How Iceland got teens to say no to drugs (2017)
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
- no unstructured free time
- always in groups that are not just your friends
- always supervised
If your interests are aligned and you fit in with the average teens it might be great. If you need structure in your life to stay on track maybe too. But want to find yourself, becoming an independent adult and have nerdy interests it's probably hell.
I'm glad I built tree houses, skipped a night of sleep and cycled in to the sunrise, learned to program and do art (both as an auto-didactic. nothing I'm proud of, but certainly something that suits me so much better than fixed-learning-speed group courses. By definition those are too fast for half, to slow for the rest or to slow for everyone but the slowest). Of course I came across a joint, alcoholics and other broken people while doing so, but that's alright, too.
edit: A summary of the changes:
>Laws were changed. It became illegal to buy tobacco under the age of 18 and alcohol under the age of 20, and tobacco and alcohol advertising was banned. Links between parents and school were strengthened through parental organizations which by law had to be established in every school, along with school councils with parent representatives. Parents were encouraged to attend talks on the importance of spending a quantity of time with their children rather than occasional “quality time”, on talking to their kids about their lives, on knowing who their kids were friends with, and on keeping their children home in the evenings.
>A law was also passed prohibiting children aged between 13 and 16 from being outside after 10 p.m. in winter and midnight in summer. It’s still in effect today.
>Home and School, the national umbrella body for parental organizations, introduced agreements for parents to sign. The content varies depending on the age group, and individual organizations can decide what they want to include. For kids aged 13 and up, parents can pledge to follow all the recommendations, and also, for example, not to allow their kids to have unsupervised parties, not to buy alcohol for minors, and to keep an eye on the wellbeing of other children.
>State funding was increased for organized sport, music, art, dance and other clubs, to give kids alternative ways to feel part of a group, and to feel good, rather than through using alcohol and drugs, and kids from low-income families received help to take part. In Reykjavik, for instance, where more than a third of the country’s population lives, a Leisure Card gives families 35,000 krona (£250) per year per child to pay for recreational activities.
> Young people aren’t hanging out in the park right now, Gudberg explains, because they’re in after-school classes in these facilities, or in clubs for music, dance, or art.
> A law was also passed prohibiting children aged between 13 and 16 from being outside after 10 p.m. in winter and midnight in summer.
> not to allow their kids to have unsupervised parties
> Birgir trains five or six times a week; Jón, who is in his first year of a business degree at the University of Iceland, trains five times a week. They both started regular after-school training when they were six years old.
I think key is this sentence though:
> Was there pressure to train when they’d rather have been doing something else? “No, we just had fun playing football,” says Birgir. Jón adds, “We tried it and got used to it, and so we kept on doing it.”
It's certainly up to the parents to make it a really free choice (and up to the state to provide it). Maybe you are right and it's really mainly a good thing :). I hope it is.
Maybe "broken" sounds harsh, but I think they'd even agree.
And as marcusverus writes: yes, I got to know them, some where even my friends.
A term I've heard and prefer is "suffering" or "in pain". Addicts suffer from their addiction and the environment that led them to that addiction.
Sure, they sound superficially more compassionate.
But in reality they are defeatist, victimizing, agency-removing euphemisms that do a wonderful job of clouding the underlying issues.
If you are that far into problems as described by various posters in this thread, pain and suffering are symptoms, and if that's all you're looking at, you're only going to treat those. (Ain't drugs nice?)
Realizing you're "broken" is the first step towards identifying what exactly it is that's broken - and towards any further steps actually fixing it. (And yes, your environment and your relationship with it often is the part that's broken, too).
And it's not only the self-image I'm talking about - I'm definitely not in the "they can only help themselves" camp. But it's oh so much more convenient to go for the symptoms (or switch the channel) when you're looking at people "in pain"...
Taking the argument to the mild side of the extreme I wonder if there are even cases where it's the best choice. I could totally endorse binge-watching TV series for a few weeks after a breakup. Might be a coping strategy that just does its job :).
