BicycleCrazy

My son and I love riding together...something I enjoy more than just about anything! Being with my son enjoying an activity like cycling! What could be better?

But with video games, automobiles etc. are our kids loosing their freedom to roam?

Here is an interesting video with statistics on how our youth's mode of travel has changed over the decades.

Have our kids lost their freedom to roam?

fietsbob

OK where do you live? mister broad generalization .. big urban area more likely , small town, less so.

ThermionicScott 

Don't blame videogames and cars for what overprotective parents, spurred by a culture of fear, are doing.

steve0257

Yes they have. How any remember the thread where a mother got hauled into court for letting her daughter ride bicycle to school?

For some of the other stuff that is happening take a look at https://www.freerangekids.com/

fietsbob

But the Arms Trade has done very well , and its connected to use of power over , taking from.

rather than Co Operation With.

rebel1916

Google Lenore Skenazy.

UtahRider

I believe kids have not lost their freedom to roam, but the desire many years ago.

bruin11

Unfortunately with all of the crazies out there people don't want their kids out roaming. No more leave the house on your bike in the morning and not be seen again until some time later for dinner.

Kai Winters

Yes, dramatically compared to me at the same ages.
I'm 58 and grew up in an old, garment industry city...Fall River, MA...I lived in a neighborhood of triple deckers for all of my young life. I was lucky and lived across the street from one of the largest parks in the city. My neighborhood friends and I generally all went to the same school and as a group walked the roughly half mile through the park to school each day...older kids watched the younger kids whether related or not...a matter of knowing the kids, their families, etc. all living in the same "hood".

As an early teen a group of us would sleep in tents in my back yard during the summer and when the parents were asleep we'd wander the neighborhood and park in the middle of the night. During the day, summer and after school, we'd be in the park running around like crazy people, walking down to the river to swim, in our underwear, wandering the local woods, etc.
We were amazingly free of supervision by adults and did things my kids, 26 and 28, have never thought about or even considered...like talking to the "hobo's" that lived in the woods aside the rail road tracks next to the river...imagine...

My kids, born in 85 and 87, were generally never out of our sight and we lived in a nice neighborhood. Even playing in the back yard or small wooded area next to our house their was generally always one parent or another from the neighboring houses always keeping a "weather eye" on what was going on. My kids always had friends over and would play in the yard...never wandering the neighborhood on their own...not even thought about. Activities were always supervised at the same ages I wandered alone/in a group of kids with our parents having no clue where exactly we were or what we were doing.

Two totally different ages and experiences...I'd not trade my childhood and memories for anything my kids did during theirs but at the same time they also feel the same about their childhood experiences...

They did not have the freedoms I had by a long stretch but they grew up happy and well just the same...just no hard to explain black eyes hehehe...

knobster

Lost their freedom, no. Lost their desire, yes....

memebag

I don't let my daughter roam like my parents let me roam. I'm a much better parent than they were.

cvskates

That's hilarious

fishymamba

My group of friends...definitely not. We commonly do bike rides and hiking trips, randomly go exploring in the local mountains or sometimes just the city.
But in my opinion, we are a "rare" group of people, not many people our age do stuff like what we do.

Don't blame it on the video games, blame it on how they were brought up. We still play video games and stuff like that, but out parents also encouraged to do more active/outdoorsy type stuff, we had quiet a bit of freedom.
Even now that we are older(late teens), we still prefer to ride our bikes around town instead of taking our cars because that is what we have been doing for the past 5+ years before we could drive.
I personally think that kids today are too sheltered by their parents, they don't want their kids to "roam" around the city, they would rather have them at home playing video games where they can keep an eye on them, and that is the problem.

wahoonc

Yes

Aaron

soonerrebel

Not trying to start a forum fight but what information do you use or have to quantify this statement. I do believe the FEELING is there but what information is used to say its worse now than back in the 1970's.

Retro Grouch 

When I was in high school is the late 50's my normal means of transportation was to hitch hike. You don't see very many hitch hikers anymore.

