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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

I wholeheartedly agree based on my own kids, but want to add a caution lest someone misunderstand: this testing, learning, and growing is of a kind that can only be done without adult supervision. It's not something that you can give them with a private lesson. It's not something that can be taught in a classroom. It's not something that can happen at all without adults letting the kids figure it out on their own by random trial and error.

Parents generally have a strong instinct to try to make things easier for their kids than they were for themselves growing up. We know the food is hot, so we blow on the kid's food or let it cool before giving it to them. We know the toy will break if it's repeatedly thrown down the stairs, so we impose a rule that "we don't do that in our house". We know X, Y, or Z, so we sit down with them and explain it to them.

I don't think that these explanations and rules have no place (I don't want a child learning what heat is by falling onto a wood-burning stove!), but we need to recognize that it's a strictly inferior way of learning something when compared to experience. And as you point out, unstructured play is where kids get that experience in a low-stakes environment.

Play serves a valuable purpose, but as soon as parents get involved to try to assist the purpose evaporates.

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The way I explain this is, "my job is not to protect my kids from harm, it's to protect them from irreparable harm."

I've had this instinct whenever my kids are on the jungle gym to say, "slow down!" "That's too high!" etc. but I usually catch myself and think, "if they fall is it a cry or a hospital visit?"

If you don't allow your kids to fuck up, they will never build healthy behaviors around fucking up. It's very helpful for kids to give them safe chances to fuck up.

Witnessed this kind of thing today. Doting father of three boys on vacation. They're all ditzing around on busy sidewalks and the father barks "Control yourselves!"

It occurred to me at that moment that this kind of hovering and scolding teaches children to externalize the responsibility of understanding their environment and their place within it. They will literally never learn the lessons this father wants to impart because he will always be there to act for them, until the children's brains lose the plasticity necessary to properly internalize those things. Perhaps they will always struggle with a psychological complex they can never fully understand.

I know this because I had a doting mother who always defined my priorities for me. I learned to nearly fully externalize the maintenance of those priorities to her expectations (which were transitively pinned to those of the formal academic and "professional" systems).

Because of this I'm currently going through something of an existential crisis -- I really don't know what I want to do. My career has been unfulfilling and trying to develop lasting hobbies and interests have not borne out the deep kinds of satisfaction others seem to be able to achieve. I still hold out hope I can find something that "gets the ball rolling" but learning patience while watching myself continue to orient myself toward goals that have definitive, quantifiable, socially-acceptable ends has been unsettling. I want to feel comfortable in my day-to-day, or at least confident that the processes I enact encourage the development of a more whole being.

Eh don't beat yourself up. I grew up with a lot of unstructured play time and I still don't feel like I have any real passions or a very satisfying career. I think that's pretty normal and a lot of what people talk about with regards to passions and interests is just bullshit or making conversation.

A father or mother admonishing their kids to behave in public is not really anything new either.

The instance was exemplary of a broader philosophy of thinking for children, rather than providing opportunities for them to learn to think for themselves. Such is the nature of parables.

I'll offer a perspective. I'm a father of 3 young kids (4 year old twins, 20 month old). I often find myself in situations where I also need my children to stop whatever they're currently doing and pay attention to me.

You mention this happened on a sidewalk. Cars drive next to sidewalks. The American culture of cars is the number one cause of anxiety in my life as a parent to young children. I do not want to feel this anxiety, I do not like how it makes me react towards my children, who just want to play and have fun and explore the world and try to understand it. But cars exist. And today they are a much bigger problem than they were when I was their age, for a whole variety of reasons that are very well understood and articulated by people far more intelligent and capable than I am. And my children are, practically every single day, within 4-6 feet of cars that are a) much larger than they have any right to be, and b) driving much faster than they have any reason to, to the point that if they are careless about where they are, or what they are doing, they run a very serious risk of being killed.

That is why I sometimes respond to my children the way that I do, in line with what you've observed here. I don't like it, either, but it is what it is.

Now, I go out of my way to get my kids into big, wide, safe open spaces on a daily basis, and I will deliberately ignore them (within reason -- I keep tabs on where they are, etc.) so that they can go off and find interesting ways to play, hurt themselves, whatever. But I still have to engage with the automobile problem multiple times almost every single day of our lives.

> Cars

This is 99% of it (other 1% is fear of other parents scolding you). There's a beach bike path near us with only one street crossing in 5 miles. My 6 and 7 year old are free to explore the whole thing unattended provided they avoid that crossing. It has playgrounds and all kinds of stuff they can stop their bikes at.

But I won't let them cross the street we live on because none of these drivers are thinking about pedestrians and even if they were I doubt any of the lifted trucks could even see a 4ft tall kid.

I didn't mean to make it seem like I was challenging the parent's decision to involve themselves in the behaviors of their kids. I'm speaking more to the curt, evidently anxious outburst rather than a more even-handed and considerate approach.

I've screamed at my kids when not looking both ways crossing the street. If not, there is a decent chance they could get run over by an Amazon truck. I don't sugar coat it for them - they know they could die if it happens. After once or twice they stopped doing it, but if it ever happens again Captain Insano will make yet another appearance, whether people are watching or not. But do not fret, as they get 1000x more love.

I never had nightmares at all until I had kids. Now nightmares consist of cars, Amazon trucks, parking lots and the occasional lake or pool drowning.

Anyway, without full context of what was going on in that family's life you saw, I'm not sure if anyone is able to make a fair judgement on what was more considerate, even handed, or whatever. Five minutes before you saw them they could have almost been hit by a car or something.

IMO situations that require yelling should be extremely rare, but anything involving death or getting maimed is a definite candidate.

The busy sidewalk thing is about innocent passersbys not having to deal with rowdy kids bumping into them or otherwise bothering them. And actually, kids that are told to watch it actually overall do take more care about that sort of stuff then if parents just let them do whatever.

My young kids would be totally unaware if they were bumping into others, or causing them to stop abruptly, or otherwise interfering with others. Of course if those strangers yelled at them or provided some less harsh form of feedback it might register with them, but I find most people don't say anything so it's on me to let my kids know the effects they're behavior is having.

> I find most people don't say anything so it's on me to let my kids know the effects they're behavior is having.

People are terrified of saying anything because of the likely reaction of the kids' parents. The "it takes a village" mindset is gone. If someone's kid runs into you and you so much as say "excuse me" to them, you risk the parents getting in your face, holding up their cellphone camera, yelling "You don't talk to my kids. Go mind your damn business, Karen!" Not worth it--so bad behavior in public goes uncorrected.

Even when kids aren't involved, people's reaction more and more to public criticism/correction is to get belligerent and tell you to mind your business.

Truly.

I was at a park concert once, the kind where everyone is sitting, and there was a large family in front of me. One of the kids (around 12 I would guess, old enough in any case) kept standing up, roaming around, and generally blocking the view of the people behind him, even though he wasn't watching the show (he was literally munching on snacks and facing back in the crowd). I wouldn't have cared if he was excited, dancing, enjoying the show, but that was just not the case.

I asked him if he could sit down so I could see. His dad immediately got in my face and demanded that I apologize to his son. He didn't leave until the police got involved.

Awful parents breed awful kids.

Genuinely, I am not terrified. I just do not care all that much about other people's kids. In interactions I had or seen with parents or kids, literally never did any parent yelled at me or anyone else for saying "excuse me" or "that is mine".

But fundamentally, keeping control Iverson a kid is on parent and I don't think about bumping kids enough to form a sentence. I just expect parents to tell them cause it is their job and in this story, the parent in fact intervened.

Sure, it's important to give them feedback. That's a different thing from merely thinking for them, however. A (brief) conversation about the effects they may have on others and the feelings they expect others to have would go a long way toward engendering more pro-social considerations.

