.
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Mar 27, 2014 19:20
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Axiem posted:You're in St. Louis, right? Then you totally understand what I mean when I say I can't wait until our little one is old enough to take to the City Museum. While it doesn't have the "self-configuration" of the playland they article discusses, it definitely has a lot of the little nooks and crannies for kids to discover--not to mention the "danger" aspect of some of the parts. Wait until they're about 5ish. Tougher, more coordinated, but still small and crazy.  We've taken our oldest, but not our youngest yet.And take some Advil before you go to bed afterwards. Trust me, your hips and knees are not five. 
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Mar 27, 2014 19:50
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FishBulb posted:Do they even make merry go rounds any more? I haven't seen one in forever You mean death mobiles? No, they don't. The playgrounds they've been building in my city are unbelievable, I wish they'd replace every single playground in the city with these things. They are a million times better than anything we had as kids:     
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Mar 27, 2014 20:20
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Axiem posted:In case people didn't notice it, the Atlantic has an article about how modern parenting is destroying our children (if you haven't read enough of them already). It's a reasonable read. Eh. In college, we had to read Hesiod, and he pretty much said the same thing, how kids were getting all up in that new-fangled literacy thing, instead of improving their martial prowess. And... Oh, shoot. All those children he was complaining about? They're all dead! And their civilization? Crushed under the iron heels of the Macedonians! Quickly, let us scrap our TVs and Nerf bats and pass out junior bayonets and BB guns to our children so they are prepared for our next imperial adventure! Seriously, tho, a lot of hand wringing about how kids are too soft or whatever. Without any of that fancy ”evidence” to back it up, just what his ol' gut tells him.
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Mar 27, 2014 20:51
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There's a pretty big difference between being over-protective, and not letting kids mess with stuff or play on equipment that is outright dangerous. The whole fire portion of that article made me super uncomfortable. How many of the kids playing with it know basic fire safety rules? That's just basic "Keep your rear end alive" sense, not over-protectiveness. I'm sure the "Benefits overweigh the risks" line will make everyone feel better when some kid is in the ICU with third degree burns.
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Mar 27, 2014 21:30
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Papercut posted:You mean death mobiles? No, they don't. The remodels are pretty amazing but I miss this thing in Delores Park:  People have been talking about "free-range children" for a while, but one thing I did find to be a new thought in that Atlantic article was the idea that kids never have a space where they feel totally unwatched. That really is true now because even if you're permissive enough to let them roam their neighborhood, you most likely give your kid a phone. I admit some of the stuff we did as kids in the 70's seems crazy to me now, like we had all these paths through the apartments like "duck through this laundry room, jump onto this balcony, land on the grass on the other side of the wall" that our kids will experience. My kids have never climbed a chain link fence or a barbed wire fence, for that matter (which we did so we could look for bullets behind the shooting range). But did that not sound insane, like something you'd never let your kid do? Because it was! There were a fair amount of bad things that came along with that like getting beat up and not to mention felt up by older kids. And yet a parent who wouldn't have let their kid out to roam would have been frowned upon because that wasn't the cultural norm. We've moved on as a society.
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Mar 27, 2014 21:41
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Papercut posted:You mean death mobiles? No, they don't. I recognize Delores Park but where are the others from?
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Mar 27, 2014 23:00
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fork bomb posted:I recognize Delores Park but where are the others from? Second one is Koret playground in Golden Gate Park (right by the carousel), and then 2 pictures from the new playground at Lafayette Park which is my favorite of the 3 (the mini water park owns).
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Mar 27, 2014 23:06
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hepscat posted:I admit some of the stuff we did as kids in the 70's seems crazy to me now I remember a big field behind our housing complex was a construction site where more buildings were being built. As 6-year olds, we would wander around the machinery, climbing through the pipes, and generally being idiots around really dangerous stuff. No way in hell my kids are doing such stupid stuff, and I marvel at the fact that no one was seriously injured (as far as I know).
