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One of the many reasons we moved our young children from the UK to Scandinavia was to improve their childhood by reducing hazards & risks whilst also being in a

One of the many reasons we moved our young children from the UK to Scandinavia was to improve their childhood by reducing hazards & risks whilst also being in an environment that was more acceptable of those risks. (The paper distinguishes risks vs hazards as something the child can perceive & control vs something they can't, like a car or unsafe equipment). My children had whittling knives from age 5, built their own fires when we went on walks, could explore into the small woodlands on their own soon after and walked home from school at age 7. None of this would have been socially acceptable in a UK city but was pretty much standard in Oslo. Our children still feel safe and also feel confident doing things themselves. Our level of stress about our children seems to be lower than my friends elsewhere, who have a risk avoidance mindset, living in a society that highlights any potential risk as to be totally avoided and bad parenting if a child is exposed to any risk. Occasionally you hear stories from the US about parents being arrested for letting their children walk down the street alone or play in the local park by themselves and that seems crazy to most of the rest of the world.

meheleventyone 3y ago
I didn't have kids until I moved to Iceland but it's pretty idyllic for them here as well. We live in downtown Reykjavik and its perfectly safe for them to walk to and from school alone and do stuff around town together. I'm not sure how that differs to the UK now but my childhood was filled with building tree houses in farmers fields and that sort of thing and I can't really see them growing up differently even if we had to move back.
- blitzar 3y ago
  > building tree houses Child in the UK now - "whats a tree?"
  - thorin 3y ago
    Not convinced. My 8,10yr kids love climbing trees. Also in the last few days it's been so windy that we often get a tree or branches falling into the road!
V__ 3y ago
The channel Not Just Bikes did a video on this, he had the same experience as you.[1] Growing up in Germany myself, I also feel that this trend is getting noticable here. I have no data on this, but I feel like safer cars lead to higher speeds and therefore perceived higher risk from a pedestrian/children point of view. The fact that there are more cars and they are bigger, while speed enforcement is basically non-existent (because freedom) are probably also doing their part. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=mV7kT0Oj2z6ic18L https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=mV7kT0Oj2z6ic18L
- eru 3y ago
  We have a similar problem in Singapore. Unfortunately, there's on policy that I otherwise really like, congestion charging, that contributes to faster average car speeds.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    Why, because people are rushing to beat the moment when charged go up during peak hour? Personally, I find that Singapore's prevalence of pay-per-minute car shares (because buying a car is so expensive) coupled with the inexperienced drivers who tend to use them causes a lot more risky behavior.
    - acover 3y ago
      Because when there's no traffic people drive faster.
      - eru 3y ago
        Yes. And our congestion charge is explicitly adjusted upwards dynamically, when average speeds drop below a certain limit. (And is adjusted downwards, when average speeds are high enough.) It's an awesome system, if all you care about is keeping traffic flowing. It does exactly what it was supposed to be doing. Works beautifully.
    - eru 3y ago
rjsw 3y ago
Those activities were socially acceptable in the UK 50 years ago.
magicalhippo 3y ago
> The paper distinguishes risks vs hazards as something the child can perceive & control vs something they can't, like a car or unsafe equipment I knew someone who worked with designing playgrounds here in Norway, and his focus was on this. He called it subjective safety vs objective safety. The idea was to maximize objective safety while allowing the kids a lot of room to explore the subjective safety. This could be say a climbing wall which was tall enough to be challenging, but ensuring the equipment and ground was designed and maintained[1] such that there was no risk of permanent injury should a kid fall from the top. As most kids love a challenge this induced them to play freely in a natural way, which lead to other benefits including social aspects like reduction of bullying. [1]: https://www.bsigroup.com/contentassets/fd0e8cd7dd174774890cd67e03389a99/childrens-playground-stds-hi-res.pdf https://www.bsigroup.com/contentassets/fd0e8cd7dd174774890cd...
- lukan 3y ago