Perhaps the parent had these discussions with the kids before and 'Control yourselves!' was just a short-hand reminder to exercise some self-control. I wasn't there, so I have no context, but nothing about your story made it sound like the dad was thinking for the kids. (I'd expect that to sound more like 'Stop taking up the wnole sidewalk! Line up single file! Stand still!')

I've seen a lot of kids who "have ADHD" when what they really have are parents who are so anxious they won't let kids act for themselves due to dubious and worn-out "safety" arguments. Then the compulsion they develop is to fit in as much acting-out into their schedule as possible. This appeared to me another case of that.

I've been wondering: how do we teach kids about addiction (substances, gambling, phone/internet) and its consequences?

Theoretical explanation is not effective. Letting them experience it first hand might be too destructive, because of the nature of the addiction.

Can any parent chime in what worked and what didn't?

Let them play monopoly with allowance money?

In all reality the most effective drug and vice talks I ever got were in High School.

The first was from our school's substance counselor who was a former crack addict, and mother of one of our fellow students. She just told her story, and talked about all the horrible shit she saw, but never once told us drug war lies.

The other was from my English teacher a few weeks before graduation. The gist of it was: "there's nothing I can say that will stop you from experimenting with drugs. A little bit of drugs probably won't ruin your lives, and might be fun, but pay attention to the people who don't moderate, and the people who do. The results speak for themselves."

What it came down to was it was the two people that were honest with us who got heard. Some DARE cop lecturing us from a DEA handout about how marijuana addiction would ruin our lives didn't work, because kids aren't stupid, and they know BS when they hear it.

Fentanyl has changed things, though.

Coke wasn't a big deal as an occasional party drug, but now we hear stories of tainted coke and overdosing. Gotta teach kids about testing all their drugs now.

"Drugs will make you feel awesome. Never trust _anything_ that makes you feel like that"

Also, it's a whole lot more difficult getting out of addiction than getting in. If you just have a shovel you can dig deep, but climbing back up is a different story.

> Let them play monopoly with allowance money?

Calm down, Satan.

In my experience there is nothing what would stop a kid from doing the stupid things. What somewhat mattered is trying to explaing, honestly, the consequences. Sadly, this doesn't work good enough, but sometimes it helps when instead of panicking they panic but remember what to do in the case of emergency.

That sounds like the right way to do it. I would have welcomed that down to earth honesty at my school. We only got half the info we needed, the half they wanted us to hear, and at that point I lost trust in them.

- Lead by example. Be responsible about your own use and be honest about it.

- Help them engage in constructive risk taking behavior. Sports are a common example, and there's plenty of research showing that they reduce harmful behavior. Teens, specifically males explore risky behavior. They have these new magnificent bodies and they want to test their limits.

- Be present, available and engaged with them. Some of the time, they'll want you out of their face. That's fine, but try and keep routines like family meals, and talk to them, if they're willing.

- Try to maintain the family. Sometimes a divorce/separation is the right thing, but for the kids, most of the time, keeping the family together in a dual-parent family is very important.

While your comment addresses the most common factors contributing to addiction, it doesn't really answer the question of how to let children experience the consequences of addiction in a way that's low stakes and not irreversible.

I am not sure it’s possible. Part of what defines addiction is that overpowers the will, which isn’t safe. It also is typically a long term decent, a series of poor decisions in the grip of a disease. Not easy to model.

This was already a solved problem. Just get the kids use all the stuff away from parents when they are between 14 and 18. Yes it will do a little bit of brain damage, but getting pissdrunk at that age and having your parents nurse you back to normal is a great experience for a kid. I know this from first hand experience, when I was 14 (it was sorta normal in the Netherlands at that time). I was a lot more carefully with any substances afterwards. As for addiction: kids are getting addicted to their phones and games all the time.

I don't know about the Netherlands, but I'm definitely not doing that in the US if I have kids. Also, that might work most of the time, but it's going to hurt when a portion are addicted and can't easily recover.

Its not possible anymore in the Netherlands either and its showing. More abuse of drugs and alcohol.

A big portion of people is going to get addicted anyways. The America has a far higher amount of addicts of all drugs and alcohol compared to the Netherlands. That is mostly policy and some cultural aspects.

I watched requiem for a dream when I was a preteen. It was super effective.

my kids aren't old enough to comprehend these things yet but family friends take their kids to volunteer at homeless shelters, food pantries, etc. Seeing addiction and what it does to lives first hand is a good motivator to not let it happen to you.

I've been day dreaming about as more social data goes public on the internet how can that enable us to peer into the lives of folks who post material and leak details of their lives online. Can sociological studies be made where these bad choices can be reviewed in accelerated form where the individuals who picked the wrong path show the fruits of their choices visually and the decline is evident just looking at them and hearing the things they talk about.

Not sure how feasible it is, but I think with all the photo and video data we now have on hand what sort of longitudinal studies we can produce from imagery alone with the occasional detail and context self professed by the individuals involved.

People can disregard fucking anything they don't want to hear. Still, perhaps, might work.

> where these bad choices

drugs = bad choice, always? There can be good sides too.

> I've been wondering: how do we teach kids about addiction (substances, gambling, phone/internet) and its consequences?

I can't speak to device addiction, but I from ages 4-12, we raised our child in a major US city. In that environment, one comes across the direct results of drug addiction occasionally.

While we do talk about addiction and related things, but ultimately it's his experiences that shape his views more than words from dad. One of those was taking a trip to the park for a play dare and being late because we stopped to check on (and call 911 for) a man along the way who was passed out with a needle still stuck in his arm.

what works is living by example. and letting the kids grow up in an environment where nobody does drugs. showing them the bad outcome that others suffering from addiction experience may also be instructive. but generally kids do as the parents do. if you have a good relationship with your kids so that they are not trying to take drugs out of protest, then they won't be tempted to try.

I think you'll end up with drug-naive kids, which may be a similar risk. You've just shifted the risk to an older period of their life. Kids need information, not naivete enforced through ignorance.

living by example doesn't mean don't talk to your kids about drugs.

there are only two options: kids learn about drugs by others telling them about it, or they learn by trying them. the latter is dangerous, so the former is the only option. everything else is the environment.

my parents never talked to me about drugs or alcohol. we did talk about it in school though. i simply grew up in a family where alcohol or drugs did not exist, in an environment where kids didn't have easy access to alcohol and where we were generally educated in school to avoid that stuff. so noone did drugs or got drunk at school. maybe a few kids were drinking outside of school but it was never a big thing. i remember a classmate from middleschool saying that he refused to get cigarettes or beer for his dad because it's unhealthy. that's the kind of environment i grew up in. tell me how does that make me drug-naive and put me at risk? later as a student many of my peers frequently drank alcohol with meals, etc, i never did, and was never interested, because that's how i grew up.

of course if that is not your environment then you have to be more proactive about making sure your kids are aware of the dangers, but in general, what has the most value is the example you give as parents. if you drink, you will have a much harder time to convince your kids to not drink.

and for drugs it is my understanding that those who have experience with alcohol are more likely to try harder drugs too. (even just a small percentage) but more important the reverse, those that do not drink alcohol also are unlikely to try harder drugs. my interpretation of that is that if i want my kids to avoid drugs i can do that by not drinking alcohol and showing them that they need not join their peers when they drink.

this is not to say that anyone drinking is putting their kids at risk, but that not drinking is very helpful to reduce that risk.

This is a really great post and I appreciate it, and I don't even know where to start and how to respond. I suspect we have some very different assumptions which I'll try to make clear, which will lead us to disagreement, but that's okay. I wish we had the ability to sit down and talk this over in person, that would be extremely interesting. (I'm in the UK, which might give context)

The largest assumption that seems to be behind your position is that society should not have recreational drugs. Is this correct? I disagree, I think recreational drugs used appropriately can improve life. Obviously if abused they may wreck it.

