Plastic Bubble Syndrome

1905

Well-Known Member
Google baby kicked by breakdancer. I swear, there was a mall breakdancing competion. There was a big crowd around the breakdancers. It looks like a 2 year old just wandered in and got kicked in the face, and went flying backward, and landed on her head. Who lets go of a baby in a big crowd at the mall?
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
The car seat thing really has me stumped now.

They have just come out with the new regulations that have upped the ages and weights to where it puts Keyana back into a high backed chair for another year and takes her out of the booster seat she has been in since she was 4. That is a problem for me because I dont have her often anymore and really cant afford to buy another chair for the very few times I will have her until she reaches 6 years or 65 pounds!!!

Also, I did go out and buy a new car seat for the new baby because the new regs say an infant has to be rear facing for the first 2 years or 40 pounds...can you imagine keeping a 2 year old rear facing that long???? I honestly cant. It was hard enough keeping a one year old rear facing. By the time they were almost one they were itching to turn around. Only thing I can think of is to glue a dvd player on the back seat. Or velcro so I can stick a ton of batteries in it to keep it playing. Plus this new seat is much bigger to hold a larger baby. I certainly cant put but two in my car.

As far as the helmets...well...Keyana actually has a motorcycle helmet because she rides with Cory on his scooter. That is her most favorite thing in the world to do. They are so cute together going down the road. She sits right in front of him between his legs so she cant fall off and they ride all over town on his bright yellow scooter. LOL. Probably should get her knee pads but that hasnt come up. If they get hit, I dont think they will help a whole lot though.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
I can see the helmet for the scooter. in my opinion, if you're going to mandate seatbelt wearing in cars, helmets should not be optional.
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
A few years ago the EasyBake Oven was redesigned to function without a lightbulb. They added a heating element. It was HUGELY popular since it's really hard finding a 100 non-frosted lightbulb these days. The packaging CLEARLY states that it is for ages 8 and UP and even then ONLY with parental supervision (same warning on the lightbulb models.) Well, a 5 y/o got her hand stuck in there and had to get amputated. So there was a recall. They had a retrofit attachment to reduce the possibility of a hand going in in the first place PLUS more stickers to put on the unit that it was for ages 8 and UP and even then ONLY with parental supervision. So what happened then? A 3y/o got their hand stuck in there and had to get it amputated. That model went to a complete and total recall. SERIOUSLY?????????????? REALLY?????????????????? Because these two kids had IRRESPONSIBLE parents that allowed them to play seemingly unsupervised with an age IN-appropriate toy, the rest of the world misses out? Honestly. If it were me and my kid, I'd be too embarrassed that I screwed up to even complain.:soapbox:

easy child still has her original!! Light bulb!!! A couple of years ago she went to buy another for a friend and couldn't find them anywhere!
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Yes - I agree. There's a real "wussification" of society going on...

But on the other hand -

If you CAN make something safer? Why wouldn't you?

I mean - at some point, somebody must've looked out at their back yard and wondered why their children were climbing on a jumgle gym with nothing but carefully poured cement to break their fall. THAT seems like a preventable accident/injury....doesn't it?

We forget just how much stupidity there was in the past...

So now that we have fixed those errors...

We are just stupid in a different direction.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Safety precautions are good. You can recommend stuff to me all day long.

But the mandates are what bother me.

I don't remember jungle gyms over concrete, though. Sand, gravel? Yes.

I'd like to make things safer for the kids. But not too safe.

Heck, I used to climb on the roof with my Dad to setup the swamp cooler in April...
 

JJJ

Active Member
- we are moving body-checking and other high-risk moves down into little-kids hockey - risking severe concussions and/or joint damage with life-long consequences (and some kids will die from brain injuries) but this is allowed in the name of "sports development".
Actually, the move is *away* from checking at the younger ages.


USA Hockey just eliminated checking for 11 and 12 year olds. Now, American children will be 13 when they start checking.

Ontario Hockey eliminated checking for all recreational youth players.

Girls hockey -- internationally -- is no-check.
 

keista

New Member
A couple of years ago she went to buy another for a friend and couldn't find them anywhere!
that may have been the year of the recall. They are available everywhere now. "New" Ultimate model is available this year. have no idea what makes it so different and EXPENSIVE.

As for making things safer, I'm all for it, but lets get real. At two of our local playgrounds there are these strange climbing ramps. One of them I think is crazy dangerous because it is really wide and has distinct ledges for kids to sit on, but there is NOTHING to keep them from getting knocked off the side. Multiple kids are on this thing at once, and kids will be kids and they start horsing around and pushing each other. Well, it turns out that it used to be a slide, but some kid broke an arm on it, so they flipped it over to make it "safer" - NOT. UHG!

