[jacobolus]

I have a 20 month old kid, and in my experience out and about the town, meeting other parents, going to the playground, etc., in general I find that many (most?) parents (especially of the well educated / middle class or professional type) err very far to the other side.

That is, they follow their kids around closely, telling them what to do or not to do 200 times an hour, and not letting the children try anything for themselves. «Don’t climb down those steps. Don’t climb up the slide. Don’t run. Don’t pick up those rocks. That candy wrapper is trash don’t pick it up. Don’t put the stick in your mouth. Don’t step in that puddle. Stay far away from that dog poop. Stay on the path. Don’t kick that ball. Don’t borrow that toy, it’s not yours. Share your toy with the baby. Oh you fell down you’re okay you’re okay. Oh someone took your toy you’re okay you’re okay. Eat this or you won’t get that. We need to leave now, get in the cart.» And on and on. For the kids’ sake I wish the parents would just shut up and let them explore sometimes, and would explain their boundaries instead of just saying “no” to everything.

The poor kids then get scooped up and carted around in little strollers, often with their vision obscured by a canopy, strapped in, not interacting with the world or with people and with no personal autonomy. They then get transferred to a car seat, again strapped in and bored to tears as they are driven around town unable to see or interact with anything. The modern suburban lifestyle is terrible for small children.

The job of parents is not to shield their children from any and all stimulus because some of it might carry minor risks or be a minor inconvenience to someone else, but to help them get as much meaningful feedback as possible from their environment while not getting grievously injured. Parents should interact with their children all they want if that interaction comes in the form of talking to them, playing games, dancing around together, running up a hill, reading stories, building things, etc., but when the interaction consists largely of the parents exercising control over the children (and in my experience often otherwise glued to their phone screens), it’s really sad.

[Symbiote]

> That is, they follow their kids around closely, telling them what to do or not to do 200 times an hour

I'm British, but I live in Denmark.

It's excruciatingly easy to spot some (most?) British families, because of the way they treat their children. "Don't do that" "stay here" "don't touch that".

Danish parents seem much more willing to let the child follow along in the general direction, poking whatever and stamping in the puddles.

[jld]

I am American and was in Denmark with an 18 month old toddler last year. We spent hours at many different Danish playgrounds.

There was one interesting design paradigm I noticed that I think is reflective of a difference in parenting cultures.

On the all the Danish play structures we played on, all of the elements where a kid could fall more than a few feet were in areas of the structure that required a sufficient level of coordination to reach, like climbing a ladder or using climbing holes in a wall. Less coordinated kids were stuck at the lower levels of the structure where there was fun stuff to do for younger kids.

This thoughtful design allowed us to sit far away from our kid while he played knowing that the structure was designed to scale the risk with his capability.

Here at home, my toddler could climb to the top of many climbing structures using regular steps, and fall six feet down to the ground through the open doorways where you might find a ladder to climb up or a pole to slide down. A six foot fall is too risky in my mind, even though I'm not much of a helicopter parent. In fact, 15% of construction fall fatalities are from six feet or less.

I think this kind of smart design can help give kids confidence to take risks when they are able and ready.

[positr0n]

Fascinating insight about playground design.

However, I just want to put your and other reader's minds somewhat at ease about fall fatalities. I assume the construction fatalities are falls on to hard surfaces like metal or concrete. I recently learned, while reading the manual for a back yard swing set, that there are official tables of material depth to protect against fall height.

For example, to protect against a fall of up to 10 feet you could use 6 inches of recycled rubber or 9 inches of wood chips: https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/325.pdf (pdf)

[jld]

Thank you, this is interesting.

Yeah, a fair point differenting the fall risk on playgrounds vs construction sites. It’s not apples to apples.

[scalesolved]

I'm British but live in Barcelona, our baby is being raised by the building where I live. The concept of personal space/privacy is much different, practically our whole building come and talk, hang out and play with our baby (9 months old), when we visit the UK people are much more hands off and cautious.

It also makes me incredibly happy that my daughter hears 4/5 languages daily, growing up multilingual seems such a cool and interesting thing.

[sjg007]

Well part of it is preventing the kid from eating something toxic and I imagine that is wired into us genetically. The other is that ER bills are expensive... :) And the problem is kids have a hard time telling you what is wrong if they are hurt non obviously. Still kids should get to explore, I agree.