> there are only two options: kids learn about drugs by others telling them about it, or they learn by trying them. the latter is dangerous, so the former is the only option. everything else is the environment.

Without being trite, everything is dangerous in degree. A famous UK government drug researcher published a paper, details here https://www.drugscience.org.uk/societys-inconsistent-moral-j... that compared the risks of horseriding with MDMA and found that MDMA was safer (he was sacked for this).

> my parents never talked to me about drugs or alcohol. we did talk about it in school though. i simply grew up in a family where alcohol or drugs did not exist, in an environment where kids didn't have easy access to alcohol

I think we have had very different backgrounds. For a large part of my life we were living in council estates under a lot of stress. A lot. There's a lot of drinking and smoking from the other people there because they were self-medicating against the stress. I think there's a link between heroin use and Vietnam war that is well known in the US? It could be the biggest cause of drug use is stress; people just trying to cope.

> and where we were generally educated in school to avoid that stuff.

I'm uncomfortable because you're trying to make up other people's minds for them. I think that's an infringement on their right to independent thought – does that make sense?

> that's the kind of environment i grew up in. tell me how does that make me drug-naive and put me at risk?

It doesn't automatically do so, and in fact I may be completely wrong in assuming it can do, but at some point if some people have the opportunity to take harder drugs than alcohol, they will. For example, me. And I don't regret it, and having it delayed from my childhood into adulthood was probably a damn good thing – I'm less impulsive and more able to control the risks.

> of course if that is not your environment then you have to be more proactive about making sure your kids are aware of the dangers,

And benefits? Do you allow there could be benefits to recreational drugs used appropriately and in moderation?

> but in general, what has the most value is the example you give as parents. if you drink, you will have a much harder time to convince your kids to not drink.

Completely agree.

> and for drugs it is my understanding that those who have experience with alcohol are more likely to try harder drugs too. (even just a small percentage) but more important the reverse, those that do not drink alcohol also are unlikely to try harder drugs. my interpretation of that is that if i want my kids to avoid drugs i can do that by not drinking alcohol and showing them that they need not join their peers when they drink.

These links agree with you

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/is-alcohol-a-gatew... https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/alcohol-abuse/alcohol-gat... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22712674/

But they also say "Addiction is a complex disease – prior use of alcohol is simply another risk factor among many, and there is no single explanation for why someone becomes addicted. The interrelationships between the gateway drugs (tobacco, alcohol and cannabis) are complex"

If you grew up in a different environment, under a lot more stress than it sounds you suffered, it may be the stress that is triggering use of alcohol and any other drugs you can lay your hands on. Found the heroine/Vietnam war link https://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits The soldiers got addicted due to stress and other factors, unexpectedly when they returned home a lot of them just stopped using it because the stress was, presumably "In other words, approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight"

> this is not to say that anyone drinking is putting their kids at risk, but that not drinking is very helpful to reduce that risk.

Agreed.

I'm not actually pro drugs, if there's one drug I would really like to make illegal it's cigarettes, and I would very, very much like to see the end of all and any advertising of alcohol.

Hope you find this interesting

thank you for your response, it is indeed quite interesting.

i don't have the time to write a detailed replay right now, but i hope to do so later. you are welcome to contact me at the address in my profile in case i get distracted and forget.

(edits made and more details and topics added)

The largest assumption that seems to be behind your position is that society should not have recreational drugs. Is this correct?

not necessarily. as alcohol was/is still very common where i grew up, it doesn't mean that the mere availability is a problem in itself. it was more the attitude about it. but i also suspect that most kids there still had mostly intact families and reasonable role models. all of which can be significant risk factors when missing. effectively the thing is that being a good role model as a parent is something i can influence. maybe with a healthy family responsible use is fine, but for a stressed single parent, the same use becomes a problem, and avoiding drugs or alcohol becomes important to counter the other negative effects from the childrens experience. it's relative, how much risk do we see, and how much do we as parents need to do to reduce that risk.

compared the risks of horseriding with MDMA and found that MDMA was safer

safer for whom? the issue here is that apart from personal injury, horseriding has no side-effects or longterm consequences. it's like flying. on average flying is safe. but if something happens it is usually fatal, therefore we need very strict rules on flight safety. if drug use goes out of hand, like it can become an addiction, the consequences can affect a lot of people. horseriding just doesn't go out of hand, or become addictive. like skiing or some other sports. you just can hurt yourself, that's all.

It could be the biggest cause of drug use is stress; people just trying to cope.

absolutely. i think stress is a huge risk factor. and that's where avoiding drugs and alcohol completely brings its benefits. i am in a stressful situation now, and i find my ways to cope, but because i grew up without alcohol and never tried it before i am not at all tempted to try it now.

the same goes for any potentially addictive behavior like gambling. but since it was mentioned in the initial question, i'd like to talk about phone/internet addiction a bit.

first of all, like horseriding, the side effects are minimal. it becomes more dangerous if you start spending money. i work in IT, so i may have a hard time to distinguish between working hard and being addicted to the internet. maybe i should evaluate how much i participate on hacker news ;-)

now when it comes to educating kids about it, it gets difficult. not using the internet in order to be a positive non-internet using rolemodel becomes practically impossible. more so for me since i work at home. now during school holidays kids see me on the computer all day. i don't know yet how i can teach them to not spend so much time on the computer when i am spending even more time on it.

on the other hand i don't use social media and i can keep my kids from it as well. so that at least reduces the dangers coming from that direction. i also don't let the kids spend money on games. by never even enabling payment options the risk that kids spend money out of control is practically eliminated.

but i don't know what they will do when they get old enough and are able to spend their own money.

> and where we were generally educated in school to avoid that stuff.

I'm uncomfortable because you're trying to make up other people's minds for them.

i want to give kids good rolemodels, and show them that drugs or alcohol are not needed to have a good time. i am not making up their mind, but i am giving them additional information so that they can make up their own mind.

if as a society we want to reduce the number of people affected by alcohol or drug abuse, we need to educate our children to that effect. that's the schools job. to educate according to social consensus. when there is a tendency for abuse to grow if unchecked, then education needs to counteract that. more so if we want to reduce it. of course doing this right also requires relying on facts and true statistics and not allow hardliners to push their agenda by fearmongering and exaggerating the actual damage.

also, you wouldn't jump on a horse or do any other risky sport without proper training. what would be comparable training for alcohol and drug use if not education in school?

Do you allow there could be benefits to recreational drugs used appropriately and in moderation?

i do, but i still believe the risks outweigh the benefits. unlike horseriding where the benefits outweigh the risks, even though statistically there is a higher risk of injury.

approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight

i think the key here is that it is very clear what causes the stress, and that being back home that stressfactor is gone and will never come back with 100% certainty.

most of us do not get this certainty. stressfactors reduce, but they never completely disappear, and they may come back any time. people vow to give up drinking, it works for a while, then something happens, and they are back. veterans know that they are done for good, and that they will never have to make that experience again.

if there's one drug I would really like to make illegal it's cigarettes, and I would very, very much like to see the end of all and any advertising of alcohol.

i am fully with you on that. i am also very happy to see that in the past decades we have made progress in creating a smoke free experience in most public indoor areas. and that i see a lot less smoking in public compared to a few decades ago.

Thanks for this, ok...

>> The largest assumption that seems to be behind your position is that society should not have recreational drugs. Is this correct?

> not necessarily. as alcohol was/is still very common where i grew up, it doesn't mean that the mere availability is a problem in itself. it was more the attitude about it.

So if the risks were mitigated (can never be eliminated) you would be okay(-ish) with drugs other than alcohol being used? Assuming good role models, etc. it's fine if you say no, we'll disagree but I will at least understand your position and I will respect it.

> but for a stressed single parent,

An aside, I assure you a parent doesn't have to be single to be stressed, in fact it can be more dangerous to have two stressed parents.