I'll admit that I used to be much more of a "bubble" parent. No, I didnt' want my kids to get hurt, but I also didnt' have insurance, so if they did get hurt, how would they get the care they needed. Now that they have insurance, I'm much more relaxed. I still cringe and lecture about things like wearing closed toed shoes when riding bikes or scooters, but I figure if we end up in the ER, the lesson might sink in more, so I take a deep breath and just let it go.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
I don't remember jungle gyms over concrete, though. Sand, gravel? Yes.

O my goodness! We had two jungle gyms in our back yard. One was an extremely tall rusty old death-trap over a concrete slab. The other "safer" one was just stuck into the nice, soft soil - so that if too many kids used it at once it would tip over.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
There is also the larger issue of "lack of common sense"...

For example - we have all kinds of standards for fire-resistant clothing for toddlers...

and yet parents will hand those toddlers (in their very safe fire-resistant dods) a lit sparkler to play with.

In addition to shielding our kids from dangerous (albeit educational) experiences - our education system is no longer teaching basic skills. A few basic lessons about physics would help a LOT.
 

keista

New Member
and yet parents will hand those toddlers (in their very safe fire-resistant dods) a lit sparkler to play with.
:rofl:

Didn't you know? That WHY they are fire resistant - so parents COULD do that! *facepalm*
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
I'm amazed at how many kids can't navigate on their own. I see parents hovering to pick the kids up nearly 30 minutes before school's out, just sitting outside the classroom, so I have to close the door or hear, "My mom's out there...can I go?" No, school's not over yet. I remember, in elementary school, we were excused when the bell rang and managed to get ourselves either to the bus or to parent pick-up. It was a huge embarrassment for somebody's mom to come to the room to get them. We also managed to get ourselves down to the office if we had to leave for a dentist appointment or something, and we got ourselves back to the classroom when we came back to school.
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
Our elementary school was out in the boonies...and is STILL the only one in the district where everyone is eligible to ride the bus...I never figured that would be the case 40 years later.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Actually here, everyone rides a bus unless parents simply want to drive their kids because we are rural. Even when I was little and lived in another state, we only walked or road a bike if we wanted to but the bus was available when I was in public school in first grade and then when I went back in Jr High. I was in private from second grade through 6th grade.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
In our area, NO ONE walks to school unless they want to.

We live less than a mile from the elementary J attended... And he was bused.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
I worked for a man selling playground equipment and I am still a card holding member of the CPSP and Nation Parks and Recreation Programs and I can tell you this much......you CAN check the statisitics from OUR days on the playgrounds to now and the death rates HAVE dropped. *death rates* from improper and unsafe, unmanaged equipment that kids have played on. CPSC or Child Protection Safety Commission was and has been designed to make head fall injuries nearly non-existant. HOWEVER the Dr. that I worked for STILL was an expert witness (at over $250.00 /hr.) in lawsuit/wrongful death and injury cases involving playground equipment and the pictures and cases that we saw were horrific EVEN WITH the safety guidelines in place. MOSTLY? Because of natural elements ie: tree roots, broken bottles/trash on playgrounds, trip hazards, and the biggest NON ATTENTIVE PARENTS/Care-Givers on play equipment that was not supervised for children for that age.

They changed the fall height (critical fall height) and added a cushion with a containment barrier for a reason. LESS BROKEN BONES. There are LESS pinch and ENTRAPMENT enclosures on ALL equipment and it is AGE appropriate for SKILL levels so as not to pull and rip muscles and supposedly to build confidence. Now that last part? Meh. And what was once referred to as a Dentitsts Dream? No longer exists in hopes of averting lost teeth.

The problem that I see? Is perfectly demonstrated in one commercial where the Father comes home and yells for his kids and they are all inside - and he flips the breaker stopping the stereo, TV, and video games, computer and they all have to GET OFF THEIR BUTTS....GET OUTSIDE AND ACTUALLY USE some of the play equipment..

Then again? I think we all forget that a long time ago most of us could go out at dawn and come back at dusk and hardly have to worry about perverts and sex predators either - without our parents being in the park or woods either. So while it would be nice to send the kids out to play like it was when we were young? We can't anymore - times have changed. But you CAN unplug the video games and the computer and make them read, and take them to the library, -------but then again why bother - just down load a book on Kindle. Lest ye get a papercut. lol
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
I hate the mulch. Nasty stuff. Harder to get out of socks and cuffs than sand ever was, plus when it's dragged home it gets everywhere and then EVERYONE get splinters. It hoovers so much I won't take her to a playground that doesn't have sand at this point. Don't even get me started on the shredded rubber stuff and what that does to clothes plus friction burn.

A lot of the rest has me doing flashbacks to George Carlin's passive eugenics bit. "The kid that swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own."