  "such that there was no risk of permanent injury should a kid fall from the top" I debate that this is possible. You can minimize the dangers (like having no solid rock underneath, but sand), but with bad luck(and skill) even a small fall can break a neck. But it is very important, that children indeed fall often, so they learn how to fall without hurting themself. It is up to us to provide a place that is a reasonable environment for it. But kids should also climb trees in a forest - and you cannot clear every ground. Life comes with risk. But if you remove all risk for them, they won't be prepared for the risks they cannot avoid.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    > I debate that this is possible. Sure, in practice. But the goal and intention of the standards for playground safety here is that there is no risk of permanent injury.
    - lukan 3y ago
      Hm, I see this as part of the same trend/problem. Why have unrealistic goals at all, in the name of safety? Why is the goal not realistic, to minimize the risk? Even if the whole playground would be made of soft foam - then still 2 kids could bump into each other and one loose its eye.
gadders 3y ago
The UK used to be like that in the 70's, when it was a high trust environment. I used to walk half a mile to the shops at age 7 or 8 to complete an errand, people left their children in pushchairs (or dogs) outside of shops etc. I wish I knew what changed the UK for the worse.
- VBprogrammer 3y ago
  Jesus. How far we've fallen. I certainly remember kids being left outside shops growing up in the 80s. However, reading that I had a involuntary reaction of disgust just thinking about it. I certainly wouldn't dream of doing it with my own kids and suspect the reaction would be to call the police if I did.
- sirsinsalot 3y ago
  Well yes, but even in the 1990s, I remember talk by parents at the primary school gate along the lines of: "Did you hear [child Y] tried to get pulled into a van?" And it was talked about like a casual fact-of-life hazard which just happens sometimes. In the 1990s I had an absurd amount of freedom to roam, walked myself to school from age 6 and had very little oversight. It wasn't safe, not by a LONG way, as the area was very poor and rough. It did give me both hugely valuable life tools and an adulthood of inappropriate anxiety and hightened response to small threats. I feel like we should work to give children the skills without the threat being so high that it causes long-term issues in adulthood. Children need safety to grow well.
  - gadders 3y ago
    I think another difference of then vs now is that adults would look out for other people's kids.
RugnirViking 3y ago
> None of this would have been socially acceptable in a UK city I guess it depends on the city? We used to cycle with my friends everywhere when I grew up in the UK, and build dens and treehouses in the forest. I'm only 25 now. I totally agree on it being an important experience though. Independence and exploration are absolutely key to how I have turned out, I think.
debok 3y ago
My wife and I take the approach of allowing our kids take risks too. Even though it is not that socially acceptable. If people want to judge me for letting my 4yo boy help with building and lighting a fire, then let them. There is so many things you can do in the home as a parent to encourage kids to take controllable risks. My oldest was helping his mother with knife-work in the kitchen from as early as 3. I also removed the enclosure net from the trampoline in our backyard. I buy bicycles for my kids as early as possible. I rough-and-tumble with my kids on an almost daily basis. Of course there are limits. We try to keep it age appropriate, around some dangerous areas (fire, deep water, the road) we always keep them supervised. We teach them about the dangers. We teach them how to manage the risks. Luckily my brother-in-law also removed the enclosure net on their backyard trampoline after he saw that my kids were OK jumping on an open trampoline. So it seems our attitude is starting to have a positive affect on the families around us.
- thorslilcuz 3y ago
  What is the perceived benefit to removing a trampoline enclosure, though? It doesn't make the kids have more fun, it just makes the activity riskier (and trampolines are pretty much death traps). I say this as someone who had one as a kid (no enclosure) and would probably buy one for my kids (with enclosure).
  - debok 3y ago
    Huh, interesting that this is the hill I have to die on. If I google "are trampolines death traps" the results seem to be about 50/50 yes/no. Anyway, here are the benefits: 1) More freedom, as they can get on the trampoline from any side instead of just the entrance. This Makes for more interesting games on/around the trampoline. 2) Easier for a parent to get to them when necessary. 3) I also jump on the trampoline. 4) Without the net, there is more to the trampoline than just a place to jump (ties in with point 1). E.g. We had our family dinner on the trampoline more than once. 5) The increased risk makes it more fun. Kids have and enjoy adrenaline too. To answer the drawbacks (increased risk): 1) I also got hurt falling from a trampoline once as a teen, that was because I behaved the way a teen boy would. 2) The kids know where the dangerous parts of the trampoline is (i.e. near the sides).