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Mar 28, 2014 00:19
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In the late 90s I spent all my time in a creek behind our property. I built a zipline and it broke mid line and I got stabbed in the chest with a tree branch and also came close to breaking my jaw  I'd totally do it all again.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:23
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/\/\Late 90's...Whippersnapper. I feel  hepscat posted:I admit some of the stuff we did as kids in the 70's seems crazy to me now, like we had all these paths through the apartments like "duck through this laundry room, jump onto this balcony, land on the grass on the other side of the wall" that our kids will experience. My kids have never climbed a chain link fence or a barbed wire fence, for that matter (which we did so we could look for bullets behind the shooting range). Remember being told to get out and play all day during the summer? Don't come back until lunch, and then go play some more until dinner. Riding my bike for miles and miles, drinking from other peoples garden hoses, playing in the abandoned pig farm near my house. Holy poo poo, the nonsense I used to do. And there was an entire pack of us! As my kids are getting a bit older, I try so hard to strike a balance, but I'm finding it really difficult.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:30
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I feel like a lot of it has to be neighborhood-based. we lucked out when we moved down here, the neighborhood we live in has enough children that it is a strange day in the spring or summer when an urchin or ten doesn't ring my doorbell and ask if the boys can come out and play. My kids are on a shorter leash than I was at their ages though not really deliberately, just, they don't ask, and they don't really have the kinds of huge spans of time that I did as a kid. School eats up a lot more hours than it did when I was a kid, and if you just try to stack peewee soccer and robots league in on top of it, there isn't that much time. Same with summers, the school year is longer, we take more out-of-town vacations, and there just aren't as many 6-8 hour "and don't come back till dinner" stretches for kid to make their way down to the trestle to smoke and smash bottles with delinquents and undesirables.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:47
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I found the article's claim that even with modern safety equipment injuries have not gone down to be dubious. The survey article I read said that data isn't great, but it seems that the new height restrictions and safety requirements (particularly padded ground as opposed to concrete/asphalt) has made a huge reduction in skull fractures and debilitating head injuries. Kids still break their arms plenty though, since the mechanics are different. Kids are still being kids. Ref: Norton, Nixon, Sibert, Archives of Disease in Childhood, 2004 http://adc.bmj.com/
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Mar 28, 2014 01:32
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TacoNight posted:I found the article's claim that even with modern safety equipment injuries have not gone down to be dubious. The survey article I read said that data isn't great, but it seems that the new height restrictions and safety requirements (particularly padded ground as opposed to concrete/asphalt) has made a huge reduction in skull fractures and debilitating head injuries. Kids still break their arms plenty though, since the mechanics are different. Kids are still being kids. I would assume that the number of injuries wouldn't really be affected, but the severity of injuries would. Kids these days don't appreciate the beauty of an ivory-white bone sticking out of their arm, I tell you what. Kids are still clumsy as hell. I used to be of the mindset "Well, if kids are gonna be dumb, maybe they deserve to be hurt, Darwinism et cetera." As I've grown older, less stupid, and have started to feel the desire to have children of my own, I don't think like that anymore. Some safety measures seem like overkill or whatever but I'd rather there be a bunch less sad parents/grandparents/siblings/friends/so forth in the world and a few more bruised but not buried kids. The "back in my day" arguments regarding child safety often just sound dumb. Like, our exponential ancestors didn't cook the meat they ate and they survived, obviously this was the key to their success as a species and we should return to such a practice
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Mar 28, 2014 02:44
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Slo-Tek posted:I feel like a lot of it has to be neighborhood-based. Also the empty lots we used to play in have turned into tract housing, condos, and in one case, an interstate highway. Empty space in an urban area is really at a premium these days, so the only open spaces for my kids are the city parks (and a few private spaces).
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Mar 28, 2014 03:13
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Blue Moonlight posted:Our youngest was like that, until, of all things, we went to IKEA. He desperately wanted to go into Smäland, and we told him that if he went, he'd have to wear underwear, since they don't let kids who are in pullups or diapers in. He pulled on his underwear, and aside from a random accident here or there, has been trained ever since. He knew what he needed to do already, he just wasn't doing it. Cimber posted:Dad', who else here is pissed off by parenting magazines that only talk about mom. Parent's Magazine is a prime example of this. Pictures of mom, articles written for mom, no discussion of dad. I remember one headliner from a few months back that said "What to do when he won't help you with the kids" I am (was) a stay-at-home-dad and was pretty offended by this in the beginning, but I've gotten used to it as the years have worn on. (Munchkin is 4.5 now.) The biggest hurdle in me getting over this was starting a stay-at-home-dads group in my town. Attendance has ebbed and flowed, but we grew a core of 3-5 guys (and one cool chick) and once I was no longer getting ignored at "mommy and me" groups, my self-esteem grew leaps and bounds. FishBulb posted:Do they even make merry go rounds any more? I haven't seen one in forever
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Mar 28, 2014 07:50
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You know what I haven't seen that I used to love? Giant metal centipedes, usually in a sandbox, painted all colorful. You could climb all over them.
