> To some extent the Elks is a healthy community. Our lodge is definitely a place where kids can hang out together free from interfering adults
I do get that. Between scouting and youth leadership I have been part of organizing and running similar environments many times over.
But they are not communities. They are adult-generated, curated experiences. They are facsimiles, built out of patchy facades.
One facade: Moving the adults to an adjacent space and pretending that is adult-free time (I've done it).
As far as we think these simulations meet kids basic needs, we're fooling ourselves. Placing kids in adult constructs denies kids their autonomy. Every time. Mostly by design.
Worthwhile autonomy includes kids being able to come and go fully on their own. Trivially.
It's through autonomy (and genuine independence) that kids' critical growth happens. Organic kid-spaces are fertile soil where ambition grows.
They are the safe spaces (safe from adults) to make the kind of mistakes that teach strong interpersonal relationship and vital problem solving skills.
It's what every generation of kids had throughout human history, until we adults eradicated it - seemingly everywhere we could.
We adults put cars everywhere. We blast out false stranger danger messaging. We made criminal trespassing the default and maximized development. And we made lots of other kid-hostile changes to society that I'm certainly missing here.
sidebar: Compounding this is that parents are stupidly expected to fill all those new gaps in kids needs. Parents are now required to have the wisdom of all those nearby adults that disappeared with communities. And parents now have to spend 10x the time parenting, compared to their recent ancestors.
Together, this is all an unimaginably enormous loss for kids. These simulations you and I put on aren't really capable of mitigating it.
I do get that. Between scouting and youth leadership I have been part of organizing and running similar environments many times over.
But they are not communities. They are adult-generated, curated experiences. They are facsimiles, built out of patchy facades.
One facade: Moving the adults to an adjacent space and pretending that is adult-free time (I've done it).
As far as we think these simulations meet kids basic needs, we're fooling ourselves. Placing kids in adult constructs denies kids their autonomy. Every time. Mostly by design.
Worthwhile autonomy includes kids being able to come and go fully on their own. Trivially.
It's through autonomy (and genuine independence) that kids' critical growth happens. Organic kid-spaces are fertile soil where ambition grows.
They are the safe spaces (safe from adults) to make the kind of mistakes that teach strong interpersonal relationship and vital problem solving skills.
It's what every generation of kids had throughout human history, until we adults eradicated it - seemingly everywhere we could.
We adults put cars everywhere. We blast out false stranger danger messaging. We made criminal trespassing the default and maximized development. And we made lots of other kid-hostile changes to society that I'm certainly missing here.
sidebar: Compounding this is that parents are stupidly expected to fill all those new gaps in kids needs. Parents are now required to have the wisdom of all those nearby adults that disappeared with communities. And parents now have to spend 10x the time parenting, compared to their recent ancestors.
Together, this is all an unimaginably enormous loss for kids. These simulations you and I put on aren't really capable of mitigating it.