The Eight Never-Nevers

Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 12 months ago to Education
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My kids' school plays this exact video, has them sing the songs, and promotes the message. Just read this summary because you can never get those two minutes of your life back if you watch the video.

Your grown-ups will protect you and sure things are good. They're there for you to keep you safe.
1. Never-never touch a gun.
2. Never-never play with fire.
3. Never-never go on wheels without a helmet.
4. Never-never dive right in. Ask before you get wet.
5. Never-never use sharp tools alone.
6. Never-never pet a dog without asking your grownup.
7. Check for traffic both ways before you cross the street.
8. Never-never ride in cars unless you're buckled up.

The cool thing is my kids seem to detect intuitively it's crap.

My son mentioned that adults who are old and gray and remember when kids could run around and play without adults constantly keeping us safe take it less seriously.

Possible reasons for the hyper-safety:
- Maybe there's a segment of the population, a segment >>50% women, who wants to focus on kids, but starting in the 90's started feeling uncomfortable saying their wants aloud. They did feel comfortable saying circumstances demand they make sacrifices. So they made parenting more complicated and difficult to get what they wanted without admitting it.
- Maybe people who were old enough to be aware of the Sept 11 attack but under 18, people who are now 21 to 34, were affected in such a way to make them more cautious.
- Maybe the hyper-safety stuff in the school is motivated to help the few kids whose parents are really irresponsible and leave dangerous things lying out without teaching their kids to respect them.

I do not believe there's a figure like Toohey behind it asking young people their dreams and then purposely quashing them. I do not believe politicians in Washington are the cause either; they respond to the zeitgeist rather than drive it. The only part I believe might be have a political motive is which one got the top Rule #1 position.

At any rate, the video reminds me how important it is to teach kids to handle guns, fire, and tools responsibly and to be skeptical.
SOURCE URL: https://youtu.be/x-dsAqJ3Ln4


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  • Posted by coaldigger 6 years, 12 months ago
    Teach kids how to think, not what to think and they will be rational. They will evaluate the risk vs the rewards of anticipated actions and learn, grow, have adventures and enjoy their lives. Take that all away and we end up with drones, which we have a surplus of already.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 6 years, 12 months ago
    I mentioned Gever Tulley's learning camps here in the Gulch:
    https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
    You can find other links if you google his name. He lets kids play with fire and sharp knives, among other amusements.

    The other day at work, some of the other old salts remembered back to high school when it was not unusual for kids to drive to school with rifles in gun racks. Back then, there were no school shootings. Note also, though, that they lived in rural areas, not urban. So, culture was a factor. Still, the point was made.

    (Wearing a seat belt in a car is appropriate. Checking both ways for traffic is similarly a darwinian requirement.)
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    • Posted by preimert1 6 years, 11 months ago
      Sometimes I wonder if school crossing guards breed a false sense of security.
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      • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
        "Sometimes I wonder if school crossing guards breed a false sense of security."
        I like the idea of giving the older kids (maybe 10 y/o) who have shown responsibility the job of crossing guard, like when I was kid. It's a tiny step into the world of taking adult world of life-and-death responsibility, which we hope they are only a few years away from.

        I think failure to launch kids into adulthood is one of the most popular PPACA provisions is having young adults on their parents' health insurance until age 26. Setting aside the other issues, it's odd that people well into adulthood would even think of being on their parents' insurance. Now people in that group call doing basic life management activities "adulting".
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        • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 6 years, 11 months ago
          I was a crossing guard. We had the responsibility in the 6th grade. It was an old program when I came into it. (When the baby boom caused disastrous crowding and we went to half days, the crossing guard were pushed down to the 5th graders.)

          We also had indoor patrollers for the school building.

          It would be hard to argue whether all of that taught "responsibility" or "authority." Our parents and teachers had to rein in a bit of (ahem) "germanophilia." (:-)
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    • Posted by 6 years, 12 months ago
      Looking both ways is the one I agree with the most, and it's the only one that doesn't start with "never never". Usually "never" and "always" claims are wrong because it only takes one counter-example to invalidate them.