red_admiral 3y ago
There's "natural" hazards and human-induced ones. One paragraph of the article mentions parents in a poor neighbourhood not letting their kids play outside due to "discarded needles, homeless people sleeping in parks, and proximity to the sex trade and drug users". If that's the kind of world outside your apartment block, it might be a reasonable choice to stay indoors. If it's a woodland where kids might slip and fall of a log they're balancing on, that's a different matter. The use of "risk" here is not the one I'm used to; the way pretty much everyone in risk management uses it is the product of likelihood and severity. I understand that they need different words for "hazard a child can deal with" and "hazard a child can't deal with", but the work "risk" is already taken.
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  How is proximity to homeless people sleeping in parks and sex workers a problem for kids?
  - stringsandchars 3y ago
    > How is proximity to homeless people sleeping in parks and sex workers a problem for kids? Is there a name for this type of question, which is framed in such an ingenuous way that almost any reasonable answer to it will make that person seem like an intolerant and uptight monster who doesn't tolerate their small kids playing around sex-workers giving a punter a handjob in the bushes?
    - reflexco 3y ago
      Following Hanlon's razor, it's probably just a genuine lack of imagination. Grand parent poster might have only lived in areas where homeless people and sex workers were quiet and nonthreatening, so they can't imagine an area where violent incidents involving these populations are frequent. Obviously context matters and any argument without concrete examples is futile.
      - master-lincoln 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ck425 3y ago
> My children had whittling knives from age 5, built their own fires when we went on walks, could explore into the small woodlands on their own soon after and walked home from school at age 7. You can still do the former if you find a proper Scout group and the latter if you live in the right area. But it's a shame you need to actively look for these opportunities now.
- mlrtime 3y ago
  I was in the Scouts and have positive memories. However it seems even the Scouts are tarnished as safe from instances of pedos. Not saying it isn't safe by perpetuating the worry, but this is what happens.
thorin 3y ago
Plenty of people do this in the UK, just not in the inner cities. Oslo is a nice place though and a friend of mine just moved to Bergen with young kids. It's pretty chill in the UK if you don't live in London and have enough money to live in a nice suburb.
- 123pie123 3y ago
  My kids (and their friends) have all done simlar things, in the UK - including home schooling/ scouts Moving to Norway was not required, just needed to get out of big cities
tordrt 3y ago
In Norway, when I (24) went to kindergarten my dad used to call to tell them to let me out the gate when it was time for me to go home. When I started at school I got walked only the couple of first times so that I would learn the way. After that you would most commonly walk alone or with classmates and friends who lived close to you. As a Norwegian I would say something that is a big trait of Norwegian/Scandinavian culture that seperates it from many other parts of the world other than being very high trust societies, is independency. Young people get very independent at a young age. And parents don't meddle in their lives to the same extent as in many other countries. Politics also enables this by giving grants and loans to students, which makes the majority of people economically independent from their parents at 18/19.
- voisin 3y ago
  > Politics also enables this by giving grants and loans to students, which makes the majority of people economically independent from their parents at 18/19. Can you elaborate on these grants and loans? What are they for? When do they start?
  - tordrt 3y ago
    Whereas higher education is free in most of europe, you are still usually reliant on getting sent money from your parents to finance your living expenses. In Scandinavia you are not dependant on having parents with money to pursue higher education. If you get accepted to a University, you apply and you'll get equivalent of 13-14k usd every year of study to cover living expenses. Up to 40% of it gets converted to a grant, depending on how many of your classes you passed. The loan is also under very favorable conditions, interest free while studying, very low interest after finished, usually paid over 20 years, and you can postpone payment up to 36 times (3 years) whenever you want.
    - Broken_Hippo 3y ago
      Another thing about the loan: My understanding (as an immigrant) is that the loan can be forgiven completely if you move, live, and work up north for a number of years.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

