Neal Milner: Children Are Not As Fragile As You Think
Parents should stop trying to shelter their kids from the outside world. They need challenges.
By Neal Milner
November 23, 2023 · 6 min read
About the Author
Parents should stop trying to shelter their kids from the outside world. They need challenges.
Let鈥檚 look at how children learn to deal with the outside world, because that鈥檚 a serious problem, maybe even a crisis.
Consider three groups of kids and parents: outliers, Maui fire victims, and, for lack of a better term, the rest of us.
It鈥檚 about isolating yourself from the world versus engaging with it.
Outliers: Grizzly Bears And Subways
Seven years ago, Louise Skenazy let her 9-year-old son ride the New York City subway alone. It went fine. The kid felt proud.
The national outrage was amazing. She became known as
Three years ago, the outdoorsman and author Steve Rinella was hunting in Alaska with his 10-year-old son. The son shot a caribou.
They could not lug the whole animal all the way back through an insect-infested bog to their campsite a mile away, so they loaded half the meat, planning to return after they got the load back to camp.
When they got there, the son was so tired and so swollen from insect bites that his dad didn鈥檛 want to put the boy through the return trek.
They had seen two grizzlies in the area that day. After much discussion and review, Rinella decided to leave the boy behind with the guns.
When Rinella returned to camp, his son was .
Rinella and his wife have raised their children to be comfortable and capable in the natural world. Both in terms of skills and attitudes.
鈥淚f you teach them to keep their heads around grizzlies, the rest will take care of itself, 鈥淩inella said.
Skenazy鈥檚 son鈥檚 grizzly was the subway, but the reasons are the same.
The Children Of Lahaina
The Lahaina fire children are different. It鈥檚 easy to think of them as fragile, but by necessity they may be learning how to 鈥渒eep their head around grizzlies鈥 and dive into tough situations and do whatever needs to be done.
Of course, the children affected by the Lahaina fire are fragile. Natural disasters . Disasters create anxiety, depression, and challenges to learning, all of which might last for years.
But that鈥檚 not all that tragedy and trauma foster. Children are more than just their deficits. The fire is a tragic moment in time, but it is still only a moment in time.
As David Brooks shows , as time goes on, tragedy can also build character. It can force a person to be more independent, self-reliant and even more empathetic.
Think of children in a Maui fire family. They may have more responsibilities as life becomes more chaotic. They may have to rely on their parents less and on their own resources more.
Their overcrowded temporary hotel-room shelter becomes less of a haven and more of a complicated, suffocating space requiring other havens outside the house, like hanging out with friends or just being outdoors out of the pressure cooker.
And that鈥檚 a good thing.
鈥淭he trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality,鈥 the novelist and theologian Frederick Buchner, who went through some awful family trauma when he was young, wrote, 鈥渋s that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed.鈥
The Rest Of Us
That鈥檚 so different from today鈥檚 typical childrearing, which is overwhelmingly about fear instead of challenge.
We are overprotecting our children and making them afraid and unprepared to go out into the world.
Kids don鈥檛 develop the capacity to make good decisions because they so seldom have to.
With parents today, 鈥淚鈥檒l do anything to protect my children!鈥 has come to mean building a cocoon as a haven for fragile souls in a hostile world.
Most children don鈥檛 have to face the enormous, singular trauma that Lahaina children did. Their traumas are less obvious, more internal, but maybe even more crippling over time.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, adolescents are experiencing a 鈥渕ental health crisis.鈥 Rates of anxiety and depression have risen dramatically during the past 10 years. So has self-cutting, suicide and thoughts of suicide.
The explanation getting the most attention from researchers , mainly because the rates of mental health problems began to increase dramatically right after the introduction of the smart phone and social media apps like Instagram.
Overall, this generation of teenagers is more cautious, more fearful and less adventurous.
Some psychology researchers disagree about how much social media is to blame. But there is increasing agreement that that kids are spending less time outside on their own.
There is less free play, and what recreation does exist is
鈥淲hen children are told the world is dangerous,鈥 the , 鈥渁nd then denied the opportunities to develop normal life skills like walking to the store without an adult, they will turn into adolescents who are at higher risk of depression, anxiety and a general sense of passivity.鈥
Kids don鈥檛 develop the capacity to make good decisions because they so seldom have to.
They lack these competencies when they start college. College students, with the support of consenting adults, feel they need 鈥渟afe space鈥 away from people who disagree with them because disagreement is not something to engage. It鈥檚 something to fear.
A letter written by the conservative grassroots organization Moms for Liberty demands an end to the 鈥渘egative psychological effect鈥 and 鈥渆motional trauma鈥 that comes from learning about the history of segregation.
It’s no accident that Moms for Liberty uses the language of trauma and fragility because it is so common a way we think about our kids, including many of you who find that segregation argument as dangerous as I do.
Two things to keep in mind, then. The first is that we are definitely coddling our children, and it hurts them.
The second is that risk-taking is learned. That鈥檚 a good thing if it is done right.
The Maui children have to learn to stretch themselves by necessity.
As for the subway and the caribou, those parents did not thrust their children out into thin air the way a macho 鈥渉e鈥檚 gotta learn to be tough鈥 dad might hurl his non-swimming son into the drink to sink or swim.
The parents of the caribou hunter and subway rider have taught them the importance 鈥 the beauty — of challenging yourself, as well as the skills necessary to face and benefit from the challenges.
For the rest of you parents: you don鈥檛 need a ride on the Q train to Union Square or a hunting trip up near the Yukon to impart this.
Showing and teaching fear is a problem, not a solution.
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ContributeAbout the Author
Neal Milner is a former political science professor at the University of Hawai驶i where he taught for 40 years. He is a political analyst for KITV and is a regular contributor to Hawaii Public Radio's His most recent book is Opinions are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Civil Beat's views.
Latest Comments (0)
Picture this: Early 1980s .. Many kids board a train in West Germany bound for thier school, like they do everyday. As 2 of the kids pursue the snack trolly (sounds like line from Harry Potter films, I know) they miss their stop and end up instead crossing the border into East Germany. East German soldiers board the train and realize these 2 kids are not supposed to be there, moved them to a return train and sent them on thier way. The fact that those 2 kids didn't go missing or worse, is sheere dumb luck. From that point on my Father drove my Sister and I to school everyday, even after the wall came down, till we left Germany.I agree with the masses in that puting your kid on the subway by themselves, today, is very bad parenting.I don't think we're teaching fear to our kids. It's easy to make that accusation when you grew up in an era where you "could leave a $20 bill on a windshield, and nobody would touch it". This era is not that one, and kids are targets of a great many unhinged minds.
Dan · 1 year ago
I think no matter what your challenges are as a child or as a teen you either continue to learn what is right from wrong and if you get defeated it is up to the individual to learn from its mistakes and get up and keep going but never give up. It is my opinion our moral fiber has made what America is today to continue to thrive. Our children are our future hope for a better future now. If we can leave them something to hope for Freedom, Peace and hope for a better World.
lesfung2023 · 1 year ago
I really agree with Neal's article about children not being challenged to do courageous task in life. My parents always challenged us to do our chores and do them perfect or if not do them again. I remember my Doctor at a young age asking my Dad if I had been taught about sex education my Father told him it is up to his school to teach him. I always wondered why my Doctor would ask him but when I took the class in Intermediate school I didn't understand a single thing the teacher taught us. I think that is why teens need to be taught by good educators the consequences of sex education. Now that abortion laws have made it illegal to have an abortion it is critical to the female of what it means to have to care for a child at a young age.
lesfung2023 · 1 year ago
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