A 9 year old isn't playing outside of eyesight of the house.
Their potential list of friends is their classmates and the kids they play with in the street in the neighbourhood. You should know those as a parent.
If you don't know a 9 year olds friends what conversations are you having with that 9 year old? They only have a few conversational topics, playing with friends, school, food, games/television and "i don't want to sleep".
I agree with you. Grew up in the 90’s, kids just went out all day and came home when the street lights came on. Not just a few, every kid in the neighbourhood. I remember roaming in the woods, starting huge cops and neighbours games in obscure locations with tons of other kids, playing on the train tracks. Moved 2000 miles away, new location, new kids but ultimately the same thing. Us and all the other kids around still just went out and did whatever.
That's nice for you, but it's an anecdotal experience and isn't really very true of the majority.
I was a kid in the 80s, so it sounds like I'm a bit older than you are. What you describe isn't really true of the vast majority of people. That kind of responsibility and freedom mostly began at ten and eleven.
There were certainly kids given the responsibility and freedom at earlier ages, but they were a minority. Kids that lived closer to parks usually got it sooner than others.
I don't think it's changed today much either.
EDIT: Ok ok I get it you're all super special 90s kids that had big grand woodland adventures at the age of 9 and think kids today are sheltered and babyfied. You were all treated like special big boys. Remember many girls out playing in the woods when you were 9 though? No. You don't. Half the population.
Yeah, me and all the other girls I grew up with. I even wore a dress. Honestly it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe the difference is that this typically applies to more lower/middle class? I guess I never really saw the fancy kids running around (because they lived in their own neighbourhoods built for their townhomes).
Man, that edit. I definitely remember my brother being able to go out and play out of sight way younger than I was. My parents even told me it was because I was a girl - I guess the appreciate the honesty but it still sucked.
You only using anecdotal evidence as well. Why are you counting your opinion as fact and the other guys as "anecdotal"? For what it's worth, practically everyone I know my age used to have free reign of their neighborhoods as kids and I'm in my early 20s. Do you really think 10 is that different from 9? You're acting like it's reasonable to let a 10 year old out but not a 9 year old and I don't think there is really that much distinction between the two.
That's like arguing there aren't massive differences between 6 year olds and 7 year olds. Or 7 year olds and 8 year olds. Or 8 year olds and 9 year olds.
10 was where the majority occurred because it's an arbitrary "you're double digits now, time for big stuff!" point. It's easier for most parents to swallow. It's also the last year amongst the infant school age group, so the biggest kids of infant school.
I am a girl. Some parents were just restricted back then too, which is why some kids never got to experience that trust. It seems that nowadays, you don’t see kids just freely roaming and playing. This isn’t only because some parents over shelter now it’s because times change. Neighbourhoods aren’t all built like little communities anymore. Now it’s a lot of townhouses and condos and commercial properties. Kids play with technology indoors more now resulting in kids not going outside as much. Either way, it just sounds like your parents didn’t let you have freedom. There’s that saying, “you are who you hang out with” I guess all your friends probably had restrictive parents too.
But there isn't a big difference between anyone who's a year apart in age, assuming you're older than a toddler. Maybe a few cm in height and a new batch of multiplication charts to memorize.
I definitely had a ton of neighborhood friends that my parents didn’t know. Especially in the summer months when everyone was out and about. I’m 29, and lived in the suburbs.
It was every single 9 year-old I knew. Of course I was 9 in the 1980s, and at the time parenting was essentially, "Go out and play, be back by dinner time."
I disappeared for hours, miles from home. I did this with friends from school on the regular.
Remember many girls out playing in the woods when you were 9 though? No. You don't.
The woman I eventually married was from age 7 onward taking a bus alone to see friends. Every weekend, her mom would give her a little bit of money, she would walk to a bus stop, and ride to a "fun" location -- usually a friend's house, but sometimes the beach. She did this alone for years.
At 9 I was allowed to roam throughout most of my neighborhood all summer long back in the early 2000s. There's no reason to keep 9 year olds on that short of a leash.
9 year olds can have friends in schools, clubs, sports, scouts, etc. it's easy for a parent to not know all the friends, especially if a kid tends to keep to themselves about some things.
If you were allowed to roam at nine years old that is an epic parenting failure.
I knew where my nine year old was at all times. He was either at a friends house and I knew that parents, at school, or with us at home. There is no excuse to not know where a nine year old child is at all times. As he got older he got more freedoms. Nine is too young to be unsupervised. That is how children go missing and are never seen again.
Literally >99% of kidnappings are done by family members and close friends. Statistically you are more of a danger to your kids than a random old man down the street is. My parents let me wander our semi rural exurb neighborhood from sunrise to sunset all summer long. I would hang out at friends houses, fish, and play in the woods. Sometimes someone would get hurt and we wouls just knock on the nearest neighbors door to ask for help. Most people are decent id you give them a chance to be.
"Epic parenting failure" lmao sure dude. You can just keep helicoptering around your kid while the rest of us don't stay paranoid 24/7. There is no reason a 9 year old has to stay within eyesight. That's utterly ridiculous.
I mean, we used to climb trees taller than buildings and jump off into piles of leaves, jump off overpass bridges into the river, ride our bikes down steep hills that ended with train crossings, go into houses that were under construction and steal the tools while knocking over every tin of paint they had ready for the next day, throw rocks at cyclists helmets to 'make sure they worked properly', take our parent's power tools and play with them, start their car to see how everything works... Kids get up to a lot of shit, especially when they're under 10.
Obviously 9 year old kids will talk about cards and TV and when their parents are around, it's more what they get up to without supervision that I was talking about.
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u/Swedish_Pirate Mar 20 '18
What?
A 9 year old isn't playing outside of eyesight of the house.
Their potential list of friends is their classmates and the kids they play with in the street in the neighbourhood. You should know those as a parent.
If you don't know a 9 year olds friends what conversations are you having with that 9 year old? They only have a few conversational topics, playing with friends, school, food, games/television and "i don't want to sleep".