Abolishing Summer Vacation

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This begs the question of when childhood should end - 16th birthday? 18th? 21st?

Unfortunately, it seems that a large number of people take for granted that they will receive all the benefits of being adults while simultaneously acting like irresponsible and undisciplined children, and well into their middle-age years.

[opinion=mine]

Teach children at an early age that working year-round is normal. This means that children should learn as early as possible that the best way to support themselves is to be where they're supposed to be, when they're supposed to be there, and doing what their supposed to do.

Of course, there are exceptions that test this rule, but exactly how many people out of the 3x10^9 residents of this planet are of equal calibre as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Richard Branson? What percentage of the total human population alive today can be counted as world-class award-winning artists? Do Dawkins and Hawking have any peers? These exceptional people are flukes - aberrative burbles on the glassy sea of human mediocrity.

I say that "discipline first / creativity later" is the one best hope for all of humanity.

[/opinion]

We have a saying around here for when boys between about 18 and 25 or so go around doing childish, ridiculous and dangerous things just because they can. It's "He's a grownass man and can do what he wants". Not to imply that he's an ass, or his actions are asinine, but because "grownass" is usually the way these guys describe themselves to emphasise grown. It also applies to girls but it's usually boys who are doing that stupid kind of stuff.

Sure, he's a grownass man so let him lay out of work and get fired then b***h about it. He's a grownass man so shouldn't he have known he was gonna get fired? Guess not.

That kind of thing.

I think people can be made to understand that there are definite boundaries as to the amount of (job dependent) "creativity" they are allowed to engage in when they are "on the clock" verses on their own time. Making it so they have absolutely no time for unstructured activity (like parents these days who insist that every minute of their child's life is filled with hyper-structured extracurricular activities and hover over their every move) leaves them burned out by the time they have to get a real job.

It's funny if you look at labor participation statistics, more time is being spent "working" today than in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Time spent "working" per-capita peaked in the 1990s, before the dot-com bubble burst. This is because more women were working than ever. Ever since then we've been plagued with the problem of "not enough work to go around" because computers and the internet have made a lot of work obsolete. Yet aging American boomers continue to blame the whole economic problem on "young people are getting lazier". All while they prepare to collect their social security while electing politicians who would like to cut it off and make it so the future generation can never retire. American boomers have the 60s "culture wars", their own days of irresponsible hippiedom, and later re-finding religion and the protestant work ethic. They project this single myopic experience onto everything. I think some of these farts are just bitter that they didn't have computers or the internet growing up. The sooner the boomers retire and die off the better things will be. Unless it's already too late.

Last edited by marshall on 30 Apr 2013, 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think they should do away with summer vacation. Even though I don't get a summer vacation anymore, I think it would be just wrong to do away with it. As a matter of fact, I think they should make it mandatory to take at least a few weeks off work, as well.

I like history, too.

Bill Gates, droped College, i think forcing kids to study year around is bad idea, especially for kids with AS. You proposing Orwellian reality. I do not like this.

I am proposing that childhood and childishness are both vastly over-rated, and that the sooner that people learn to be both accountable for themselves and responsible for their actions, the better off we'll all be.

I would not want to live in such a world, full of technocrats, without imagination, workaholics

Are you saying that accountability and responsibility are antithetical to creativity and imagination?

Really?

Why can't there be a balance of accountability and responsibility and creativity and imagination?

Why is there more focus on discipline as in punishment than on instruction?

I believe television is one of the main problems. If you watch some of the TV series that are out there the shows present everyday life in a false or skewed way. If you watch some of the shows teens seem to be considered like adults and teen drinking seems acceptable. Teens are presented as very mature when they really are not. These shows make everything look like it is all carefree when that is only a part of everyday life. Has anyone ever seen the movie called The Wraith? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wraith

I watched this movie as a teen and I thought it was a good movie. When I watch it now I see flaws. First, where are the kids parents in all of this? Why are these teens allowed to roam around and do whatever? Why are these teens who are the protagonists presented as though they are responsible and are able to make adult decisions when real life does not work this way? At the end, Keri went on the back of Jake/Jamie's motorcycle. Where was her parents in this? Why didn't her parents come out to stop her? Doesn't she have to finish school?

They rode off into the sunset? What was their plan in the end? Was he planning to get a job? There are other movies and TV shows that are similar when it comes to teens. Teens are presented as more mature than they really are which is a false sense of reality. In some of these shows and movies adults are portrayed as bumbling fools. I think this is one reason why teens bad behavior has gone up.

That's what I say. They are not mutually exclusive.


Discipline is not punishment or vice-versa. Discipline is being where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there, and doing what you're supposed to be doing, whether or not you want to do it!

I believe that indulgent parents are the problem - they are the ones who let their children watch too much TV, eat too much junk food, text their BFFs too often and play too many video games when they should be doing their homework!

Getting them to view their education as their own self-interest as soon as possible would be a good thing, too.

I agree. How would one do that?

Nope they are definitely not.




I think I can agree with this.



There are a lot of parents who are like this. I agree. I do wonder though. Should parents let their children watch TV at all? What do you think about that? Let's say our nation or another nation decided to ban TV altogether. Do you think the nation's overall IQ points, judgment, attention span would go up? When I do get my life together and let's say I father a child. Would it be a good idea not to let him or her watch TV at all? I'm just curious

Saying "TV" instead of "screen" is a 20th century way of viewing it considering how infrequently the modern child is probably actually watching a television set. More likely they are watching a computer monitor, smartphone or game console. But I do know what you are asking. How much "screen content" (in whatever format) is it wise for a parent to let a kid watch.

I don't think banning TV (or other screen) time would have an effect on IQ or judgement. It might have an effect on attention span so long as phones were included. That is a guess based on the fragmented nature of texts as opposed to actual conversation. Anything that is fragmented can compromise attention span over time. I have read research to this effect and have experienced it in myself when I followed hyperlinks too often in internet articles. I have now banned myself from following hyperlinks until I have finished the article because it was compromising my attention span.

I think that limiting rather than banning screen time/TV time can have a positive effect on judgement. It did on me when my parents did it (TV being the only small screen back then) and I think it did with my daughter too when I did it with her. My parents never marched in and said "that's enough" and turned off the TV nor did I do this with my daughter. Instead they (and in turn I as the mom) set a budget of allowed time. A set number of hours per week were allowed with a tally sheet to keep track. This taught judgement in that the kid needs to weigh carefully which shows are worth it and which shows are a waste. Having the tally be by week rather than day allowed for teaching long term planning by teaching that skipping some watching on one day would allow for more watching on another day when perhaps a 2 hour season premiere (or whatever) was showing.

What my parents got right with me and which I am attempting to replicate with my daughter is the concept of managing your freedom. It is a prelude to work/life balance as an adult. The parent neither keeps the kid's nose to the grindstone (what a gruesome metaphor) nor allows the kid to do whatever whenever but instead teaches the kid to manage their time so they get their work done and also get to have fun. The simplist and most common form of this is "you can go play after you clean your room."

You have a lot Right in what you say, but following your logic,we had to return to corporal punishment too

As for the vacations I see no reason to cut short holidays. Summer holidays is a tradition in both western and eastern Europe as well as America.
Many adults enjoyed the holidays as a child, if they were now reduced, it was by only a manifestation of hypocrisy in its pure form. Apparently what reason children do not have to have a vacations when their parents had a full 2-3 months free when they were that age