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

[AlphaDog]

Kiva wrote:
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.

kiva

I sure wish I was working on that project! I have the same gut feeling but, of course, nothing to substantiate it. Or refute it, for that matter.

[space-time]

my former boss bought a house within walking distance form school, maybe 10-15 minutes walking. it seemed like it was a pretty important criteria for his house search. Of course, the fact that he is German may have something to do with this.

[graylocks]

hal wrote:
geez, you mean to tell me that 13yo kids are DRIVEN to soccer practice these days? that can't be right...

soccer is, more often than not, NOT tied to your school. county rec leagues run soccer teams and the soccer complexes are not within walking distance of anyone's home. this is also true for county rec baseball, softball and football.

as for my town, there are no sidewalks. distracted adults at the wheel - cellphones and coffee in hand - and pedestrians, of any age, do not co-exist well.

[volcs0]

My kids all walk to and from school. The older boys (5th, 8th) walk themselves to and from. The younger kids get walked by my wife or me. We also both walk to work.
When we moved back to Chicago, one requirement above all else was that we wanted to make driving no longer an active part of our lives.

[hal]

Let me refresh the discussion here...

My initial point: 30 years ago MY PARTICULAR jh school was considered by 99% of parents to be save for their kids to walk to and from. And there were bikes all over the place on the campus.

But today, all of these kids are now driven.

The neighborhood has not gone down the drain (the opposite if anything). And NOTHING is different.

I dont' see the talk of sexual predators to be relevant.

I'm sure we've all read that sex crimes against children is not happening in greater numbers now than in the past - it's just talked about a lot more. There were just as many lurking back then as there are now (and I never heard of any incident happening to any of the kids going to my schools my whole life)

I don't buy the after school lessons and such - all of those existed back in my day too.

So what has changed?

[decay]

hal wrote:
What's the deal? There are no more child-related crimes than there were 30 years ago. Almost all of these kids live within a mile of the school.

Is it like this everywhere?

lots of us posted reasons why in response to your questions.

how do you KNOW there are "no more child-related crimes than there were 30 years ago"?

maybe people are more aware now with cable TV and internet news than they were in the past - maybe they are getting smarter in regards to protecting their kids?

my daughter is 10 and walks home a few blocks from school with a friend or two.

she gets a ride in the morning if the weather is bad. you should feel the weight of her back pack - when i was in 5th grade i didn't carry books that heavy, of that i am certain.

[ztirffritz]

http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on..._kids.html

[Seacrest]

PS: we rode bikes WITHOUT HELMETS, praise the Lord.

[PeterB]

I can (and do) understand the safety issue.

What I cannot understand is the transportation issue. If the kids are scheduled so tightly that they need to driven from place to place, then I think they are really overscheduled. Kids need downtime, just like anyone else, and overscheduling (along with parental pressure to excel) results in kids who become seriously maladjusted adults. Kids need some time to study/work, some time to sleep, some time to play, and also do need some time to be left alone, in order to develop whatever their particular talent(s) are-- rather than being pigeonholed into whatever their parents want FOR them.

And no, I'm not a parent, however... I do have nieces and nephews, their parents are great and have NOT overscheduled them.

[Grateful11]

I guess I should have walked to school, let's see Primary school was 4 miles away and Jr. and
Sr, high was almost 10 miles away.

Around here guys like this might be part of the reason folks don't let their kids walk to school:



We live in a rural area with virtually no shoulders on the roads. Our two never rode a school bus.
I picked up more bad habits on the school bus than I ever did in school. My wife said the
school bus was the absolute worst part of going to school for her and her sister. They grew up
on a Dairy and there was always a large sign at the farm entrance where milk tankers came
in and it was nearly an everyday thing to be ridiculed about living on a farm and it was always
is that your Daddy on the sign milking the cow. Our youngest has MD so it was either take him
school ourself or put him on a special bus, my wife always got up at 4:30am, milked the
cows and got the kids ready and took them to school. No regrets at all both were honor
students and get excellent grades in college and on their way to graduate with honors.