>> compared the risks of horseriding with MDMA and found that MDMA was safer

> safer for whom?

Well, for the user of the drug or the equine.

> the issue here is that apart from personal injury, horseriding has no side-effects or longterm consequences.

The whole point is about personal injury! And how that can ripple out to affect others.

> the consequences can affect a lot of people. horseriding just doesn't go out of hand, or become addictive. like skiing or some other sports. you just can hurt yourself, that's all.

With respect I don't think that is anywhere close to reflecting what the paper said:

"The dangers of equasy were revealed to me as a result of a recent clinical referral of a woman in her early 30’s who had suffered permanent brain damage as a result of equasy-induced brain damage. She had undergone severe personality change that made her more irritable and impulsive, with anxiety and loss of the ability to experience pleasure. There was also a degree of hypofrontality and behavioural disinhibition that had lead to many bad decisions in relationships with poor choice of partners and an unwanted pregnancy. She is unable to work and is unlikely ever to do so again [my emphasis], so the social costs of her brain damage are also very high."

further

"I suspect most people will be surprised that riding is such a dangerous activity. The data are quite startling – people die and are permanently damaged from falling – with neck and spine fracture leading to permanent spinal injury. Head injury is four times more com- mon though often less obvious and is the usual cause of death. In the USA, approximately 11,500 cases of traumatic head injury a year are due to riding (Thomas, et al., 2006), and we can presume a proportionate number in the UK."

I also knew a girl many years ago who was a rider, whose horse spooked, reared up and fell backwards onto her, breaking her back. Fortunately this wasn't a wheelchair-forever case, but she was off work for months and would have back problems for the rest of her life.

I know many more eg. MDMA users than horseriders, and I've never seen any injury, never mind something so severe as this.

If you objected to drugs, it has to be on a rational basis of risk, and by that measure the papers point was, we are not measuring and responding to risk proportionately.

> absolutely. i think stress is a huge risk factor. and that's where avoiding drugs and alcohol completely brings its benefits. i am in a stressful situation now, and i find my ways to cope, but because i grew up without alcohol and never tried it before i am not at all tempted to try it now.

That is your decision and it is therefore the correct decision for you, but but do you think it is the correct decision for everybody? If you did, it's possible we might have less adverse outcomes, but you would also take away the ability to make choices for themselves, where it doesn't risk hurting other people. It's not a society want to be in. Also what is right for you may not be workable for others.

> the same goes for any potentially addictive behavior like gambling. but since it was mentioned in the initial question, i'd like to talk about phone/internet addiction a bit...but i don't know what they will do when they get old enough and are able to spend their own money.

I honestly don't know. It's possible giving them a small allowance to buy online stuff might help them manage things, or it might feed a possible addiction. Perhaps you can ask around on parents forums?

>>> and where we were generally educated in school to avoid that stuff.

>> I'm uncomfortable because you're trying to make up other people's minds for them.

> i want to give kids good rolemodels, and show them that drugs or alcohol are not needed to have a good time.

That may be true for you but are you willing to project and enforce that attitude onto other people? Because you certainly don't need them to have a good time, but they can really bloody help! Please also consider that not only people differ, but situations differ and that needs to be accounted for. I have a delightful range of physical and mental health problems, and when I go out, which is sadly not often, I really need to make it count, to stop myself deteriorating further mentally. What an option for you isn't necessarily optional for other people.

> if as a society we want to reduce the number of people affected by alcohol or drug abuse, we need to educate our children to that effect. that's the schools job. to educate according to social consensus.

But what should be the social consensus, your position or mine or something else? That's what I'm trying to understand, it's the absolute crux of why we are discussing this.

> ... also requires relying on facts and true statistics and not allow hardliners to push their agenda by fearmongering and exaggerating the actual damage.

And this is where I have a problem, too many people (not just kids) will simply not recognise the harm drugs do. If you tell them they're not inevitably dangerous, all they hear is that they're safe. Not only that, we have a societal problem that will export the external costs of drugs (specifically alcohol and cigarettes) onto society at the cost of making individual firms richer. Edit: What I'm saying is that as a society we either forbid things or make them legal then go bloody mental in abusing them. My currently rather liberal position on drugs will have to contend with this kind of stupidity if we do legalise.

> also, you wouldn't jump on a horse or do any other risky sport without proper training. what would be comparable training for alcohol and drug use if not education in school?

Agreed, but parents must have some responsibility, I think we both agree with that.

>> Do you allow there could be benefits to recreational drugs used appropriately and in moderation?

> i do, but i still believe the risks outweigh the benefits. unlike horseriding where the benefits outweigh the risks, even though statistically there is a higher risk of injury.

Given what the equasy paper says...

   Acute harm to person [MDMA] +1 per 10000 episodes   [horse riding] ++1 per 350 episodes

...can you really say that? What are the benefits of horseriding, if exercise then there are other safer ways of getting that. If it's the responsibility of looking after an animal, get a cat or a dog (and that option is much more widely available than owning a horse – we could never have afforded it). What are those benefits?

> most of us do not get this certainty. stressfactors reduce, but they never completely disappear, and they may come back any time. people vow to give up drinking, it works for a while, then something happens, and they are back. veterans know that they are done for good, and that they will never have to make that experience again.

agreed, and we both agree ciggies and booze should be treated less indulgently by society.

if the risks were mitigated (can never be eliminated) you would be okay(-ish) with drugs other than alcohol being used?

i am not sure. if there is evidence that the risks are at least as low as those of alcohol, maybe. but, even for alcohol i consider the risks to high still. drunk driving, domestic violence and many other things are potentially caused by drugs or alcohol, and reducing these requires reducing the use of alcohol or drugs. however banning them is not effective, and so i see other measures such as better education as important to address those problems.

> the issue here is that apart from personal injury, horseriding has no side-effects or longterm consequences.

The whole point is about personal injury! And how that can ripple out to affect others.

If you objected to drugs, it has to be on a rational basis of risk, and by that measure the papers point was, we are not measuring and responding to risk proportionately.

but that's the big difference. horse riding accidents seldom have a ripple effect, drug and alcohol use almost always do. my focus in on the latter. i don't care what someone does to themselves, but i do care how it affects others.

your personal freedom ends where it starts to restrict my freedom. if my partner comes home drunk and starts beating me or the kids, and if banning alcohol is the only way to stop that, then by all means, i'd rather ban alcohol than give you the freedom to drink. (that's assuming that such a ban would work, which is questionable in itself)

the risks from drug use have to be minimized. but i also see the need to make some drugs legal in order to better control the quality and steer people away from bad quality drugs that are even worse.

if it was possible, i'd rather eliminate drugs and alcohol (and smoking) completely. since that is not possible i'll settle for whatever solution has the least negative effects on society (not on the individual).

do you think [avoiding alcohol] is the correct decision for everybody?

alcohol and stress do not mix. so yes. if you are stressed (severely and continuously), you should avoid alcohol as a way to seek relief. but the point for me is that never having consumed alcohol is what is protecting me from trying it to relieve stress now. that's not a decision i made, but something i could only learn from my parents, and i have to thank them for that.

I have a delightful range of physical and mental health problems, and when I go out, which is sadly not often, I really need to make it count, to stop myself deteriorating further mentally

i don't want to try to diagnose, or propose how you should deal with your problems, but i wish that there would be more resources available to you than just self-medicating with drugs or alcohol. i do accept that likely there aren't any other options for you though, so i understand your choice here. but that doesn't mean that legalizing drugs is the best answer to these problems, but it's unfortunately probably the cheapest.

are you willing to project and enforce that attitude onto other people?

project and teach people that alcohol and gambling are bad? absolutely. but enforce only when it actually (provably) helps to reduce harm on society.

the problem here generally is that many people want to code their preferred attitude into law, when in many cases that is not useful. instead they should share and teach (without pressure), but allow everyone to make their own choices.