      I agree with helmets and seat belts, but I will point out that car seats are more difficult than seat belts. I think if they came out with a design to modify seat belts to work for small children, we would still prefer a more ungainly approach. The culture right now likes to make caring for kids difficult. We take comfort in the ritual of strapping into car seats and strapping on helmets. Each little thing is no big deal, but it adds up to lot of hassle that makes us feel safe. I used to bike to the park with friends when I was six y/o, but now well-meaning neighbors asked my 8 y/o playing at the park if he was okay to be separated from his parents. The helmet is a symbol that biking to the park is a scary thing that needs special equipment and probably a parent hovering close behind. Despite their proven safety benefits, I almost oppose kids' bike helmets for that reason.
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 6 years, 11 months ago
    Allosaur23's comment reminds me of the John Mellenkamp song "Cherry Bomb." My dad taught me to properly use a rifle at 8 years old,but not to pick it up as a toy. A few of the suggestions are okay, but most are brainwashing. They also tell them to rely on peers above family, or put another way, let little morons as inexperience as they are tell them what to do - like take drugs!Schools should teace academics, and if they cant do that, shut them up.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
    During the late 50s, little dino carried matches at times. That was so I could light the fuses the cherry bombs and M-80s I could buy from a grown-up at a gas pump store in the Florida Panhandle. I don't think "convenience food store" was as yet being used.
    I would toss the bombs into a lake to admire geysers at least twice as tall as I was, blow up the sizable mounds of hated fire ants and to make a rocket out of an overturned bucket.
    Ah! The good life! Bring back the good ole' days!
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    • Posted by IndianaGary 6 years, 11 months ago
      I did many similar things. You could be branded a terrorist and jailed for such things these days.
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      • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
        Inspired by Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Lash Larue Johnny Mack Brown, the Lone Ranger and the Cisco Kid all seen on TV, I played cowboys during the recesses of the second and third grades.
        I would actually point my finger and mimic gunfire sounds while pretending to ride a horse.
        And guess what?
        NOBODY CARED!
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        • Posted by Dobrien 6 years, 11 months ago
          Nobody cared because the reasoned understand that evil people with bad intentions are what causes crime and assaults. Guns are neutral.
          Guns be used for good or evil.
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          • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
            I was always shooting imaginary bad guys.
            Buried memory now emerges!
            Recall a best friend's "big sister" (also a half pint) introducing us to cops and robbers.
            Here we are at the police station.
            Karen pretends the phone rings. She answers. "What?" she'd always begin.
            "What?" we'd ask her.
            "They're robbing the bank!"
            You should have seen us silly little kids pile into an imaginary police car and run across the yard close together (because we;re in this here car) and simulate siren sounds.
            "Wreee! Arrrr!"
            Banksters loved what we did to gangsters.
            Pow! Pow! Pow!
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        • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
          "I would actually point my finger and mimic gunfire sounds while pretending to ride a horse."
          If you had asked me what could possibly be wrong with this behavior before I had kids, I would have been confused. I would have asked if the kids were skipping school or something. If you confirmed it was during recess, I would have had no idea. I think pointing my finger and mimicking gunfire was all I did during recess.

          Apparently kids are not even allowed to pick up sticks anymore. I don't mean pick them up and fight or pretend to shoot. They're not allowed to play with sticks in any way. As George Carlin put it, kids aren't allowed to sit there with a F-ing stick anymore. https://youtu.be/K0MKBdD2FGA
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    • Posted by Dobrien 6 years, 11 months ago
      The wiregrass was hit with storms today.
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      • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
        So was my Birmingham area. It was at daybreak yesterday. It dumped a lot of rain with plenty of thunder bu everything stayed on.
        What surprised me was that I could pick up all the local stations with my Direct satellite TV. They were more interested in rain related traffic accidents than they were the weather.
        That same storm swelled as it moved into Georgia yesterday afternoon, forming tornadoes that caused damage.
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    • Posted by STEVEDUNN46 6 years, 11 months ago
      My brother and i made little bombs from asperin bottles and match heads. Then we learned how to make gun powder from ingredients we bought at the grocery store. Filled empty co2 capsules with it. We survived some how. Made rockets from short pieces of conduit. Entertained the neighbors in sure
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    • Posted by preimert1 6 years, 11 months ago
      We had to drive all the way from Atlanta to the South Carolina line to buy fire works because some do-gooder legislator bitch decided they were unsafe. ...like a bunch of half-drunk rebel boys on the road was safer?
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      • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
        Fireworks stores in trailers pop up in Alabama before New Years Eve and the 4th of July.
        Stores that sell fireworks year round are rare but I can think of a couple, though I've never shopped at either. I'm an old dino now.
        Outlawed in Alabama are the cherry bombs and M-80s that were legal during my childhood. Either explosive can mangle a hand.
        But kids can have .22 rifles and anyone can make a fire bomb,
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        • Posted by preimert1 6 years, 11 months ago
          Since I'm in CA now, we can get all of the above nd
          more in Tia Juana and then have an unsafe and insane 4th on Esterro Beach including roman candles from behind the dunes ...and bottle rockets ...lots of bottle rockets which go well with (at then cheap) tequila.