Growing up, one of my parents subjected me to regular physical and emotional abuse while the other parent taught me to accept this bad behavior as normal.
I eventually entered into a codependent dysfunctional relationship that while toxic in so many ways also gave me the confidence I needed to end my substance abuse.
There are plenty of broken people. That doesn’t mean they can’t be repaired.
By contrast, how to create America today: reduce recess, remove athletics, reduce participation in arts, teach to the test, pave over green space, fund/segregate schools by property value, avoid project-based learning.
They may as well just be told you can't be outside during curfew.
According to the law the child is not at fault, the parents are for not providing adequate care.
Do you really think it's unreasonable to ask that children out after 10pm (midnight during the summer months) have someone looking after their safety?
EDIT: I'll clarify. You refer to safety. I grew up in a place where being outside as a teenager was perfectly safe, also at night. I want the same for my kids, and it's totally achievable. I think the whole idea that the world is somehow "unsafe" and that the parents need to constantly helicopter to guard their offspring from all the evil pedos and thieves and lunatics, is a fundamentally harmful idea.
Now, I do recognize that America is pretty scary, with their gun laws ensuring that either a gang member of a cop can shoot you dead on the spot if you dare take a snickers out of your pocket while they see it, but not all places are like that. Iceland sure isn't.
There's no good reason, in affluent places at least, for "the outside" to be dangerous. And if it is then that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not parents who want to allow their kids to learn their own life lessons.
I think this article has plenty good ideas but I don't think legally enforced helicopter parenting is one of them.
EDIT: I think that the 10pm/midnight cutoff point is less about some danger switch getting flipped at midnight and more about there being some well-defined point where CPS need to step in and ask the parents why their children are unsupervised. If it's vaguely defined it makes enforcement of the law more difficult or will cause the law to be unevenly applied (something like poor kids get neglected because CPS can't prove neglect).
But kids out and about consistently, let alone not in bed by 10 pm ... this is not good. Those are extended boundaries allowing kids to get themselves into trouble.
As per my note above - have a drive through a ghetto at night - what you see is kids, and it's spooky.
Btw I don't think Iceland has ghettos.
> Do you really think it's unreasonable to ask that children out after 10pm (midnight during the summer months) have someone looking after their safety?
Depends. If it's a _child_ proper, like under the age of 14-15 at the _highest_, then no. If they are old enough to be their own person, then yes, absolutely.
> Depends. If it's a _child_ proper, like under the age of 14-15 at the _highest_, then no
The law applies to children aged 16 and younger.
Same still applies for anyone who is not one of the threeish people I had in my close circle at that point.
> The law applies to children aged 16 and younger.
I said I disagreed with what the law states, and listed my reasons. I know it's 16 and younger, I said that I believe it should be 14, or 15 at the absolute highest.
I think that this cutoff point is in there to make sure that the law gets evenly applied. Otherwise CPS would have to make a judgement call and you can't guarantee that everyone gets equal treatment that way.
Through their 17th birthday? You bet your ass I do.
Don't get me wrong I remember what I was like at those ages. But the experiences and pain I had during those years when I had a much larger safety net have paid back many times over in avoiding or safely navigating those same types of experiences without nearly as much support.
I was not always safe during those years. But without those experiences I would have made much more irreversible mistakes.
Eventually children have to grow up, and part of growing up is being responsible for your own health and safety. Robbing children of practice in a safer environment is not keeping them safe, even if it feels like it in the moment.
If you snuck out, knowing you're breaking the law and will be punished for doing so, that's one more very large barrier preventing you from seeking help.
To get back to what I was saying in my previous post, I had some... unpleasant situations when I was 14. (and many other ages)
But my family trusted me, and I knew that even if they weren't going to be very happy, if I needed to call and get help I wasn't going to face any meaningful consequences for doing so. In fact I was much more likely to face those consequences if I didn't reach out.