But what should be the social consensus, your position or mine or something else?

social consensus should be whatever has the most benefit and the least harm for society as a whole.

What I'm saying is that as a society we either forbid things or make them legal then go bloody mental in abusing them. My currently rather liberal position on drugs will have to contend with this kind of stupidity if we do legalise.

exactly, that's a problem we are facing. the only way out is better education. i think we are pretty much in agreement here.

What are the benefits of horseriding, if exercise then there are other safer ways of getting that. If it's the responsibility of looking after an animal, get a cat or a dog (and that option is much more widely available than owning a horse – we could never have afforded it). What are those benefits?

as i mentioned before, i am not at all concerned about the risks to the individual partaking in an activity of their choice. i am only concerned about risks to others. that makes horseriding almost risk free. in fact, since my wife was always afraid of dogs due to a childhood incident, to her, dogs are more dangerous than horses. dogs can bite, cats can scratch, horses can throw you off or kick you. etc. different animals have different temperaments, and which animal or activity is right for someone is very individual. you can easily construct a scenario where horseriding is simply the most practical choice, compared to other options a person has available. horseriding is just one of many options on a large spectrum, and does not even stand out in risk for the individual as there are other even riskier activities.

as an aside

"I suspect most people will be surprised that riding is such a dangerous activity"

i am surprised that people are surprised. i haven't learned riding, but i have rode on a horse once or twice. you are so high up and horses are so strong that to me the potential for injuries is no surprise at all.

Hi, I'll try to keep this short as we're getting towards an understanding of each other's positions and even a surprising level of agreement (with one exception)

>> if the risks were mitigated (can never be eliminated) you would be okay(-ish) with drugs other than alcohol being used?

> i am not sure. if there is evidence that the risks are at least as low as those of alcohol, maybe. but, even for alcohol i consider the risks to high still.

You might be surprised that alcohol is not a low-risk drug by some measures. I certainly don't consider it to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_harm_assessment_...

Note that MDMA and LSD are considered considerably less dangerous than alcohol here. I would tend to agree with that, given my limited experiences with LSD, and fairly long experience with MDMA. Mind, any prat can abuse any drug.

> however banning them is not effective, and so i see other measures such as better education as important to address those problems.

I don't want anyone to feel they should be legalised because banning them won't work; I want them to be considered for legalisation based on relative harm. Again, see the above link.

>> The whole point is about personal injury! And how that can ripple out to affect others.

> but that's the big difference. horse riding accidents seldom have a ripple effect, drug and alcohol use almost always do. my focus in on the latter. i don't care what someone does to themselves, but i do care how it affects others.

First up I completely agree with you "i don't care what someone does to themselves" and "your personal freedom ends where it starts to restrict my freedom" but where I can't find agreement at all is "horse riding accidents seldom have a ripple effect". The example of the woman with brain damage, or my mate with a broken back, these very definitely have a high cost to society and that is the ripple. Motorcycle accidents can be horrible even when they don't kill, and they do. Many other things. I'm afraid we may have to remain apart on this.

(edit: by 'how it affects others' you might mean at a strictly personal level eg. direct violence against another. To me, any cost even on people who've never met the foolish drug user/unlucky horse rider, counts)

> if my partner comes home drunk and starts beating me or the kids, and if banning alcohol is the only way to stop that, then by all means, i'd rather ban alcohol

I don't know if we can ban alcohol on an individual's rather than societal level ("touch the booze again, Fred, and you go to prison"), but that might work. I'd also like to add from experience that violence without alcohol is very doable. And ditto the converse.

> alcohol and stress do not mix.

Alcohol for some can be a very good stress reliever for short-term stress. Not me though, but certainly some.

> so yes. if you are stressed (severely and continuously), you should avoid alcohol as a way to seek relief.

Agreed, but some people don't have that option.

> I have a delightful range of ...

> i don't want to try to diagnose, or propose how you should deal with your problems, but i wish that there would be more resources available to you than just self-medicating with drugs or alcohol.

One takes one's crutches where one can find them, the world isn't perfect. And frankly, I did just plain enjoy them when things weren't so crap.

> but that doesn't mean that legalizing drugs is the best answer to these problems, but it's unfortunately probably the cheapest.

That is not an argument I would support for legalising drugs, you might be surprised to hear.

> project and teach people that alcohol and gambling are bad? absolutely.

I'm not comfortable with that statement, they are not inherently bad. They most certainly can be bad, but they are not automatically bad – well, that's my opinion anyway!

> but enforce only when it actually (provably) helps to reduce harm on society...social consensus should be whatever has the most benefit and the least harm for society as a whole.

Agreed.

> exactly, that's a problem we are facing. the only way out is better education. i think we are pretty much in agreement here.

snap

> as i mentioned before, i am not at all concerned about the risks to the individual partaking in an activity of their choice. i am only concerned about risks to others. that makes horseriding almost risk free. ... and does not even stand out in risk for the individual as there are other even riskier activities.

Again, we're going to have to remain separate on this. The damage caused by MDMA is statistically very low, and could be greatly reduced almost to nothing by education and quality controls. It does feel that you're a little more lenient on one activity because it doesn't involve drugs, and less so for the other because it does. Well that's my impression. And either way, that's your position and I respect it, and maybe it's me seeing it through the wrong end of the telescope.

I'm very happy with this discussion, and I really want to thank you for taking the time and giving me a thoughtful and measured response from the other side. That is what I really want from HN, and don't often get it in this area! That really was excellent and the world feels a tiny bit saner now.

You might be surprised that alcohol is not a low-risk drug by some measures

i am aware of that. i am using alcohol simply as a baseline. any other substance must not pose any higher risk. ideally less even.

Note that MDMA and LSD are considered considerably less dangerous than alcohol here

i was not aware of that, but i guess the realization of this is why more and more places are considering making such drugs legal.

I don't want anyone to feel they should be legalised because banning them won't work

i was mainly talking about alcohol here. since alcohol is very easy to make, all that banning gets you is moonshine.

The example of the woman with brain damage, or my mate with a broken back, these very definitely have a high cost to society

i disagree with that. sure, it costs insurance, and taxes, but noone else got hurt. if as a society we can't bear that cost then we'd have to ban almost all outdoor activities because they all carry some risk of injury. the result would be a very oppressive society. the cost that i worry about is the personal tragedy that results from being an innocent victim. horseriding does not cause bystanders to get hurt. motorcycles rarely do, but drugs and alcohol do, as do cars and guns (and gambling).

I don't know if we can ban alcohol on an individual's rather than societal level

that won't work simply because by the time the relevant institutions to make that judgement are able to intervene the damage is already done. we need solutions that prevent the abuse from the beginning. only education and restricting access for anyone can do that.

> but that doesn't mean that legalizing drugs is the best answer to these problems, but it's unfortunately probably the cheapest.

That is not an argument I would support for legalising drugs

neither would i. but the alternative is to increase investment into education and healthcare ten-fold or more even. which is something i would absolutely support and prefer over allowing the use of drugs for self-medication. but that is much harder to achive. i am fighting for that though, whereas i am not fighting for drugs to be legalized. i merely allow that to happen by not fighting against it either.

> project and teach people that alcohol and gambling are bad? absolutely.

I'm not comfortable with that statement, they are not inherently bad. They most certainly can be bad, but they are not automatically bad

well this is another point where we are going disagree, which is fine. basically i believe that using substances to alter your state of mind is a bad idea and should only be done under medical supervision and when necessary. (but again, i don't want to make a law out of this, unless it is necessary to protect innocent victims). but this is a whole topic of its own that i am not quite ready to argue here because i am not familiar enough with the details.