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Mar 28, 2014 12:03
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sweeperbravo posted:I would assume that the number of injuries wouldn't really be affected, but the severity of injuries would. Kids these days don't appreciate the beauty of an ivory-white bone sticking out of their arm, I tell you what. Having had to learn far too much about organ transplants recently, it is interesting (terrifying) that summer and New Year are the peak seasons for paediatric transplants. New bikes & adventure holidays give regular spikes in the supply of small organs.
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Mar 28, 2014 14:06
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Cimber posted:Dad', who else here is pissed off by parenting magazines that only talk about mom. Parent's Magazine is a prime example of this. Pictures of mom, articles written for mom, no discussion of dad. I remember one headliner from a few months back that said "What to do when he won't help you with the kids" I  at my baby gate everyday. 
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Mar 28, 2014 19:13
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Men can wear heels.
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Mar 28, 2014 21:50
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VorpalBunny posted:I remember a big field behind our housing complex was a construction site where more buildings were being built. As 6-year olds, we would wander around the machinery, climbing through the pipes, and generally being idiots around really dangerous stuff. No way in hell my kids are doing such stupid stuff, and I marvel at the fact that no one was seriously injured (as far as I know). You just brought up a memory that I used to ride this scooter thing in the construction site down the block from my house and I remember my mom telling me not to leave it there because one day it was going to get covered up by the new building, and sure enough - one day I went out and they had poured concrete and I forever thought of my scooter being buried under the new apartments. I came home one time with a 5-6" slash down my stomach because we had made a "slide" in the construction dirt and I had slid down on my stomach over a shard of glass sticking up. Again, as a parent - WTF? I still have a scar. THANKS MOM. Why are merry-go-rounds on the poo poo list? Not only were they loads of fun, they taught kids about physics. Ron Jeremy posted:I Not just a mom, but one from the 1950's.
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Mar 29, 2014 05:09
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I think, like many things no longer considered 'safe' for children, a few kids got seriously hurt or died, and due to lots of reasons (risk of litigation, bad publicity, etc) the people that plan kiddy parks stopped putting them in. I personally think some things have been made better but there is also something that's been lost. I grew up on a farm so my sense of what danger and acceptable risk is may be different from others.
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Mar 29, 2014 05:50
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hepscat posted:Why are merry-go-rounds on the poo poo list? Not only were they loads of fun, they taught kids about physics. The lesson plan is: - acceleration (child spins up merry go round to a rapid pace) - centrifugal force (child falls off spinning merry go round) - momentum (merry go round continues spinning rapidly) - impulse (child gets up next to merry go round, rapidly spinning metal bar connected to 250kg of mass connects with child's skull) - compression (child's skull is fractured) A lesson plan for MANSLAUGHTER  Really though, I think the core issue is, as mentioned, additional liability and appetite for risk. Because so many things end in lawsuits for reasons we probably shouldn't get into, organizations don't want anything that could possibly be considered a legal liability, regardless of externalities. Volmarias fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Mar 29, 2014 |
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Mar 29, 2014 13:06
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The park by my house used to have a more modern version of a merry-go-round. It looked just like the one in this article: http://www.marinij.com/ci_19785273 and my kids LOVED it. It was pretty cool in that it had that "element of risk" in that it was pretty easy to feel like you were about to fall off the drat thing, but it actually moved kinda slow and the fall was such a short distance that it wasn't much more dangerous than a fall off a couch. Plus, no railings to whack you or get entangled in. The county redid that park last year, getting rid of the merry-go-round and all the other play structures even though they couldn't have been there for more than 10 years. The new playground says it's for kids 6-10 but is so dumbed down by safety guidelines that my kids hate it and now refuse to play at that playground. Actually now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen a kid over the age of 5 playing at that playground. We still go back to that park on occasion (it also has a big lake where we go fishing, and the kids like to catch frogs and feed the snapping turtles there) and I've never seen any older kids other than ourselves at that park since the new playground was installed. Marchegiana fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Mar 29, 2014 |
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Mar 29, 2014 15:08
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I know most of the merry-go-rounds started disappearing after Jackass showed them starting one like those old gyroscope tops with a string by tying a long rope to the back of a truck. The guy inside was carefully positioned to not fly out and just got criminally dizzy, but shortly afterwards some dumbasses spun one at their local playground at a million RPM's with the back tire of a moped and someone flew out and died. The only ones I can find now have practically no free spin so that once you let go of pushing them, they stop. Trying to spin a child on them is like raising the anchor on an old ship.
