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Comment by brightball | Hacker News Reader

It’s such a strange blend of wanting to let your kids roam while being more aware of dangers that exist, both online and off.

It’s tough. For my son, Scouts have been wonderful for his independence. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

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> It’s such a strange blend of wanting to let your kids roam while being more aware of dangers that exist, both online and off.

Unaccompanied roaming is, by it's nature, offline-centric.

The primary, actual risks to children who are roaming are those that involve law enforcement and intolerant adults.

What does not present a meaningful risk to unaccompanied children is strangers.

> For my son, Scouts have been wonderful for his independence. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

I was in scouting leadership for 15 years. Units that function in a way that remove adults from the picture are as good as you say. It doesn't come close to replacing what we've taken from kids but it's better than the nothing they have now.

    Unaccompanied roaming is, by it's nature, offline-centric.

Sorta? I think it is fair to say that independent access to the internet is a form of roaming, as well. Used to, it also involved dial-up management and maybe a known profile on Prodigy/AOL/Compuserve. Nowadays, it probably just means a device on the network.

I agree with where you're coming from, but would point out that the commercial-surveillance Web is more of a managed experience than the free range one we experienced on the early Internet. So Internet time is likely more akin to dropping your kids off at the mall rather than letting them roam in the woods.

If they've got the interest and aptitude to actually dig into computers and how they work (not just programming, but programming is a large part of it), and/or self-actualize in free form building games, that feels like it qualifies as undirected play. But not everyone is going to be so interested in deep computing.

I think that same argument can be made for a lot of the commercial-surveillance that happens in stores and such now. The idea that you can hang out behind the store without being seen is... probably not entirely accurate nowadays.

To be sure, they are different.

Sure, things have changed across the board to pervasive surveillance. But if you're hanging out behind a store, it's not like the security guard will come and try to convince you to go shopping in the store instead. Whereas online there is an ever-present siren song to skip doing your own thing and play with the dopamine-hole entertainment options instead.

I mean, maybe? I suspect you aren't from a dangerous town/city where getting recruited outside a shop is a thing. :)

> The primary, actual risks to children who are roaming are those that involve law enforcement and intolerant adults.

Any statistics on that ?

I grew up in 90s and in a family with 5 younger siblings my mother couldn't keep up. I got hit by a car running across the street at 6 (I think I was that age). I would roam local forest and street - visiting there recently I remembered how I went to pick up my ball once and nearly pulled through grabbing on a small tree. I kind of remember local people running up to the fence and yelling me back. I had no perception of how dangerous it was back then - looking at it now it was ~ 10 m drop on sharp rocks - if I slid through I was probably dead. I remember a similar experience roaming a nearby forest next to a highway tunel exit.

Looking back I'm lucky to be alive. I have only one son and will probably get to have one more child, no 6 kids strategy for me.

The thought of my son having a similar childhood terrifies me.

We call that trauma an anecdote, that's orthogonal to whether modern American culture is conducive to children roaming. Anecdotally I also grew up in the 90s and I wonder how playing cops n robbers feeling 100% safe before curfew shaped me, my kid never will. We had cars as well but I don't have the equivalent to your story re: fast traffic;save that we had it nearby as well and roamed far with parents telling us to avoid it.

Anyway, sorry for the injury and the carelessness.

My perspective is that we went from trains being novel and a radio unheard of to handing toddlers iPads in a few centuries. Biology doesn't evolve that fast. It makes me wonder what an alien looking in would consider closer to child abuse given your comment. Unfettered iPad access or teaching a kid fast cars and roads are dangerous so going outside is bad.

I wonder about this a lot. I have a handful of similar stories about nearly dying as a child too, as do most of my friends. But none of us have any stories about knowing someone who accidentally died as a result of doing something dangerous as a kid, even though I'd expect a few of those given how dangerous we all think our childhoods were. Of course, with the reach of the Internet, I'm sure at least somebody reading this does have a more unfortunate story.

Anyway, it makes me wonder if maybe we were more aware of how to avoid danger as kids then we give ourselves credit for. Maybe only at the last minute, when instinct takes over and you cling tightly to a branch when you notice your balance shifting, or clutch your oversized stuffed dolphin to your chest when you trip on the newly de-carpeted stairs directly onto a large exposed nail that pierces through the dolphin instead of your lung.

It's hard to know how protective to be, and I guess I'd rather err on the safer side, where the consequence of being wrong is that my child is just developmentally stunted instead of dead. But either way, making the wrong choice kinda sucks.

Seeing how I was the odd one out in my generation (poor/large family in the neighborhood) comparing myself to peers I don't see the value of my undirected roaming.

For example I remember having a huge leap in physical abilities when I started takng taekwondo classes around that age. After school activities let me thinker with stuff.

Roaming around was just lack of better things to do. Not really seeing what my peers without those near death experiences missed out on.

But taekwondo is once a week. Roaming the forest instead of playing NES is something you did every afternoon.

I too have 2 children and struggle a lot with this question, I tend to lean towards more independence and my wife towards more supervision.

> But taekwondo is once a week.

We had 3x per week IIRC. My kid is too young still but in the next year I think I'll start taking him to judo. Add swimming classes and his week is full of activities.

kids died in swimming every year, maybe they are obvious examples.

And drunk driving accidents

6 year olds shouldn't be left alone to play on the street but if your kid is in middle school they should be allowed to bike however far their legs can take them.

But that is the thing - in Germany or Switzerland 6 years old go to and from school unsupervised. The expectation is that they can in fact play alone on the street.

Do you have 6 year old in Germany today or are you talking about your own childhood? My 6 year old went to school on his own a few times and he was the only kid in his class to do so. He now no longer does as the teacher scared my wife into thinking it's dangerous to have him cross the street on his own (it's a small street and the entire way is 5 minutes walk).

I talked with my wife and we do want him to start going alone again when he is a bit older, maybe 7 or 8. But no other kid in the lower grades does (I went to school on my own from ± the very beginning as far as I can recall).

I have friends and relatives in Germany and in Switzerland. This was standard and recommended by school in Germany.

In Switzerland, going alone started even sooner - at 5. But, the school was assigned in such a way that kid did not had to cross bigger road, kids had reflexive vests and there is regular back to school campaign targetted at drivers with "inexperienced kids on road" message.

From my experience this is not common today in Berlin (although I know it used to when we were kids).

Educate them in the perils and pitfalls of life. Tell them not to fear them, but be aware of them, then let them know you expect them to take it from there. Kids are far more capable then we give them credit for. Not long ago they were forced to work in factories to help provide for the family.

Kids are far more capable…

This is a nice sound bite, but is completely lacking a key element. At what age, precisely, is this reasonable? When are they old enough to be safe around traffic, mystery dogs, and foul weather?

I can’t know if I agree or disagree without hearing whether you prescribe this approach for fifteen year olds or five year olds.

TBH? It depends on the kid. This article itself points out not all kids are the same. Sometimes it's best to let a kid try and observe. If they handle it well then look to what a next milestone might look like.

Yes, but substance abuse, ceiminality and mortality of factory kids were all huge by our standards. They were not really handling it.

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