It does feel that you're a little more lenient on one activity because it doesn't involve drugs, and less so for the other because it does.

i am more lenient on some activities because they are supported by the current consensus in society. if it were up to me, i'd eliminate any alcohol, smoking, gambling, private cars and guns from this planet. because they are all dangerous to bystanders and there are better ways to handle the problems they solve.

ultimately, no matter what choice we make, what matters is that as a society we will only make progress if we find consensus on the major issues that we face today. because only through consensus are we able to change direction if we find that some choice was a bad idea.

we are struggling with a lot of issues because we waste energy on fighting each other instead of looking forward.

I really appreciate your time discussing this. It's helped me understand a different viewpoint, and I hope you have got as much out of it as I have, which is a lot!

i think that was the most enlightening and deep discussion i had on hackernews so far. thank you for that. my email is always open for any other discussion like this.

I think this is bad advice.

I'm 18. My parents did not moderate my smartphone usage, they just told me the harms that will result from phone addiction: life spent wastefully, especially in the critical years of middle and high school, bad grades, cognitive decay, vision decay, etc. I wised up and never get addicted to my phone ever, nor have used it for time-wasting distractions like social media. I hate those parents who restrict their kids' phone usage forcefully, they can't learn to use them safely. What happens when they grow up and be introduced to the world of unrestricted phone usage?

Just kidding. I was an addict just like almost all other classmates of mine. I'm currently curing my myopia which is 4+ diopters in one eye thanks to using my iPhone 5 cms away my eyes, laying in bed countless nights. I was ~155 IQ (can't remember because of poor memory), now down to 150. My memory was the best I know among people, I used to never forget anything which I can classify as 'timelessly relevant info', so I would remember everything in a science book I read once three years ago (but not the yesterday's lunch). People would frequently comment about my memory and comprehension. Not so much, I wasn't able to remember things from the textbook the teacher is going to ask in late high school. Now my brain is still foggy, but I'm recovering. I'm very unfit, confirmed by a doctor, again recovering from that. I was in %0.5 in my country's university exam alhamdulillah, and I wonder how would it be if I have ever stopped looking at my phone and actually studied.

After many years, what saved me was that I made some custom software that can block my iPhone all by myself, using the Odyseus' trick [1], using your present self's willpower on your future self[2]. Because my parents refused to put a password for Screen Time and said that good ol' phrase: "Can't you stop yourself? Just stop looking it, it's that easy!"

I firmly believe no one person can fight trillion dollar corporations spending tens of millions of man-hours reverse engineering biological reward circuits in your brain. Everyone I see around me is as addicted as their rest of lives allows them to be, except grandpas who still have those dumb phones. I saw the transformation of my beloved relatives after they got their first smartphone, for the worse. They're not the same person anymore.

My life goal for this world is to put and end to this shit. I'll inshaAllah sell that phone that is restricted, make that Linux distro, browser, applications and all things that restricts you from harming your wellbeing and wasting your life, all while being fully functional for things one really need (think messaging, finance apps, government service websites etc.). Thankfully Transformer models came just in time.

Human brains are not designed nor meant to be able to handle current smartphone technology, the current smartphone technology is designed to exploit human brain for profit.

See the entire catalogue of research at: https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/

1: https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Odysseus-and-the-S...

2: https://github.com/aerbil313/timelock

>> The way I explain this is, "my job is not to protect my kids from harm, it's to protect them from irreparable harm."

I also like to protect my shit from harm. Kids can be quite destructive in their play.

> The way I explain this is, "my job is not to protect my kids from harm, it's to protect them from irreparable harm."

Another way to phrase this:

Your job as a parent is to expose your children to the maximum amount of love that is healthy and the maximum amount of pain that is healthy.

Too little or too much of either is possible and damaging.

I worked for a guy who designed playgrounds for kindergartens, schools and similar.

He stressed the importance of spontaneous, unstructured play. As you note it leads to important social development, it improves creativity and could lead to much better academic performance into the teens according to the studies he showed me.

When he designed a playground it wasn't "here they can do A and there they can do B", but he strived to provide spaces that facilitated spontaneous play. He wanted the kids to do their own thing, and provided as many options as possible. An important factor here is that kids enjoy different kinds of play. Not everyone wants to kick a ball, some want more social play so might need a space that allows for that, perhaps a secluded sitting group.

However as you note safety is a big issue. He had a guiding principle of two kinds of safety. There's subjective saftey, if you're high up you know falling might hurt. This is what kids should learn, and it's important they get to do that without permanent injury.

The second kind is objective safety, which relates to the environment and equipment, which facilitates this learning of subjective safety. There shouldn't be rocks near by equipment which could cause permanent injury if a kid fell of the equipment. There shouldn't be gaps in the swing attachment where a kid could lose a finger, and so on.

Of course we told (many times) our 3 yr old son not to put his hand on the stove.

And one day he just had to try it and feel what all these stories were about. He started crying immediately. We went to the hospital and came back rather quick. It wasn't so bad, just had to have a bandage for a couple of days.

Some weeks later he does it again. On purpuse.

!!??

I tell my brother and he answers: "I kind of understand him. Sometimes I want to do it too."

Yeah, the idea that kids will only do stupid things once isn't necessarily true.

Similar story: I have a good friend who, as a kid, regularly had to have poison control called for him. It didn't matter what his parents did to hide the stuff he shouldn't drink, he would still try to get to it and drink it. Despite having to have his stomach pumped multiple times.

The best we hope is that they learn to take good decisions. Too much bubble wrap and they maybe will crumble in face of adversity, too much neglect and they will get their attention from elsewhere. All are maybes.

What children perhaps need is a different amount of parenting in different stages. Someone wrote that first you are the authority figure and the lighthouse for love and safety, then you become more of a mentor as they grow up.

Again, the best you can hope for is that they learn good enough values and let them live their lives, it’s THEIR LIVES, not yours and maybe they will come to you for help. And when that happens, go to town!

Whenever this kind of opinion props up I wonder how far would you let your child to "fail"? Clearly we need our children to stumble and fail in a low-stake environment before they actually experience them later on in life. This naturally involves taking some risk. I remember being able to walk freely around the village pretty much without any supervision, I did get hurt a lot either from running into walls or getting scratches from sword play. The problem I see is that modern people have absolutely zero tolerance for "failure" in this regard. Clearly I could have been kidnapped, fallen into the river, fall from a tall tree, got run over by the cows or whatever. Let's face it, this comes with risk. But modern society can't seem to tolerate even a single dead children. Is that for the better? Maybe? But I think trying this has a long term cost. Trying to min/max risk taking and maintaining absolutely zero children suffer is just not going to work. We'll probably lose on both ends.

Note: I have no children nor do I plan to. Exactly because I have no idea how to deal with them nor do I want them to suffer being with me lol

Yes, I grew up in a small town and pretty much had the run of it from the age of 6 or 7, and quite a lot of freedom even before that. My friends and I would be out all day, every day, all summer long - probably never more than two miles from home but definitely in that range. With my own kids I'm less protective than a lot of parents in my neighborhood but I wouldn't really be comfortable with that, certainly not at that age and even if I was none of their friends would be allowed to do that, most kids stay on their block or cul-de-sac.

> modern society can't seem to tolerate even a single dead children

You mean parents can't seem to tolerate even a single dead child. And that's true, especially when most parents only ever have one or two children.

Obviously they don't want them to die. To parents, their children aren't an abstract idea or a number that they can rationalize away.

> You mean parents can't seem to tolerate even a single dead child. And that's true, especially when most parents only ever have one or two children.

If every parents react the same way then that is effectively the whole society no? Imagine the reaction of a modern day town if a child had broke their neck from the playground, what would the reaction? I wouldn't put demolishing the playground outside of the realm of possibility.

> Obviously they don't want them to die. To parents, their children aren't an abstract idea or a number that they can rationalize away.