Not sure about other places, but here (for liability reasons) they won't just turn the kids loose from school to bus, ride, walk, etc. I signed her up for school today and there was a permission slip for allowing your kid to walk home. I was floored. If you pick up your kid (at this school, not her old one) you have to come inside the building and sign that you picked them up. I now have to walk her into the before school program and sign her in, can't just let her walk the 20 feet between the truck and the door anymore. WTF.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Even worse... if you raise your kids in ways that make transitioning into adulthood easier, then THEY (and YOU) are outcasts in the school system. Neither teachers nor their peers can deal with kids who are learning adult-level skills but don't have cell-phone/face-book/computer-games/sports-team-participation etc. Because 95% (I'm being generous... my first number was 99.9!) of parents are just "going with the flow", kids who are "advanced" in life-skills are "behind in social skills because their peers can't relate to them".

Get this: The fix is to not allow our kids to learn advanced skills faster than their peers.

HUH? We're supposed to drop the whole world down to the lowest common denominator of non-think just to "fit in"???

Yeah. Honestly I sometimes think that is the point of it all.

I had teachers jaws drop when I told them my kids bedtime was 7pm. (it didn't change until high school, then most of the time they still went to bed at least by 8pm) Other parents would look at me like I was vicious because my kids didn't spend every waking moment in front of the tv or a video game. Teachers acted like I was horrid that I didn't have my kid serfing the net.......and when I balked at them using my computer for homework. Oh, was even more fun when I didn't own a computer for homework. Other parents couldn't believe my kids were given 15 mins as a time limit per phone call, no calls after 7pm (bedtime) or during dinner. If they abused the 15 min privilage by a friend repeatedly calling back, they lost it for a couple of weeks. Oh, and they weren't allowed to give the number out without prior permission. Aw heck, easy child didn't own her first boom box until she was 16.....none of them did.

And yeah, I heard it over the sports. Each got a turn at a sport for one year prior to hs. That was IT. Too expensive. Took too much free time up. In hs it was their responsibility if they wanted to do sports or clubs or whatever to find transportation or walk and to pay for it themselves.

Then again? I think we all forget that a long time ago most of us could go out at dawn and come back at dusk and hardly have to worry about perverts and sex predators either - without our parents being in the park or woods either. So while it would be nice to send the kids out to play like it was when we were young? We can't anymore - times have changed.

Um. Maybe it was just the city I grew up in.....although I saw the same thing in other towns......but believe me there were plenty of sex predators out there waiting to strike. We reported them to the grade school principal repeatedly, we avoided them in the parks, on the way to the grocery, on the way to school. Honestly I couldn't begin to count the number of times I was approached even while with a group of kids.

That would be the reason that by the age of two my kids knew their full names, mine and husband's full names, their address complete with zip code, phone number including area code, knew how to call 911 and how to call the home phone number. And also why my kids never played outside alone........they were always in eyesight although I let them be kids.

The same dangers have always been there. People just like to sugar coat the past. It's just that back then kids learned how to deal with them. Now.....they're bubble wrapped or like Star said parked in front of electronic devices made to keep them quiet.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
So while it would be nice to send the kids out to play like it was when we were young? We can't anymore - times have changed. But you CAN unplug the video games and the computer and make them read, and take them to the library,

I'm going to type this REALLY fast, and then duck - 'cause y'all gonna throw stuff at me.

Can't send the kids out to play? Oh yeah?
SURE YOU CAN.
You just have to do it differently.
And you DON'T have to "hoover".
Really...

Try...
- leisure card passes - swim/skate/weights/cardio/classes/sports/etc. all in one place - Johnny goes to play basketball with the other teens, Suzie runs the track, Dad lifts weights and Mom goes for an aerobics class. Then they all jump in the pool for a swim.
- take up fishing and/or gardening - great for the body, mind, and spirit - and if you're good at it, good for the pocketbook too.
- get a dog, and learn how to train it in an "active" activity - agility, fly-ball, tracking, search-and-rescue... and then participate.
- if you don't want to be tied down with a dog but like dogs, become a "dog-walker" family!
- volunteer at your local rink (oops - only applies in the north country where we get real winter!)
- bike riding as a family
- camping (except, gotta be really careful with that axe... and the matches... and...)
- non-motorized water sports (canoe, kayak, sailboard, etc.)
- start a walking school-bus (go look it up - great concept)

Get off your blankety-blank buttsides and DO SOMETHING.
TOGETHER.

Now that I think about it... back when I was a young-un, we DID have parents around. Just not watching US directly. On our block alone, 4 neighbors were early-risers and in their gardens by 6, half-a-dozen homes had parents on shift work, so Dads or Moms were coming by just after 11 pm. Some parents worked split-shift, and were around in the middle of the day, or worked part time and were there in the mornings or afternoons. There were always four or five parents "out and about" every single evening. In addition, the older kids (13-15) kept an eye out on the rest... our payment in return was being allowed to stay out half-an-hour later than the younger ones. (Biggest payback was Halloween, but that's a different thread!)

Now... most parents are gone all day, leaving about the same time and getting home about the same time... the whole culture doesn't support kids "roaming free", because NOBODY is watching (except the "bad guys")
 
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