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Mar 29, 2014 18:32
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Amykinz posted:The only ones I can find now have practically no free spin so that once you let go of pushing them, they stop. Trying to spin a child on them is like raising the anchor on an old ship.
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Mar 29, 2014 19:00
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I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but our picky eater makes me bonkers sometimes. He's 2.5 and doesn't eat a lot as is. he's healthy and all that, his pediatrician has no concerns about his weight, but getting him to eat a vegetable or most meat is a nightmare. We try to offer rewards, and often times that is not enough. He'll often opt to go without dinner or not get to watch a cartoon over one piece of carrot the size of a dime. Even things like putting chese on cauliflower doesn't help. We're going to try some recipes that use something like cauliflower to make a crust and give him "pizza" but even assuming this works it is so frustrating. It can't be reasonable for him to eat pbj, fruit, pizza, and chicken nuggets his entire life (this is his diet of choice) I understand his tastes will change, but that is some far distant future I can not imagine.
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Mar 30, 2014 19:32
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jassi007 posted:I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but our picky eater makes me bonkers sometimes. He's 2.5 [...]. I don't want to scare you, but I didn't eat cheese or any kind of sauce or cooked vegetable until I was 18 or 19. But maybe peer pressure will help when he gets older, like if he's invited to a friend's birthday party and everyone eats a certain food that he usually doesn't like.
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Mar 30, 2014 19:52
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jassi007 posted:I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but our picky eater makes me bonkers sometimes. He's 2.5 and doesn't eat a lot as is. he's healthy and all that, his pediatrician has no concerns about his weight, but getting him to eat a vegetable or most meat is a nightmare. We try to offer rewards, and often times that is not enough. He'll often opt to go without dinner or not get to watch a cartoon over one piece of carrot the size of a dime. Even things like putting chese on cauliflower doesn't help. We're going to try some recipes that use something like cauliflower to make a crust and give him "pizza" but even assuming this works it is so frustrating. It can't be reasonable for him to eat pbj, fruit, pizza, and chicken nuggets his entire life (this is his diet of choice) I understand his tastes will change, but that is some far distant future I can not imagine. Involve your kid in the cooking of stuff. My kids are about typical picky, but taking them to the grocery store, or the seed catalog has been a reliable way to get more things on their plate. My kids selected and watered and grew their own snow peas and cherry tomatoes as part of their chores, and got really into the idea. Now they will now eat anything snowpea or cherry-tomato like, which is enough to get fiber and lycopene and suchlike into them. I suggest not making a fight/punishment/reward over it. You are never ever going to out-stubborn a 2.5 year old about what they put in their mouths. Put food you want them to eat on their plate (in small quantity) and say "you don't have to eat it, but if you don't then there are no seconds, and no snacks, and no deserts. This isn't a punishment, it is just the rules. Eat what we serve, and you can choose what goes on your plate next. Don't eat what we serve, and maybe you'll like what we serve tomorrow better...or not. Kid won't starve to death.
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Mar 30, 2014 19:53
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jassi007 posted:I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but our picky eater makes me bonkers sometimes. He's 2.5 and doesn't eat a lot as is... Slo-Tek is right, kids won't starve, and getting them involved in growing and cooking food is a fantastic great. Further to that, I'd really recommend Ellyn Satter's book "How to get your kid to eat, but not too much". Her premise is that parents and kids have different responsibilities at mealtimes; you're responsible for feeding and your kid is responsible for eating. So it's up to you to provide healthy food at regular times, and it's up to the kid to decide how much they want to eat. This has really helped to take all the emotion/ battles/ bargaining out of mealtimes for us - I feel like I've done my job once the plate is in front of them (well, apart from nagging about good table manners!).
