For you young'uns

spikefan · Post by **spikefan** » Mon May 21, 2007 8:08 am

Excellent post Filth, as a man of the 50's I can relate completely. I immediately forwarded to my son who is 23 and had never been allowed failure, nor even freedom to make mistakes.

It's easy to blame trial lawyers but the reality is we should blame ourselves, I remember buying my son a Nintendo when he was six, I beat him at it for the first six month and the rest is history...

BenDoolan · Post by **BenDoolan** » Mon May 21, 2007 10:11 am

I was amazed at the detail in which everything I read was just about exactly how it was for me. Great post!!!!!

Was it Costas Kilias that sent you this? I've heard him do a presentation on similar themes....

swoodley · Post by **swoodley** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:18 am

I showed this to my 11 year old daughter and she had trouble believing that there was a time when there were no computer games etc. When she tells me she's bored and I tell her to go outside and play, she says "but what will I do?" Play basketball, jump on the trampoline, swim in the pool.

Luckily, she's quite keen on basketball and is always ready for a quick shoot around in the backyard.

And the bit about drinking water out of the hose horrifed her

She cringes when she sees me do something like that

jimmyc1985 · Post by **jimmyc1985** » Mon May 21, 2007 12:19 pm

Meh. I hold parents about 75% responsible if they have a child living at home who's overweight. Apple never falls too far from the tree.

spikefan · Post by **spikefan** » Mon May 21, 2007 1:59 pm

With all due respect Jimmy, this article is not about children being overweight.

It is about children being overly protected, more controlled and incredibly spoiled -in both a good and a bad sense- materially and intellectually. Maybe some good simple fun is lost at the expense of increased "productivity".

An example with footy is this recent article by James Hird which I thought was quite good. Old VFL vs AFL: The Brand.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/ ... 20,00.html

My kids are definitely not overweight and I am not nostalgic of the past. It's just interesting to see what is changing.

swoodley · Post by **swoodley** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:21 pm

Well said Spike

I saw a little boy walking to school the other day and was amazed that he was on his own...he looked to be about 6-7

Then I remembered that when I was his age (40 years ago) I used to walk to school every day.

My 11 yo has never done that...the best she has done is that she has started riding to school with a friend once a week this year. Other than that she gets driven to and from school every day.

In terms of being spoilt...she and one of her friends were discussing their upcoming holidays in front of her friend's mother and I the other day. Her friend is off to Europe for 4-5 weeks with all the long haul flights being in business class.

We're off to the US for 5 weeks later in the year.

I looked at them and told them that the first time I left Victoria was when I was 12 and caught the train to sydney with my under age football club.

My first flight was when I was 20 and that was the same age that I went overseas for the first time (this will be my daughter's 4th trip O/S and I've lost count of how many times she has been on a plane).

I'm not sure that they're spoilt...it's just that a lot of parents today have a lot more disposable income than their parents and also have different ideas on what to do with that money ie spend some now enjoying life as distinct from saving it all for a rainy day.

Boyler_Room · Post by **Boyler_Room** » Tue May 22, 2007 9:43 am

They do the rounds.... I got one about being a child of the 80s quite a while ago. It's just your usual chain mail email thing, but those ones are usually pretty good.

Sismis · Post by **Sismis** » Tue May 22, 2007 9:52 am

I read a good article while I was at uni. It was called "Let them eat dirt". Basically saying that with the cleaning technology we have today, many people houses are more disinfected than a hospital needs to be. This is especially true for people with newborns. The downside to this is that children are not exposed to a lot of bacteria and therefore do not gain the proper immune defences. Couple this with the reduced effectiveness of antibiotics (one cause of which is over prescription to overanxious parents) and a lot of children could be in real strife when they have to attend the germ factories of childcare and school.

On another note, my partner works in holiday care and has a list of kids on her wall who have allergies and epipens. I cannot believe the ammount of children getting around with life threatening allergies! There is a friggen epidemic. I cannot rememeber one child in my youth dying of anaphalaxis, in fact I can only recall one incident in news of this occuring at all! Any parents here have children with epipens? I'd be very interested as to how the child was diagnosed.

dodgey · Post by **dodgey** » Tue May 22, 2007 1:14 pm

swoodley wrote:Well said Spike

I saw a little boy walking to school the other day and was amazed that he was on his own...he looked to be about 6-7

Then I remembered that when I was his age (40 years ago) I used to walk to school every day.

My 11 yo has never done that...the best she has done is that she has started riding to school with a friend once a week this year. Other than that she gets driven to and from school every day.
In terms of being spoilt...she and one of her friends were discussing their upcoming holidays in front of her friend's mother and I the other day. Her friend is off to Europe for 4-5 weeks with all the long haul flights being in business class.

We're off to the US for 5 weeks later in the year.

I looked at them and told them that the first time I left Victoria was when I was 12 and caught the train to sydney with my under age football club.

My first flight was when I was 20 and that was the same age that I went overseas for the first time (this will be my daughter's 4th trip O/S and I've lost count of how many times she has been on a plane).

I'm not sure that they're spoilt...it's just that a lot of parents today have a lot more disposable income than their parents and also have different ideas on what to do with that money ie spend some now enjoying life as distinct from saving it all for a rainy day.

It would depend on How far you are from the school ( doesn't seem too far if she can Ride), but IMO an 11yo that still gets driven to and from school each day is a concern and exactly the point of Filthy's POST.

My 7yo walks to and from school each day on his own ( granted it's not far and he has no roads to cross) and I hope that by the time his little brother goes to school in 3 years time that he will be responsible enough to ensure he gets to and from school with him as well.