Acceptable Outdoor Childhood Pursuits

Last Friday I was doing some sea fishing at bottom of cliffs just outside Arbroath (east coast of Scotland) with some friends. Nice day out, we caught some mackeral and ling cod and watched the dolphins swim by and Typhoons fly by. About half way through the day a group of local children had turned up (it being the local school holidays) and proceeded to jump the cliffs into the sea (about 60-80 feet in height) in much the same way as in this youtube video. There was no aldult supervision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxK88kV6A4c

It was good to see the games console generation hasn't taking over completely.

I think you guys are way too hard on the so called video game generation.

Acceptable to me. Every kid should have the chance to be adventurous and have fun

My inlaws claim we are "careless" with our children when they see the bumps and bruises from playing outdoors. their belief is children should sit quietly in front of the TV and they wonder why I don't let them babysit.

never broke an arm or leg, but fingers and toes, yeah. Dad always thought gettting brused falling off things, or running into things was part of childhood. I do know I did get bruised more than a few times when Dad took me outside and taught me "to learn how to fall" - saved more than a few bruises later - he even taught me how to do a PLF

My dad didn't spend a lot of time in my life; he was always too busy. But he passed on enough, I think.

Splinter? You want me to take it out, or can you? [After the first big, painful production with dad, we always just took care of splinters on our own.]

Fishing? Hiking alone in the mountains? Building fires? Here's a pocket knife your grandfather gave me, just don't tell your mother.

Bleeding? Rub clean dirt in it, the bleeding will stop, wash up with soap and water after a while. If it gets infected let me know. Infected? That's good, your immune system is getting stronger. Let me know if you get fever or have stranger than usual dreams. Fever or really strange dreams? Good that shows your body is really fighting something and getting stronger. Let me look in your eyes, take your pulse, check your throat, and check that fever. Here better come see me at breakfast and dinner to take these pills, or, You're fine, go play.

My dad is a Harvard Med grad and retired vascular surgeon. Between garage surgery to spay and neuter the pets, and visits when he took me to the hospital labs and pathology departments I learned at least two things: my dad did his best to show me his love, and I never wanted to be a doctor because that took my dad away too much.

I hope enough kids find a way to spend time goofing off outside, getting cuts and bruises and splinters making the same mistakes we did. I worry that zero-tolerance for mistakes and pain inhibits kids from developing judgment and confidence. And, too many lawsuits.

Surviving an active childhood can creat a stonger adult...

I certainly hope kids don’t do some of the things I did when I was a kid, they would take the kid and parents to court over some of it.


It seems lots of things are acceptable outdoor behavior in kids other then chopping a few branches off a pine tree.

Sounds good to me, assuming they have the sense to check the water is deep enough before the first one jumps off the cliff!

OIMO

"...how's your 2nd?...

You never can remember what you had for breakfast that day...

Nowadays in the UK this is called "tombstoning" and several people a year die trying it. 5 last year, according to this (pro) article. Probably the kids you saw knew what they were doing, though.

I used to pick on a supervisor I had a few years ago when he broke his first bone at the age of 32. I felt like a person couldn't have had all that much fun as a kid if they didn't experience at least one broken bone. I myself have had six confirmed by a doctor. LOL

I told my wife once in a conversation (I was 30 at the time)that I never broke a bone in my life.



About a week later


BANG, CRASH !!!

Motorcycle accident. Lots of broke bones (and skin removed by abrasion by a stone road.) A guy pulled out in front of me while I was on my way to work at a nuke plant.

I broke both knees, right wrist, left foot, left ankle, and shattered my left shoulder socket in 3 spots. And a concussion.

Plus it totaled a good motorcycle and the hospital people cut up a very nice leather jacket.



I don’t say things like “I never had (fill in the blank) happen to me. I learned my lesson to not get the guy upstairs upset with me and then decide to teach me a lesson. It’s been almost 20-years since the accident and I’m reminded of it every d

I was around 40 when I broke my first bone (skiing).

One thing that strikes me about my childhood is that although I avoided injury myself, I hung out with out kids who did get injured and did the same kind of stuff. For example, I played with home-made fireworks, and with steam-engines fuelled with meths. My friend gave himself serious burns playing with meths. I like to think I am smarter than him, but I don't know if I was just lucky. (I wasn't present and didn't contribute to his accident. It was apparently made worse by his panic reaction.)

I have only broken two bones in my life. Actually only one, but broke it twice. Left little toe. I suspect that I have super strong bones or something. A couple of years ago I was dragging a RR tie by one end, walking backwards. I tripped, fell backwards, the end of the tie came down on my right shin, ripped all flesh from the leg, down to the bone, a strip about 1.5" wide and 15" long. I would have expected a compound fracture. Neat scar tho...

I'll chime in here, with a bit of a cranky old(ish) guy perspective on that. Each generation claims that the "kids today" are lazy, shiftless, dishonest, don't work as hard...blah blah.

All I can say is that my experience with the Junior Firefightrers is, at best, disheartening. They can't finish anything they start. At all.