meheleventyone 3y ago

I didn't have kids until I moved to Iceland but it's pretty idyllic for them here as well. We live in downtown Reykjavik and its perfectly safe for them to walk to and from school alone and do stuff around town together. I'm not sure how that differs to the UK now but my childhood was filled with building tree houses in farmers fields and that sort of thing and I can't really see them growing up differently even if we had to move back.

blitzar 3y ago
> building tree houses Child in the UK now - "whats a tree?"
- thorin 3y ago
  Not convinced. My 8,10yr kids love climbing trees. Also in the last few days it's been so windy that we often get a tree or branches falling into the road!

V__ 3y ago

The channel Not Just Bikes did a video on this, he had the same experience as you.[1] Growing up in Germany myself, I also feel that this trend is getting noticable here. I have no data on this, but I feel like safer cars lead to higher speeds and therefore perceived higher risk from a pedestrian/children point of view. The fact that there are more cars and they are bigger, while speed enforcement is basically non-existent (because freedom) are probably also doing their part. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=mV7kT0Oj2z6ic18L https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=mV7kT0Oj2z6ic18L

eru 3y ago
We have a similar problem in Singapore. Unfortunately, there's on policy that I otherwise really like, congestion charging, that contributes to faster average car speeds.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  Why, because people are rushing to beat the moment when charged go up during peak hour? Personally, I find that Singapore's prevalence of pay-per-minute car shares (because buying a car is so expensive) coupled with the inexperienced drivers who tend to use them causes a lot more risky behavior.
  - acover 3y ago
    Because when there's no traffic people drive faster.
    - eru 3y ago
      Yes. And our congestion charge is explicitly adjusted upwards dynamically, when average speeds drop below a certain limit. (And is adjusted downwards, when average speeds are high enough.) It's an awesome system, if all you care about is keeping traffic flowing. It does exactly what it was supposed to be doing. Works beautifully.
  - eru 3y ago

rjsw 3y ago

Those activities were socially acceptable in the UK 50 years ago.

magicalhippo 3y ago

> The paper distinguishes risks vs hazards as something the child can perceive & control vs something they can't, like a car or unsafe equipment I knew someone who worked with designing playgrounds here in Norway, and his focus was on this. He called it subjective safety vs objective safety. The idea was to maximize objective safety while allowing the kids a lot of room to explore the subjective safety. This could be say a climbing wall which was tall enough to be challenging, but ensuring the equipment and ground was designed and maintained[1] such that there was no risk of permanent injury should a kid fall from the top. As most kids love a challenge this induced them to play freely in a natural way, which lead to other benefits including social aspects like reduction of bullying. [1]: https://www.bsigroup.com/contentassets/fd0e8cd7dd174774890cd67e03389a99/childrens-playground-stds-hi-res.pdf https://www.bsigroup.com/contentassets/fd0e8cd7dd174774890cd...

lukan 3y ago
"such that there was no risk of permanent injury should a kid fall from the top" I debate that this is possible. You can minimize the dangers (like having no solid rock underneath, but sand), but with bad luck(and skill) even a small fall can break a neck. But it is very important, that children indeed fall often, so they learn how to fall without hurting themself. It is up to us to provide a place that is a reasonable environment for it. But kids should also climb trees in a forest - and you cannot clear every ground. Life comes with risk. But if you remove all risk for them, they won't be prepared for the risks they cannot avoid.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  > I debate that this is possible. Sure, in practice. But the goal and intention of the standards for playground safety here is that there is no risk of permanent injury.
  - lukan 3y ago
    Hm, I see this as part of the same trend/problem. Why have unrealistic goals at all, in the name of safety? Why is the goal not realistic, to minimize the risk? Even if the whole playground would be made of soft foam - then still 2 kids could bump into each other and one loose its eye.

gadders 3y ago

The UK used to be like that in the 70's, when it was a high trust environment. I used to walk half a mile to the shops at age 7 or 8 to complete an errand, people left their children in pushchairs (or dogs) outside of shops etc. I wish I knew what changed the UK for the worse.

VBprogrammer 3y ago
Jesus. How far we've fallen. I certainly remember kids being left outside shops growing up in the 80s. However, reading that I had a involuntary reaction of disgust just thinking about it. I certainly wouldn't dream of doing it with my own kids and suspect the reaction would be to call the police if I did.
sirsinsalot 3y ago
Well yes, but even in the 1990s, I remember talk by parents at the primary school gate along the lines of: "Did you hear [child Y] tried to get pulled into a van?" And it was talked about like a casual fact-of-life hazard which just happens sometimes. In the 1990s I had an absurd amount of freedom to roam, walked myself to school from age 6 and had very little oversight. It wasn't safe, not by a LONG way, as the area was very poor and rough. It did give me both hugely valuable life tools and an adulthood of inappropriate anxiety and hightened response to small threats. I feel like we should work to give children the skills without the threat being so high that it causes long-term issues in adulthood. Children need safety to grow well.
- gadders 3y ago
  I think another difference of then vs now is that adults would look out for other people's kids.

RugnirViking 3y ago

> None of this would have been socially acceptable in a UK city I guess it depends on the city? We used to cycle with my friends everywhere when I grew up in the UK, and build dens and treehouses in the forest. I'm only 25 now. I totally agree on it being an important experience though. Independence and exploration are absolutely key to how I have turned out, I think.

