Why don't kids walk home from school these days?

[Kiva]

there is actually some really interesting research being done by a lady at Stanford (forget the name) about how kids are less resourceful, have worse problem-solving skills, social relations, etc. then they used to. She attributes it to the fact that adults put kids in bubbles and that nearly all their interactions are adult driven.

One of her solutions: get a few of your friends together that have kids and make a weekly 'park' date. All the kids play and adults only intervene if somebody is bleeding. Everything else, the kids have to figure it out.

kiva

[Racer X]

TheCaber wrote:
..and how many registered level 3 sex offenders live along the walking route to/from school. In the city we used to live in, the number was uncomfortably large, with a still larger number of commuter-type offenders who would troll the route, looking for unaccompanied children to 'pick up'. Not every place is safe.

by legal definition, a 15 year old boy sending nude cell-phone pics to his 15 yo GF makes him a level 3 sex offender. 30 years ago, it would have been fine, or at least not marking him for life as a sexual deviant.

with new laws, maybe your kids are actually sitting next to a level 3 sex offender in school, and he might be your kids' best friend.

[dmann]

Most of my friend's kids can and do walk to school (even the ones who live in the city,) but things like soccer, ballet, karate, religious school and other activities are all over town. It takes the coordination skills of a mastermind to keep track of everyone, where they need to be and when.

I am constantly amazed at how much work it takes just providing TRANSPORTATION.

My friend who lives in a more rural area would love for her kids to walk to and from school, but there are very few sidewalks and even fewer streetlights in her area. It's a very nice community, but the houses are not close together and it can be desolate. I don't think I'd let my kids walk either (if I had any.)


DM

[Numo]

I think there may be something besides fear that makes parents chauffeur their kids to school these days: scheduling constraints. It takes too dang much time for a child to walk home, or maybe even take the bus. Life is much more tightly scripted today than we I was a kid.

[Seacrest]

Racer X wrote: by legal definition, a 15 year old boy sending nude cell-phone pics to his 15 yo GF makes him a level 3 sex offender. 30 years ago, it would have been fine, or at least not marking him for life as a sexual deviant.

30 years ago they would have asked him how the hell he was able to send nude pictures through a cell phone, and what the hell is a "cell phone? anyway." Or they would have made him CEO of Ma Bell. ;-)

[Todd's keyboard]

When possible, I'm a fan of the walking school bus (or the bicycle train).

http://www.walkingschoolbus.org/

Todd's keyboard

[AlphaDog]

[quote=Racer X

with new laws, maybe your kids are actually sitting next to a level 3 sex offender in school, and he might be your kids' best friend.
Were you listening to the KIRO reports as they tried to stir the pots? Have you looked at the information for the area around where you live? I looked up both the district I live in now and the district I used to live in and work in. In the current one, there were two named. Technically, one doesn't even attend a public school; he attends the classes provided by the district on site at the state's Child Study and Treatment Center. The second one had been in a group home run by the state, but he'd withdrawn and moved out of the area. There was only one in the other district, and he's enrolled at the alternative school. I appreciate a lot of the investigative reporting that's done, but sometimes they do a better job of getting people riled up than they do being objective.

Edit: I'm sorry, I used a poor choice of words above. None of the students were actually named. The schools in which they were enrolled were identified, the crime for which they'd been convicted was cited, and the offender level classification was given. None around me were sitting in an elementary school, although I'm not saying that's not happening somewhere; it simply isn't as prevalent as some would like people to think. This is actually of much interest to me, because I used to work with the offenders, trying to get them back out into the community as productive individuals; I had to deal with them when I worked in the schools; and I had kids attending schools where I knew offenders were enrolled. This is an extremely dicey issue, and it really bothers me when the risk gets blown way out of proportion.

[kap]

I walked during grade school. I took the bus from jr high through high school. I had to bike more often than driving in college days because my old clunker kept acting up. I now ride, take the bus and walk for 15 miles or less; drive for longer distances. I can still see jr high schoolers walk with their friends and bike to school in my present neighborhood but the high schoolers drive BMWs and such.

[Paul F.]

The one that ticks me off is kids who ride the bus to school....

But they live two blocks from the (expletive) school!

Not two "big city" blocks... No.. I'm talking about MAYBE 150 yards.
And not kindergartners, these are 3-4th graders.


I'm lazy, and I'll admit I was the fat out of shape kid in school who didn't play sports... So you can believe me when I say that some of these kids are WAY worse than "we"* ever were, and a LOT more numerous!

* We= me and the other porky out of shape kids in my elementary school... maybe 4-5 of us out of 250 students or so.

[decay]

ahem.