Fastfingaz

Well there wern't that many cars in the late fifties neither!!!! just jokeing Grouch,,, actually I did a lot of hitchhikig in the sixties!! them hippy years!!!but no,, times have changed and it's been for the worst ,, those innocent times of the 50's 60's and even 70's are but memories for those fortunate to have experienced them, it's not the kids fault ! parents are just being parents!!trying to protect their kids !!! gotta watch em every minute!!!

fietsbob

So nice of RR to Shut Down & empty the Mental Health asylums onto the curb,
and gut the Treatment budgets ,
so 'Christian' of Him..

... and one place that Battle damaged soldiers can get work is In the Police Forces

so anyone not in the Police Uniform is construed as the enemy ..


but still selling toy guns & vid Games to children is good preparation to the Next War.

highlux

• Have our kids lost their freedom to roam?

No. You took it from them by subscribing to the pussification of America. Im 43. When we ran our mouths or misbehaved. We got our asses beat. Your not allowed to do that anymore. Also...it's gonna sound sexist, and maybe it is...but alot of our moms stayed home. Families today center around Dad and Mom working. Thats bad. A parent should be with the kids., but no...they cant afford the super big house and brand new cars if only one works. So they sacrifice the kids upbringing, so they can have cool stuff.

Dont say...oh we both need to work. No....you just need to slow down and live realistically.

Keep a parent home. Beat the kids ass if they act up. Teach them to stand up for themselves. Get them interested in cool stuff. You will never lose them.

WestPablo

Kids just want to have fun and not be bored. The further you go back in time, the more one had to travel in order to have such fun and/or excitement. These days, fun is just a click away. Everything has been made entirely too close and too convenient. That' why America has become a nation of fat asses!

kingsqueak

It's this...my step-son had almost no outdoor activity growing up and it was because no other kids were allowed to be out roaming around. The playground was a block away from us and none of his friends were allowed to even walk to it, let alone go out riding bicycles.

It was sad to watch. I grew up leaving the house shortly after breakfast and sliding in right in time for dinner my entire youth. We used to build dirt tracks, ramps etc for bikes that we pulled from the trash and figured out how to build up on our own.

What puzzles me is that it is a lot of my own generation that is to blame for the ridiculous over protective, sheltering approach to child rearing. This was not at all how we grew up and I can't figure out at all how this manifested like this.

My step-son was allowed out, but there was never anyone else around for him to interact with. Paranoid parents. We actually got a few calls from other parents to "alert" us that he was at the playground.

Between this issue and all the other nanny-state influences throughout the school systems now, I was exceptionally glad for him when he graduated H.S. a few years back. It's a terrible time to be a child now...really sad.

Wheels Of Steel

Hard to imagine what this portends for the future of the bicycle industry, not to mention our society as a whole.

Combination of social stratification, technological convenience and individual's unwillingness to break free from the mold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkLr...5C4EC584A68D2F

koolerb

Good video. Yes they have less freedom,,, and less desire to roam. I'm 45, and I'd say 4th grade forward I had a ton of freedom. I went everywhere on my own, and with my friends; bike, bus, walk, you name it. I couldn't imagine my 15 year old doing what I did when was half her age. We definitely keep a shorter leash on kids these days. But kids don't seem to want stretch it either, at least my kids don't. What makes it even more odd, we had no cell phones back then. When we were on our own, we were really on our own. You would think in this age of instant communication kids would have at least as much freedom as we had when we were their age. It's counter intuitive.

rydabent

Even in the mid 70s my two older sons left the house in the morning, came home at noon to eat sometimes with friends, or had lunch at a friends house. They continued to roam until dinner time. They then went out after dinner, and they had one rule. Street lights on, kids in the house.

The street light rule worked great. All three of my sons were never in trouble with the police by doing something after dark that kids have no business doing.

Fleets

I know what you mean I'm 17 and none of my friends ever want to do anything. All they do is stay in there house play video games and do homework. Probably the reason to this is that most kids now grow up with parents who are authoritarians. Resulting in kids not being independent and looking for that parent to hold there hand through life.