Yea and this is why this is quite interesting to think about for me. In a way, perhaps it is better that failures to happen in small numbers many times, instead of 1 big societal level failure that only need to happen once. I think part of the problem is that people have access to global news today. Even 1 children choking on some candy or whatever from the other side of the globe would mean that every children would be stripped of this experience.

> Imagine the reaction of a modern day town if a child had broke their neck from the playground, what would the reaction?

This is extremely locale-dependent. In the US? There would be lawsuits, fences, height restrictions, and so on.

In the Netherlands? They’d put up a sign, maybe.

Parents are often pressured into it by nosy people who call the law if they see kids out by themselves.

"...especially when most parents only ever have one or two children."

That I believe is part of it. My parents were children before WWII and both came from large families—there were seven siblings on each side. On the other hand my generation had typically two kids.

It would be ludicrous to suggest that my grandparents didn't love their kids or care as much about them given their numbers but the fact is—put brutally—there was considerable solace in having 'spares'.

Today, it is very easy to forget that prewar many more kids per capita never reached adulthood. Most people alive today have never known a time without penicillin or the pre-polio-vaccine days. People in those days were much more fatalistic about life and the lives of their kids as life back then was considerably more 'fragile'. Today, we expect our kids to reach adulthood and outlive us, back then most hoped that would happen but they were more circumspect about it. When a kid died of course parents would be terribly upset but when it happened they always knew there was more chance of it happening than just a remote possability.

I noticed this fatalism in my grandparents, especially my grandmother, she came from a big family and she had a big family and in both cases some kids died before reaching adulthood.

except when someone shoots up their school, it seems

I don't understand what you mean, but I might be missing something since school shootings aren't a thing here.

Are you saying that parents don't care when their children are killed in a school shooting?

In the US, it's society at large that doesn't care when children are killed, regardless of how parents feel. Half the country refuses, on principle, any further legislation regarding control of firearms, knowing the consequences, and choosing anyway.

> I don't want a child learning what heat is by falling onto a wood-burning stove!

Famously, the Dusun in Borneo teach their children to respect knives by allowing them to play with them (and cut themselves) as toddlers.

It's a curious thing to only be able to teach the dangers of something by having children try out and experience the reprecussions of dangers. I think an important skill in life is to actually predict and understand danger ahead of time. As in, a knife won't just give you a bruise, it could be easily fatal if used in even the most mildly wrong way. Falling/jumping from great heights isn't something to just experiment with and try. Running in a busy street isn't something to try just to understand the dangers. Running up to an American bison isn't something to just try and see what happens. Etc.

Some of these dangers are relative though. A 6 foot fall for a toddler is probably not going to kill them but relative to the size of the kid it's a great height they can experiment with. A 10 foot drop for an 8 year old is a great height to them but they'll survive.

The bison example, I would think any child would be very wary of walking up to a bison. On top of that, if a child were to approach a bison I highly doubt the bison would come out with full offensive. They'd probably assume a defensive posture to scare the kid away. If the kid kept coming you should keep in mind that mammals recognize babies of other mammals. It would be pretty extraordinary for the bison to consider a human child as a threat and attack them.

The cars though, yeah. I don't even want to get into that.

Not that the particular example even matters, but bison have absolutely attacked both children and adults and have killed a handful of people. I won't post the videos, but you can find the bison attacking even children on YouTube. In one instance, the child seemed fine, but the horn moving an inch to the left or right could have gored the kid.

The point is that you are at their mercy and that it takes training and education to understand and predict that danger ahead of time. Even adults are ignorant along these lines. Everything is a spectrum, but there is a threshold, in my opinion, in which the probabilities of disaster become 100% out of your control for certain activities.

For example, you can watch this guy on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV1fzwfJpmQ who appears to be calm and an "expert" on interacting with bears. However, you can also watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqwYUkJYRQc in which a grizzly shows absolutely insane stamina and strength, covering huge distances of rough terrain and water. It means that the guy in the previous video is 100% at complete mercy of the bear, no matter what he says. (As an aside, I'm actually surprised that guy hasn't had more trouble, as he clearly seeks out bear encounters.)

I think my larger point is that part of the education of both children and adults is teaching to understand and ultimately respect the reality in which we live in. Animals, physics, biology, etc. all exist and we must live within those rules and understand the consequences of pushing them. I can't go jump into the sun just to try it out. And a project manager stating a schedule as if it dictates reality doesn't mean it does. Lol. This scene from The Counselor is getting at these lines of thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIn7y4ejIFM.

Mammals eat babies of other mammals. Nature ain't nice to babies.

Famously, lions kills lion babies, that is babies of own species when they encounter babies of another lion group.

> Falling/jumping from great heights isn't something to just experiment with and try. Running in a busy street isn't something to try just to understand the dangers.

Unless your kids are interested in and want to learn free running and parkour, at which point this is how you learn. Of course there is reason to be careful, but fear often plays a large role in that.

Obviously things are different when speaking about a different species, but when training dogs to herd large animals, you often start training them on something small like goats or sheep. Ideally, they learn what a hoof to the face feels like BEFORE they start working with, say, horses.

I guess my point is that anyone who needs to train safety totally understands how important it is for someone to understand the specific danger intimately

i expect that they start with showing them how to use the knives first.

montessori teaches 3 year olds how to properly handle sharp knives by letting them cut the fruits for snack breaks. they also don't use safety scissors but learn how to use real scissors.

a lot of danger is removed by teaching kids how to properly use tools. when they feel how the knife cuts through the fruit, they learn that a knife has a sharp edge, and can cut things.

my son learned to cook at age 8 or 9. yes, he gets burned sometimes, but he knows how to properly use a gas stove and he has learned to be careful with it because he had the opportunity to use it frequently and become familiar with it. he can cook a meal unsupervised, and i guess that will boost his confidence as he tries more complex recipes.

> We know the toy will break if it's repeatedly thrown down the stairs, so we impose a rule that "we don't do that in our house"

For many parents, the toy is expensive enough that it warrants a rule (like the stove.)

It's all relative. For us, it's fine to watch my kid completely smash a lego set down the stairs because they're holding it like a waiter, it's another thing when it's the Nintendo 3DS (both examples from this week)

> it's another thing when it's the Nintendo 3DS (both examples from this week)

On the other hand, if you don't buy them a new 3DS right away, there's a valuable lesson here somewhere.

When we interrupted it we did have that discussion. “You play it so much and if it breaks there isn’t another one.”

It seemed to register. But I think one of these days some sacrificial tech will really teach them this. And I wonder if that will make all the difference for respecting cell phones.

I mentor a highschool robotics team and 90% of the kids phones have cracked screens.

Ya know… how crazy would it be to set up a charity-ish thing for buying kids replacement screens for phones?

Just the part and tools, mind you. Not labor. They do the labor themselves. It’s really not that hard. (Even in the so-called unrepairable phones! I did an iPhone 12 battery last year. iFixit has those guides down to a science).

Might work miracles at showing teens they can fix problems (even those that even their parents are scared of!), that repairing stuff isn’t that scary, and that $40ish can go quite a long way.

Don't underestimate your skillset. I've repaired plenty of phones myself, but I've also been working with small tools and soldering electronics since I was a young child. My father, who is a perfectly capable adult human being with experience using many tools (but not many small detail-oriented tools) tried to fix the screen on his phone after I implied it might be pretty easy and he ended up having to buy a new phone.

Indeed, it's not just that I'm anxious the toy will break. It's that I'm anxious the behavior will continue and the replacement will be broken in short order and so on.

Obviously this depends on the age of the child and the cost of the replacement, which are outside the parent's control, but how quickly the toy is replaced can be a factor too. When a toddler drops a toy behind some furniture (on purpose, multiple times) you can leave it there for a week or two, and they will learn not to do that with things they care about.

Why replace it? You're just teaching the child that breaking things has consequences for others but not for them.

