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Comment by nicklaf | Hacker News Reader

Any countries out there where this kind of helicopter parenting isn't endemic in the culture?

Helicopter parenting is one problem, legal enforcement of helicopter parenting is an entirely different monster.

Don't parents sometimes tattle on other parents they deem to be irresponsible, according to their own standards of just what children ought to be able to do by themselves? I seem to remember reading some anecdotes here the last time this topic came up.

It's probably not very common but it has definitely happened:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-so...

Not just other parents, people in general. Also in my experience a woman is under much more scrutiny as a parent than a man (e.g. exact same activity -- with dad: "So great to see dad bonding with kid" -- with mom: "I can't believe she would let her kid do that!")

Any country not in North America? In Belgium, the bus company had to ask parents not to put children under 5 alone on the bus, which happened in a couple of instances (see [1], in Dutch). Presumably they have no problems with kids older than that.

[1] http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20141120_01386041

Europe is a lot more relaxed and kids are given a lot more freedom. When we were kids we just were expected to wait for the other sibling and take a 20min tram ride home together. At 15 I probably started spending nights not at home occasionally (I also never caused any real trouble, so we built trust with my parents).

Though there was a difference if you as a Central European visited France for example. The kids were way behind us in being relaxed and confident without parents around.

Per walking / public transit to school, Japan is always the big example where many kids do so on their own. I feel like I've read this is mandatory there, but a quick search finds no backing evidence so maybe not.

I'm curious though in Japan whether this is part of a general trend combating helicopter parenting, or if it's just a one-off social norm.

CBS Dec 2015 on Japan http://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI

Not sure if they're common/representative, but two interesting things the mother demonstrated (2:14):

1. She can track the kid via GPS

2. When asked, she said she would never let her son walk alone to school in the United States

It's been common in Japan since before the second world war.

My wife, who went to school in Japan, says it's seen as a good thing, to encourage independence.

There's a popular TV show, where they follow small kids (maybe 4 or 5?) on their first "trip alone" to do a chore, obviously they're being followed by a camera crew. But the TV show promotes kids taking responsibility for themselves (and it's cute of course).

The US is just seen as a much more dangerous country than Japan. I mean, it actually does have a higher crime rate.

Sorry, this is all purely anecdotal. But I believe it to be the general case (would as always love to see data).

It's not mandatory, but it is common. It's a social norm that has been common practice for many years. It's common both in towns and in the countryside.

I would say (but don't have data to show) that there's is a slow trend against it. Possibly because of recent high profile abductions...

In Switzerland kids often walk to Kindergarten (age 4/5 and up) alone. At least I know I did (okay it was only like a 5 minute walk in my case). For school in can't remember anyone ever being brought by their partents. (Probably excluding the first few days of course).

So this quote

> the Ministry had checked with their lawyers “across the country” and the Attorney General, and determined that children under 10 years old could not be unsupervised in or outside the home, for any amount of time

has me really like WTF.

Edit: A bit more background now that I'm thinking about it. It's completely normal for kids in Kindergarten to go there alone, the first day each kid gets a reflector thingy(?)[0] they wear to walk there so they can be seen easily while crossing streets. Every morning you see a bunch of little kids toddling to Kindergarten, I've never really thought about this being different anywhere else.

[0] https://www.max-der-dachs.ch/files/shopimage/photo/8/vga_leu...

My parents put me on a train to the other side of the country to visit an Ajax game when I was 12, lol. Someone we knew picked us up there, but still... Not as bad as described here.

Usually my mom would just say: 'home when the lights turn on'.

This was pre kids-have-phones era...

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