So there are a few times I called and got an uncomfortable ride and a few lectures. But I was safe, and I learned how to better take care of myself.
Curfews make kids feel like they have fewer options when things already aren't going well. The curfews certainly aren't in place to keep them safer.
You'll get into the same type of trouble for truancy as for breaking this curfew so I would argue that the curfew shouldn't extend beyond the mandatory education period.
EDIT: That type of trouble being you'll have to go with your parents to see a psychiatrist to see if everything is OK at home.
I think most of the disagreement in this thread comes from when is someone no longer considered a child.
According to the applicable laws, anyone under 18 is still a child, and needs to be treated as such.
Most people in the thread are arguing that 18 is to high of an age for this, while others are arguing that it is the proper age.
I personally believe that setting this age at 18 detrimentally affect those youth, who will become adults who are less individualistic and less capable. I may or may not be wrong about this. Read reificators comment for a better phrasing of this.
Those who believe that this is the proper age believe that this is protecting those youth and allowing them to grow into the adults they have potential to become. They may or may not be wrong about this.
Elementary school education (which is mandated by law) ends after 15 years of age so I think that would be a more natural cutoff for this law and I think that any curfew after that age should be up to the parents.
One of my favorite childhood memories from elementary school (I was probably 9 or 10) was me sleeping in a tent in the backgarden of a classmate. We'd go out exploring the town late at night. This was in a ~2000 people town mind you. Do I think having laws prohibiting something like this is overreaching? Damn right I do.
It just says "children age 12 and younger may not be outside after 20:00 unless accompanied by an adult. Children ages 13 to 16 may not be outside after 22:00 unless they're returning home after an approved school-, athletic-, or youth-program function. Between may first and september first children may stay out an additional two hours"
Even though it's not stated the "accompanied by an adult" applies to ages 13 through 16 as well.
No I'm not asking for the law to be subtle. I'm asking for the law to not put its nose into things it has no business doing so.
“Why not orchestrate a social movement around natural highs: around people getting high on their own brain chemistry—because it seems obvious to me that people want to change their consciousness—without the deleterious effects of drugs?”
If you want an answer to why not, because drugs are not intrinsically bad and can give you more than a life without drugs IMO. Or they can destroy you, I grant.
“We learned through the studies that we need to create circumstances in which kids can lead healthy lives, and they do not need to use substances, because life is fun, and they have plenty to do—and they are supported by parents who will spend time with them.”
'Because they have plenty to do' Hmm - I did spend part of my childhood on some crappy estates and there wasn't things to do, and no money to do it. And you didn't much want to go outside because it didn't feel safe. It wasn't. 'and they are supported by parents' - another presupposition that parents are good and nurturing. Not always. Perhaps in a rich and wise society you can mostly make this possible though.
I like their way of trying to take the pressure off kids so as to reduce the "rat park" effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) and I think it's great. Kids don't develop properly in a pressure cooker. Overall, they're doing the right thing. Just don't overdo it.
Of greater import, if you have something to say about my post, disagreement included of course, I'm happy to listen.
When people do identify themselves here it's almost always some relevant context. The move to hiding vote totals probably helped, too.
You're comment was already downvoted before I saw it, by the way.
No, they're not. They can be but they don't have to be.
But keeping drugs away from kids (a good thing) was being mixed up with a general anti-drugs message which I didn't like and which may prove counterproductive in the same way the extreme view put around in the US about no sex before marriage just didn't work.
There was a case in the UK a few years ago of a man who allowed his kids and their mates to smoke weed in his house. His reasoning was that they wee going to do it anyway so he'd prefer to have it happen somewhere safe and where he could monitor it. The judge didn't look kindly on that I recall. I'm really not sure where I stand on that either.
[0] Not in my case I add, the kids around me were getting pissed, smoking, smoking mj, trying other stuff, I didn't.
I distinctly remember it being past midnight, and there was an 8 year old kid, sitting on his bike, along, going nowhere on the corner of the gas station.