At some point in time you made the determination that the value of the child possessing that item was greater than the cost to purchase said item. While them breaking the item may have changed the equation, generally it doesn't. In real life if you accidentally break something, you replace it and move on. If the child is old enough perhaps have the replacement come out of their allowance/have them do something in exchange, but if they are too young to take care of the issue themselves, they are too young to be responsible for taking care of the issue.

well, i might make that determination for a laptop used for school, but surely not for a thing to play computer games or watch tv. if that breaks there is unlikely to be a new one for at least a year.

I've tried preaching philosophy to my toddler but he just doesn't seem to get it for some reason :) Some toys do get "broken" (but easily fixed so they reappear in a week or more), but out of sight means out of mind! He won't even remember it exists as soon as he gets thirsty and wants his drink instead, so effectively there are already zero consequences outside of a minute of anguish. I, on the other hand, do like the option of having toys to distract him while fixing dinner and some are way more effective than most.

I never understand this view, but admittedly I don't have children. I have a cat though. She's the first pet I've ever had in my life.

I got lots of warnings from lots of people. Don't let her out or she'll cry all the time to go out. Keep her away from the door or she'll run out and you won't see her again. It sounded very difficult.

However I didn't follow this advice and let my cat out in my backyard. And I found out that people were right and she does cry to go out all the time.

At the start. So I ignored her. I didn't even tell her to be quiet. I let her whine and cry as much as she wanted. She was 100% fine and had everything she needed except the ability to go outside.

She started to scratch the screen to voice her displeasure. I'm the boss and so she lost screen door privileges. She tried to negotiate but failed horribly because, again, I am the boss. She is a cat. The next weekend she got screen door privileges back and scratched the screen on day 2. She lost them again because I'm the boss and I don't want her to scratch my screen. When she got her screen privileges back again she never scratched the screen again.

The door thing, same. She snuck out once. Then I started locking her in a safe room with everything she needed. It's still her room to this day and she can trash it as much as she wants, just like she could as a kitten. That's the only room she can do that and seems to understand that. She doesn't really come near the door if I'm leaving now, and if she's close she will not try sneaking out.

She just turned two this past month, and while she was a nightmare as a kitten, she is a complete angel now.

I'm not totally perfect and for example I can't keep her off my desk if it's in the sitting position. So I've learned to deal with it. If I don't want her on my desk I need to either keep her out of my office or use it standing. I can't seem to win this battle and I tried everything. I'll say that not buying a kid a new iPad seems like a much easier thing to do.

I'm sure children are a lot different but the "I can't teach children philosophy" excuse sounds pretty weak. I don't understand how children can have that much power over an adult.

> She just turned two this past month, and while she was a nightmare as a kitten, she is a complete angel now.

A story of our young kid.

We had twins when she was 3. And she really liked them. Until they started moving and getting into her stuff. Then she really hated them. So much so that she would go out of her way to hurt them. When going to the bathroom, she would go the long way so she could step on their fingers. When we weren't looking, she would push them over. When one of them knocked over one of her toys, she picked him up and bodyslammed him.

It made life a living hell. We tried everything we could think of. Time outs, losing stuff, whatever. Right afterwards, 10 minutes later, she would be on them again.

Then one day, about 3 months after it started, it just stopped. Like magic. No clue why.

> I'm sure children are a lot different

They are.

Beating them into submission because you are the boss and they are just a child is not a long term solution.

They are a lot more complex than cats.

> I don't understand how children can have that much power over an adult.

Oh I can easily just lock my son in his room, make him dance to get fed, anything really. It'd be abuse and wouldn't result in him growing into a well rounded child and adult and he'd hate me, but I could force him to behave in basic ways like you're describing.

I didn't beat anything into submission.

I set ground rules and gave her safe ways to be upset. If she misbehaved she lost privileges she enjoys.

I never neglected her if that's what you're trying to get at. That's a pretty low-blow to accuse me of based on what I wrote. Be better.

Obviously locking children in rooms isn't right. How about this, instead of locking kids in a room, you could try making a toy room and locking them OUT if they're misbehaving. Is that inhumane torture? That's basically what I did with my cat.

"beating into submission" is a phrase that does not mean physically beating.

> I never neglected her if that's what you're trying to get at.

If you did that to a child it would be neglect, that is the point. Children aren't cats.

It is more complex with a child. It's easier when they're a baby, but increasingly more subtle as they get older. Nobody is saying you can't take things away from them or set boundaries, but you're talking about very simple things that may work with very young children but aren't enough as they get older.

"Do as I say because I am the boss" is just not good enough. Maybe you'll get compliance but that's not enough if you want a healthy relationship with your child as they grow.

> If you did that to a child it would be neglect, that is the point. Children aren't cats.

I would never do that to a child. Even if they had a bowl of food and water and a toilet in the room I wouldn't expect them to be able to take care of themselves. That sounds like something a psychopath would do. Stop straw-manning me, it's incredibly rude, and against the rules. You bring down the discourse of this site when you quote 5 words from a paragraph and leave the rest of the context out. Plus you are not even quoting me directly yet you're using quotes. Stop doing that as well please.

> "Do as I say because I am the boss" is just not good enough.

When did I make that argument?

For the record, I don't believe you should tell children that. I don't understand the difficulty in telling them "The iPad broke and you are not getting another one because you can't take care of it properly. Perhaps you'll get a new one at Christmas." when they break their iPad.

That's what I consider being a boss. Saying those words does not seem difficult to me.

You brought up your anecdote about your cat in a thread about children and child-rearing. It's absurd to accuse people of straw-manning you just for assuming you meant to draw parallels between children and cats.

it's not "Do as I say because I am the boss", it is "stop your behavior because it is not appropriate". children need to have boundaries. if those boundaries are crossed there must be consequences. when my kids argue over who gets to use the computer, i take the computer away until they calm down and settle their disagreement.

Make them work for it. If they break a toy, they have to work to get the replacement. Very early on, that might just mean doing their chores on time, or reading a book, or whatever - but the point is that when they break something, it takes work to replace.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(philosophy_o... feels obligatory to mention here:

> a theory in education which posits that individuals or learners do not acquire knowledge and understanding by passively perceiving it within a direct process of knowledge transmission, rather they construct new understandings and knowledge through experience and social discourse, integrating new information with what they already know (prior knowledge).

A bunch of the big One Laptop Per Child people were strong constructivists. It didnt seem super successful, but the OS really did a lot to build a more open sandbox for compute that kids could more directly be involved with, see & manipulate. I wish that effort had gone a bit better, had developed more compelling learning software & been given a shot at a much bigger scale, where more could have been learned/tried.

i believe the reason OLPC was not successful is because they underestimated the externalities. how much it would cost to build the infrastructure (electricity/internet access) to make the laptops usable, the effort needed to train teachers. etc.

> only be done without adult supervision.

I disagree. It's best done with adult supervision, by adults who either at least allow play, if not are still playful themselves.

Yes teens do need some time without adults for a sliver of contexts, but the vast majority of learning is optimized when having the availability of at least 2 responsible adults who aid when called on but do not impose.

Lots of our ideas about teenagers, what kids can and cannot do etc are very recent and very contrary to history's proof that they absolutely can

I'm not a parent, but I can imagine how difficult it must be for some parents to be able to "let go" in this way sometimes and let kids be kids.

I think if I had kids my gut feeling would be to prevent harm and unpleasant experiences, because I wouldn't want to experience those things myself, much less those in my charge who may not be equipped to handle it as well. If I allow myself to be driven by that instinct however, they'll never be well equipped which does not make for a well rounded adult. It hurts to see immediate family hurting even in trivial capacities, but a parent must seemingly be able to endure that if the children are to come to be able to stand on their own.

You can definitely enrich & join play. You just have to also enjoy & play and not supervise.

Oh, for sure, sometimes joining is great! But not all the time, and the kids should still be in charge.

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