          Also one time my daughter (9 at the time) hid a bunch of M80s under the driver's seat of my van and I didn't find out 'till we got home. I was astounded--could have been blown through the roof. When I quit shaking I asked her why she did it, she artlessly told me, "dad, you don't lie well and I was afraid the border cop would catch us."
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          • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
            So did your daughter turn you into a fireworks mule or a fireworks coyote?
            Do believe I was about nine when I learned that, as long as I was wearing blue jeans, I could just stand in place and feign a yawn should another kid throw a whole string of lit firecrackers at my feet.
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            • Posted by Dobrien 6 years, 11 months ago
              Cherry bombs and m-80's were scarce in firework prohibited Minnesota when I was a kid but Dad had a stash in a McGarvey Coffee can that included black cats , thunder bombs and lions but the stars were big Silver Salutes that would blow a can into shrapnel.
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              • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
                I never saw my dad light a firecracker ever.
                My kids had a totally different experience with me.
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                • Posted by Dobrien 6 years, 11 months ago
                  Dad would blow them up for us on the fourth .
                  We last Sunday we stopped in Missouri
                  At a gas station that had a huge fireworks store included and my wise wife said no fireworks.
                  It was good advice as I have a large supply in the garage already.
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    • Posted by GaryL 6 years, 11 months ago
      This is why we are raising a generation of Girly men today. Heck, we donned double sweatshirts and pants and wore motorcycle helmets with shield and had BB gun fights all the time. No one ever lost an eye but I did have to dig a couple BBs out of my hands. We had a blast and all my mother ever said was make sure you keep the face shield down.
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  • Posted by bspielb 6 years, 11 months ago
    There is NO better organization than the Boy and Girl Scouts for teaching responsibility. You have to pay attention to the skills and political or other leanings of the leaders but there are always many troops to choose from. Go on the camping trips with your kids for sure. All this is assuming you don't have the equipment and/or skill to do it yourself. Scouting lets younger kids take that learned responsibility, as they grow older, and try it on their own in team building exercises like building rope bridges, cooking your own food, respecting & learning nature survival and leadership. I and then my 4 boys all learned so much. Many moms joined in as well.
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  • Posted by walkabout 6 years, 11 months ago
    John Rosemond, Ph.D traces most of today's idiotic "psychological parenting" to the '60's when a bunch of Mental Health Types -- w/o invitation -- interjected themselves into parenting essentially declaring everything humans have been doing to raise their kids for the last 5 thousand years as wrong. As a psychologist specializing in children I am very concerned by a number of sociological changes in the last century which lead to the bizarre state of affairs now. The good news is common sense seems to be winning (for example, Trump won).
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    • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
      I was born in '75 and haven't read about kids before then. The big change I see is the need for "structured activities" or the aversion to kids playing unstructured. I also see that TVs have simply gotten much more easier and convenient, so kids don't have to learn to entertain themselves.

      That fact that even against a week opponent President Trump only lost by 3 million votes is encouraging, but it should have been more and it does not give me confidence about these issues. I don't see national politicians getting involved, and I actually think that's a good thing because I do not want any action from Washington.
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      • Posted by walkabout 6 years, 11 months ago
        President Trump WON by carrying 80 per cent of the counties throughout the country. I agree TV has not been a good thing. Also, as you note, Washington is not a good thing in the lives of individual citizens (At it's best government is a necessary evil -- Thomas Paine).
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  • Posted by ReneeDaphne 6 years, 11 months ago
    Or maybe....if you train people young to be risk-adverse, they will forego anything that might remind them of a possible fear.

    Tah-dah - perfect slave class in two generations.

    Looking for opportunities to encourage, entice, goad, cajole, tease people into moving a little outside their comfort zone of risk, provides a platform to reverse what the enslavers are trying to do.

    We have a lot of work to do.
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  • Posted by GaryL 6 years, 11 months ago
    IMO they missed the most important one these days. Never talk to a stranger and never do anything he or she wants you to do without first talking about it with a trusted adult.
    A few of the others are pretty lame.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
      "Never talk to a stranger "
      I know what you mean, but I state it a little different. It's good to talk to strangers, but never go off with a stranger. If someone's doing something wrong in public, I want my kids to feel comfortable telling a stranger. When you're not in public, be weary even of people you know, e.g. friends and relatives of friends from school, if they are doing something that seems questionable. That's the most likely scenario of them encountering a weirdo.
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  • Posted by Ben_C 6 years, 11 months ago
    How about:
    9) Never-never get dirty. Wash you hands at least once an hour with germ killing soap.

