The Armored Child


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Perhaps you’ve seen the helmet babies - on the T, strapped into portable carrying chairs between fidgety parents; on the street, curled up in slings against the chests of dads. Helmet babies look strange, their soft baby heads encased in shells of foam, tight straps hugging their chins. If you’ve spotted one at close range, you may have felt the temptation to ball your hand into a fist, reach over, and give that fortified little noggin a gentle “knock knock.”

Boston Globe Article here

Ungar’s solution, in advising families, has not been to pressure parents into relinquishing their protective strategies. Instead, he asks them to reflect on their own childhoods, and to remember what lessons they learned from the freedoms they were given. Whatever those lessons are, Ungar says - whether they’re related to risk-taking, danger, or pain - parents are encouraged to create situations that might lead to similar breakthroughs for their kids without putting them in harm’s way.

His philosophy - that we can reverse-engineer risk into our kids’ lives without actually risking all that much - can be seen in the work of other parenting experts such as Gever Tulley, author of “Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)” and Tim Gill, author of “No Fear” and a leader in the movement to promote more outdoor playtime. It can also be seen in the development of new playgrounds specially designed to challenge kids and develop their sense of adventure by forcing them outside their comfort zones.

“You want kids climbing trees, you want them having bumps and bruises,” Ungar said. “It’s an equation for parents to do the math on: If you take away all those things - if you take away all the risk - that’s great. But then you have to put back opportunities for the life lessons.”

I cannot imagine crippling a child psychologically and emotionally with this approach of armoring the child.

Adam

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Any trauma or injury that does not kill you or cripple you, makes you stronger.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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The Boston Globe article, "The armored child: Babies in helmets. Toddlers tracked by GPS. Has modern parenting gone haywire, or is it just … parenting?" August 14, 2011|By Leon Neyfakh is here. (Though paleo-conservatism is an interesting aside.)

Here is the now-famous TED lecture by Gever Tulley, "Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do." Gever Tulley's many projects are easy to find with a search engine. Here is his "Tinkering School."

The article cited actually does point to some deeper misconceptions about how much or little parents pampered children in the past. As noted, in the Middle Ages, while scrapes and bruises were accepted, parents turned to amulets and prayer to protect against fatal dangers that we have left behind.

Also, I recommend a Horatio Alger story. I read Ragged Dick. Imagine a boy, 12, sleeping in a cart in an alley and being grateful that he can protect that space for himself, rather than sleeping in a doorway or on the ground. He goes to saloons, drinks beer, and smokes. When he gets steady work, he and a 10-year old friend rent a room (25 cents a week, I think; seems about right with 25 cents a day being wages for a child if a man made a dollar for a 12 hour day in a factory). Remember that in The Fountainhead, Gail Wynand's gang successfully raided boats though the "Pug Uglies" left two of their boys dead. So, we don't want our children hanging out in saloons and being shot for stealing bananas.

Still and all, it is better to have a wider latitude - and kids will take it, whether you give it to them or not. I built bombs. It would not have been allowed, even if there were a YMCA Summer Bomb Camp.

Finally, I am sure that we all know the Little Rascals "Our Gang" comedies. I probably know 25 by heart. I like the sociology reflected. We romanticize it and generalize it. This was set in Los Angeles; it was convenient for Hollywood. Only a few had winter even hinted at - in one, they were imprisoned in a mean orphanage: "Dont' drink the milk. It's spoiled." But, I just revisited one where their teacher, Miss Crabtree, picks them up in her car on the way to school, lets Chubby ride on the running board; and then, at lunch, she leaves the kids unattended while she goes into town to eat. A lot has changed, perhaps too much and not for the better.

Edited by Michael E. Marotta
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  • 4 weeks later...

Parents who neglect the task of preparing a child for independent survival as an adult have never thought through the question of what it means to raise a child.

No one ever told them that parenting requires thought. No one ever told them that the choice of whether or not to be a parent requires thought.

What sort of political system would a fearful adult who never discovered independence be likely to support?

And we wonder why so many people are resistant to freedom and capitalism. Government schools are unlikely to provide lessons that will bring about their demise.. It's a vicious cycle.

Edited by Dennis Hardin
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