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Mar 30, 2014 20:59
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We've always had a rule that you have to try everything once, and you don't reload your plate or get dessert until you clear it the first time. This includes different preparations of similar foods, so we've been able to keep our guy going until he finds a version he likes.
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Mar 30, 2014 21:02
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Slo-Tek posted:Put food you want them to eat on their plate (in small quantity) and say "you don't have to eat it, but if you don't then there are no seconds, and no snacks, and no deserts. This isn't a punishment, it is just the rules. I second this. I our house, it sounds something like, "If your tummy was too full to eat more than one bite of [dinner], than it is surely too full for a snack (or treat) after bath. Since you're still hungry, I saved your plate from dinner." jassi007, don't be a short order cook in your desire to get him to eat. If you made spaghetti for dinner, that's what's for dinner. Not spaghetti for everyone else, and nuggets for him. I have seen the adult aftermath of this, and it is not pretty. This is not to say that everyone isn't allowed their likes and dislikes, but there's got to be a line in the sand. My kids don't like cooked spinach or greens. Saag, collard greens, creamed spinach, none of it. They each still have to take one small bite, every time I make something like that "just in case their tongue changed it's mind", but then they can move on and eat whatever alternative vegetable I've made that they do like. I figure, one day their tastes actually might change. I used to like beets as a kid, and now I dislike them very much. But I never used to like asparagus, and as an adult, I love it. And yeah, kids won't starve. Edit: Getting ours involved in the garden has been a wild success, but beware, it can be a bit too successful. I have to fence my children out of the carrots and strawberries as much as I do the rabbits. They'll go out there and pull up the wee little half grown carrots and eat them, dirt and all, if left to their own devices. And the strawberry patch we have to lock down like Ft. Knox, otherwise it'd be over before any made it in the house.
AlistairCookie fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 30, 2014 |
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Mar 30, 2014 21:03
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When Alex only eats a little, she gets fair warning then Dad starts to eat her dinner very noisily. Usually Dad going "Haumph! Haumph!" is enough to get her back to the table for a few more bites. Sometimes it's a "one for you, one for me" kind of arrangement, but it gets her on board.
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Mar 30, 2014 21:20
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So my wife sat me down for a  Serious Talk last night about me playing too rough with our 4 year old daughter. Nothing like I'm going to hurt her, just that now she likes to play rough with everyone, including Mommy, who is three months pregnant. We have been talking about what age would be right to get her involved in some kind of children's martial arts, to give her a more contructive and organized physical outlet than wrestling with me (and also hopefully teach her some self control, kid has no idea that pulling punches is a thing). Any thoughts on when a child is old enough to benefit from babby's first karate?
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Mar 30, 2014 21:28
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Mr. Bad Guy posted:So my wife sat me down for a I started karate when I was 4. I'd think it'd be important to go to a dojo that specializes in kids, and knows how to interact with them.
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Mar 30, 2014 22:59
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 This poo poo irritates me.
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Apr 2, 2014 08:42
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Yeah gently caress off, dads 
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Apr 2, 2014 09:17
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Ron Jeremy posted:This poo poo irritates me. The same patriarchy that automatically pigeon holes women into homemaker rolls, also doesn't consider men to be capable of being a nurturing, caring parent--in the same way moms are. So you get signs like this. Sometimes the knife cuts both ways, and hurts us all. Dads are just as much "family" as moms are, and should not in any way need extra signage--of course. I'm sorry. (It's the same phenomena you see reading any single article about any powerful woman in any roll having to be referred to as a "female" such and such.)
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Apr 2, 2014 14:16
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Making food fun is great for getting kids to eat. My kids never would eat eggs till after we dyed them one year for Easter, after that they couldn't get enough of them, we started dying them year round. Now they eat them without dying them, pretty much because they ran out of patience and wanted to eat them NOW NOW NOW, and I'm like "well if you want it NOW NOW NOW, we don't have time to dye".
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Apr 2, 2014 15:54
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| # ? May 15, 2024 18:57 |
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DRINKING FOUNTAIN COLOREDS WELCOME
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Apr 2, 2014 16:34
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