    This is dedicated to the germaphobic paranoid moms.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
      That's so true. The new standard is to act as if the kids were dressed up for an event and couldn't get dirty even if they're just running around playing and not dressed up.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 11 months ago
    Overt fear of Accountability, I suspect...people go to jail for not watching their kids these days, yet the culture is anti life...both seem to be avoidance conflicts.
    Or perhaps, crossed wires in the brain in a constant feedback loop!
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    • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
      "people go to jail for not watching their kids these days,"
      I have been to many against the war on drugs and the invasion/occupation of Iraq. I have never been arrested, detained, or even been the target of any abuse or overbearing treatment from police officers at protests.

      So it will be so ironic if the thing I get arrested for is letting my kids ride their bike to the same park in Madison I road to as a kid.
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      • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
        Nobody was riding bicycles when my kid went to school.
        When I was a kid a sizable percentage, including myself, rode bicycles to and from school.
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        • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 11 months ago
          We walked 2 miles...the hills were two steep for bikes.
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          • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
            My now deceased dad spoke of walking five miles through Massachusetts snow.
            There was just something about the way he always smiled when he'd say that.
            I was born in Massachusetts before we moved. So from four-years-old on, I never saw any snow while growing up in Dothan, Alabama, half an hour from the Florida state line by driving the speed limit.
            Here in the Birmingham area? Yeah, it snows every once in a while. This winter it snowed one whole day and stuck on the ground for two or three days more.
            There was a very rare blizzard followed by a serious ice storm three years later back during the 90s.
            Al Gore claimed the blizzard was due to global warming. Recall Rush laughing about that 'un on the radio.
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            • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 11 months ago
              Yea...we really did walk to school in the snow...only if it was really bad; actively snowing or raining, would we take the bus. We considered walking a form of freedom as opposed to taking the bus; we also would get to school and home again quicker than the bus too!

              PS...grew up in the central hills of Connecticut...with some of the steepest hills in the whole state.
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              • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 11 months ago
                During summers my folks would drive their brood of five boys north to drop in on scattered relatives and to see various sights like Washington DC, the Statue of Liberty, a Boston "freedom trail," a world's fair, Niagara Falls, this, that and another.
                One summer we went swimming in a lake with Connecticut cousins back when Beatles sang "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
                They were used to some really freaking freezing water!
                Half Swede me had been spoiled by a sizable lake in the Florida Panhandle my folks had a place built by.
                Often in late August you actually had to swim down about five feet just to find water that would cool you off.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 6 years, 11 months ago
    The motivation for wanting a super-safe environment probably comes from women having fewer children today. When large families were the norm, survival of the family genome was more likely even if one or more didn't survive to adulthood.

    My grandmother was one of 12 children, and her father was a successful farmer in North Carolina. In an era with less disease prevention, and a need for trustworthy farm hands, both were motivation for large families. Vaccines have made childhood survival more likely, and automation has significantly reduced labor needs.
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    • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
      Do you think this is a conscious thought process or more of a genetic tendency influencing behavior on a subconscious level?

      I am under the impression that the fertility rate had dropped by the time I was born in 75, but the hyper-structured hovering starting in the 90s when the word "soccer mom" was coined.

      There was an episode of Star Trek Deep Space nine in Jan of 1993 that reflects this. The kids on the space station would spend their free time watching ships arrive from distant lands. Sometimes they misbehaved and got in trouble. "The problem is there's no structured activity for them...," a character explained. I think the line reflects a cultural change in the 90s. The show presents the claim as an enlightened policy of the future, but I have come to think it's better for kids to spend their free time hanging out dreaming of far off lands than in enrichment programming designed by adults.

      I just missed this this stuff. If I had been born in '85 instead of '75, I would never have ridden my bike around and had a kid world separate from the adult world.
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      • Posted by DrZarkov99 6 years, 11 months ago
        I suspect part of it is subliminal, and part cultural. The infamous Dr. Spock (no relation to any Vulcan) conditioned a couple of generations of people that discipline hindered children's growth. That created an environment for those who adopted Spock's irrational advice which children with little adult guidance in their formative years had poor social skills and were often extremely unruly in school. That led to a call for better organized public environments to try to control and protect the most undisciplined, and the rest suffered for it.
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