Posted on 04/01/2006 10:47:10 AM PST by Incorrigible
Supportive neighborhoods were defined as close-knit, with adults who watched out for children's safety, spoke up when they saw bad behavior and were willing to help a neighbor.
It takes a village!! ;-)
Actually, it sounds like a neighborhood with married, stay-at-home parents and multiple children per couple in various age groups. Hmmmm, I wonder if such a neighborhood is likely to have a lot of Conservatives in it???
I'd hate to pay for a game of pick-up football... speaking of living behind a computer, spell check is not always one's best friend.
Too many lawyers......send them to the fields to pick lettuce replacing Mexicans.
Great article...
Two weeks ago I took in a couple of neglected boys. I just told them to go out to play (11 and 12 yo), and they looked at me dumbstruck. They have no idea what to do, so they are sitting on the porch clueless as I write this. Article is right on.
When I was a kid before we got a phone, and computers and Playstations, I stayed in my room reading books. Now, I at least get a little exercise moving my fingers on the keyboard and interupt the kids' video game play with discussions of FR topics. Throw in inviting their friends along for full days of caching with the aid of a gps and what's so wrong with today's way of life with gizmos and gadgets?
I live on a cul-de-sac and the only girl closest in age to my third grade daughter is 3 grades higher. The boys on the street aren't much for playing with a girl so my daughter is hoping someone will move out!
She has a play date over as I type but it's raining out.
In the winter if it's really cold and there's no snow, my daughter and I play Pokemon combat on the Game Cube. She's going to be a geek just like her dad!
:-)
Gee, when my boys were young, I used to throw them out in the back yard (fenced) and tell them to play instead of letting them watch TV. I was pretty young myself, but I knew kids needed to be outside moving around, not sitting around in the house (and bugging me!) Or, I would take them to the park to play. I cannot imagine that starting to watch hours and hours of tv at a young age is good for them.
susie
Look up the Megan's law list -- how many of those who were even caught are listed, and they are nearby, and they haven't reported to their probation officers or are missing/unaccounted for. Even with a fenced yard, I think kids are at risk.
That's why parents don't let their kids play unsupervised, if you ask me.
This is a crock. I live in a residential neighborhood in a major US city. The first day of Spring here, with snow still on the ground, the kids came boiling out of their houses, the basketball hoops were rolled out of the garage, the bicycles had their tires pumped up and the parade of kids outside began.
It will continue until the snow falls again next Winter.
My neighborhood is very mixed ethnically, and all the kids play together in the street, in everyone's yards, and very enthusiastically.
Most of the neigbors around me keep their curtains and draperies open, and all the neighborhood adults keep an eye on the kids, whether they have any themselves or not.
I'm grandpa age, so there are no kids in my house. Still, the word is out: I have tools, and I'm home during the day. I fix the kids' bikes when they break, and anything esle they need fixed.
I never advertised that, but the kids started coming to my door, saying, "Hey, mister, can you fix my bike" within a week of my moving into the neighborhood.
Feels like old times here, and this is a big city.
Actually, it is mentioned in the article. I would have to agree that this fear is overblown and sensationalized by the media.
Ha!! I was just in the garage this morning raising my daughter's bicycle seat to as high as it can go (argh, she's getting so big I need to teach her how to use the hand brakes on my wife's bike). I repaired a tube on my son's bike too.
The old fisher price basketball hoop just isn't cutting it for them anymore. I'll have to get one of the bigger ones.
Amazing how we survived as kids huh.
If no one could play there was always the imaginary freind.
I can even remember as a young teen going on adventures all over the Bay Area on Bart and never worried about predators.
As I remember it everyone was coming or going to a job and during working hours if I played hookey to go ride the BART from Concord to San Fran the trains empty during work hours.
Boy I had fun.
What happened?
You are part of the problem with your hysteria. There are no more predators now than there was "back then," you just hear about more of them because you live in a wired world where you can tune into Court TV 24 hours a day. Back in the day your local newspaper didn't report of missing teens in Aruba, nor was stories like that on the 30-minutes-a-day TV news.
My son and daughter grew up in a rural area. We had horses and ponies. My daughter would meet up with her girlfriends and their horses, pack a lunch, and we wouldn't see them all day. They were out riding the hills. A dinner bell would bring them in if they were in earshot. My son and neighbor boy would play in each others yards all day. Again the dinner bell...like a ranch bell...would bring them home. Did the neighborhood worry about those kids...only if they were late to dinner. I wouldn't even conceive of this now, even in our old neighborhood. The world has changed. The trail rides we had where flora and fauna were pointed out and explained. [Good times, good times]. I feel so sorry for kids now who don't have that sense of freedom and wonder for the great outdoors that my kids had. Do parents still lie out at night a point out the night sky to their kids. Teach them the constellations and stars? Now I am bring back wonderful memories I had with my kids. [A mom's big sigh]
I remember thinking my mom was over protective. More so, since she would announce it to everyone. Now, I am more over protective than she was. The difference is everyone I know is the same way.
My 10-year-old daughter has been in "the creek" all morning. She's very dirty......and happy.
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