I also remember thinking WTF? If there is one, small seemingly innocuous thing that could 'tell you a whole lot' about a neighbourhood, it's definitely children wandering around at night. Forget curfew that kid should have been in bed.
Iceland was my team since they made it in and USA, with a population 600 times bigger, did not. This prowess in sport was then attributed to their massive buildout of soccer pitches in every area, coaches for ages 5-10 to develop fundamentals, etc.
There is a lot of potential in children, we can help them shine if we devote the resources! The USA has not done this, sadly most of the extracurricular funding is charity or is rich people giving their kids more chances to pad resumes for college apps.
A key detail of the above is that most of the money spent was at the youth level and not, crucially, for highly paid coaches and administrators. In other words, you could be your full time job to be a youth soccer coach in Iceland whereas in many other countries it's a volunteer position e.g. Little League in the US.
I always think of this story when applying improvements to technology processes or infrastructure. Specifically, which solutions involve "one big thing changing" vs "getting everyone to do a few small things".
The highest position they ever reached was third place in 1930. And that world cup had only 13 participating teams.
Edit/Correction: Apparently there's a woman's world cup which the US won multiple times. Maybe they can arrange to send that team to the other one too, to increase their chances /s
1. Governments, especially in the US, dislike spending large amounts on the well-being of the masses, especially when there's little immediate political benefit. In particular, they are often lobbied heavily to avoid doing so.
2. In states like the US, there is some collusion between the government (especially parts of the intelligence services and the military) and drug growers, traffickers, and marketers - especially in foreign countries like Columbia and Afghanistan but probably also domestically.
But what about the completely legit war on drugs? I thought the government was supposed to be protecting us from all the scary people bringing drugs into our peaceful country.
/s
Search around the web for "psychedelic parenting" to find advocates of this approach.
I expect that as the so-called Psychedelic Renaissance blossoms, and psychedelics become more widely accepted in mainstream society, this minority position will become less of a minority position.
It is not unimaginable that some day there may once again be society-wide initiation ceremonies and rites of passage for children involving psychedelics used as sacraments, maybe not unlike what Aldous Huxley envisioned in his book Island, and what traditional societies have done in ages past and some continue to do even now.
Not that it changed their views.
This was amazing find. I really am a nerd in this subject but had no idea compressed air was used in the 18th century. This really changed my thinking and historical perspective. You blew my Sunday that I will forgive. I will blow all next weekend trying to figure out why compressed air didn't catch on wtf. From my (limited!!) research the valves were super expensive and took an amazing amount of craftsmanship - which didn't allow for mass production (eg Brown Bess).
There are all kinds of variants, including BB guns that are fully automatic. https://www.airgundepot.com/automatic-bb-guns.html
Air rifles 200 years ago were so effective (quiet, 30 round magazine) that Napoleon supposedly ordered that anyone carrying one be summarily executed. https://notorc.blogspot.com/2006/08/short-history-of-air-rif...
It was common in the US to do "plinking" with a BB gun at various targets, including windows of abandoned buildings, tin cans, and the unfortunate small animal. Probably still is in more rural areas. Anyway, different tradition than a weapon of war.
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Much obliged if you would provide a citation for this claimed causation.
Many millions of pounds have been taken out of the council's budget. This has impacted youth, mental health, and alcohol/drug services. Changes at the national level have also effected the benefits landscape for many families in poverty. There is quite plainly less help and stability for communities most plagued by violence.
My wife works in and around child and adolescent mental health services and she and her colleagues clearly perceive the link, but I also hope it's evident from a systems thinking perspective: there is a pipeline from childhood poverty and trauma into more chaotic and violent behaviours. Anything that interrupts that pipeline is good, and taking that away is probably bad. Sure, it's an option to wait at the end, increase stop and search and just arrest everybody but that's not a particularly great public health outcome either, and perhaps there are lessons from America in diverting funds from everywhere else just to prop up police departments.
0: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/326377/9789...
1: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/inspire-seven-strate...
Heh what a name