49 sats \ 10 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Apr \ on: Japan is so child-friendly earth
I'm really interested in the way kids are given so much autonomy and responsibility in Japan. In most of America you would literally be charged with negligence for letting a little kid ride the city bus on their own or walk down to the neighborhood store.
When I was a kid, we had lots of autonomy like that and I want to allow my daughter to experience the same.
High trust society
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Yep
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It is crazy that Tokyo is so safe that little children ride the subway without adult supervision.
I think Paris was similar 30 years ago.
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The thing is, most of America is incredibly safe, too. We've become an irrationally fearful nation. There's basically no chance of a kid getting abducted by a stranger.
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During the 1980s and 90s so many TV movies about child abduction. Based on a true story!
Not trying to trivialize real tragedy
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As a parent, I certainly understand the appeal of "better safe than sorry", but kids do need those experiences of independence in order to become functional adults.
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There was that woman who wrote about letting her child ride the subway in NY.
Reason also interviewed her.
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Steven Levitt has also talked about encouraging his daughter to learn how to walk to school and back on her own.
My biggest concern with doing anything like that is getting reported to the state and charged with negligence. Many states have essentially criminalized childhood and even where they haven't, you never know how a particular state agent is going to act.
Because I was teaching at an elementary school, I remember watching second graders handle saws and other tools and feeling shocked. This would never happen in Singapore for safety reasons!
I also admire the way elementary schools teach children how to COOK. Miso soup n all that jazz. It’s such an important life skill even if it doesn’t quite translate into revenue making for the country
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That's interesting. I was using tools like that with my friends at that age, largely unsupervised, but it's hard to imagine that happening in our schools.
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