debok 3y ago

My wife and I take the approach of allowing our kids take risks too. Even though it is not that socially acceptable. If people want to judge me for letting my 4yo boy help with building and lighting a fire, then let them. There is so many things you can do in the home as a parent to encourage kids to take controllable risks. My oldest was helping his mother with knife-work in the kitchen from as early as 3. I also removed the enclosure net from the trampoline in our backyard. I buy bicycles for my kids as early as possible. I rough-and-tumble with my kids on an almost daily basis. Of course there are limits. We try to keep it age appropriate, around some dangerous areas (fire, deep water, the road) we always keep them supervised. We teach them about the dangers. We teach them how to manage the risks. Luckily my brother-in-law also removed the enclosure net on their backyard trampoline after he saw that my kids were OK jumping on an open trampoline. So it seems our attitude is starting to have a positive affect on the families around us.

thorslilcuz 3y ago
What is the perceived benefit to removing a trampoline enclosure, though? It doesn't make the kids have more fun, it just makes the activity riskier (and trampolines are pretty much death traps). I say this as someone who had one as a kid (no enclosure) and would probably buy one for my kids (with enclosure).
- debok 3y ago
  Huh, interesting that this is the hill I have to die on. If I google "are trampolines death traps" the results seem to be about 50/50 yes/no. Anyway, here are the benefits: 1) More freedom, as they can get on the trampoline from any side instead of just the entrance. This Makes for more interesting games on/around the trampoline. 2) Easier for a parent to get to them when necessary. 3) I also jump on the trampoline. 4) Without the net, there is more to the trampoline than just a place to jump (ties in with point 1). E.g. We had our family dinner on the trampoline more than once. 5) The increased risk makes it more fun. Kids have and enjoy adrenaline too. To answer the drawbacks (increased risk): 1) I also got hurt falling from a trampoline once as a teen, that was because I behaved the way a teen boy would. 2) The kids know where the dangerous parts of the trampoline is (i.e. near the sides).

red_admiral 3y ago

There's "natural" hazards and human-induced ones. One paragraph of the article mentions parents in a poor neighbourhood not letting their kids play outside due to "discarded needles, homeless people sleeping in parks, and proximity to the sex trade and drug users". If that's the kind of world outside your apartment block, it might be a reasonable choice to stay indoors. If it's a woodland where kids might slip and fall of a log they're balancing on, that's a different matter. The use of "risk" here is not the one I'm used to; the way pretty much everyone in risk management uses it is the product of likelihood and severity. I understand that they need different words for "hazard a child can deal with" and "hazard a child can't deal with", but the work "risk" is already taken.

master-lincoln 3y ago
How is proximity to homeless people sleeping in parks and sex workers a problem for kids?
- stringsandchars 3y ago
  > How is proximity to homeless people sleeping in parks and sex workers a problem for kids? Is there a name for this type of question, which is framed in such an ingenuous way that almost any reasonable answer to it will make that person seem like an intolerant and uptight monster who doesn't tolerate their small kids playing around sex-workers giving a punter a handjob in the bushes?
  - reflexco 3y ago
    Following Hanlon's razor, it's probably just a genuine lack of imagination. Grand parent poster might have only lived in areas where homeless people and sex workers were quiet and nonthreatening, so they can't imagine an area where violent incidents involving these populations are frequent. Obviously context matters and any argument without concrete examples is futile.
    - master-lincoln 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ck425 3y ago

> My children had whittling knives from age 5, built their own fires when we went on walks, could explore into the small woodlands on their own soon after and walked home from school at age 7. You can still do the former if you find a proper Scout group and the latter if you live in the right area. But it's a shame you need to actively look for these opportunities now.

mlrtime 3y ago
I was in the Scouts and have positive memories. However it seems even the Scouts are tarnished as safe from instances of pedos. Not saying it isn't safe by perpetuating the worry, but this is what happens.

thorin 3y ago

Plenty of people do this in the UK, just not in the inner cities. Oslo is a nice place though and a friend of mine just moved to Bergen with young kids. It's pretty chill in the UK if you don't live in London and have enough money to live in a nice suburb.

123pie123 3y ago
My kids (and their friends) have all done simlar things, in the UK - including home schooling/ scouts Moving to Norway was not required, just needed to get out of big cities

tordrt 3y ago

In Norway, when I (24) went to kindergarten my dad used to call to tell them to let me out the gate when it was time for me to go home. When I started at school I got walked only the couple of first times so that I would learn the way. After that you would most commonly walk alone or with classmates and friends who lived close to you. As a Norwegian I would say something that is a big trait of Norwegian/Scandinavian culture that seperates it from many other parts of the world other than being very high trust societies, is independency. Young people get very independent at a young age. And parents don't meddle in their lives to the same extent as in many other countries. Politics also enables this by giving grants and loans to students, which makes the majority of people economically independent from their parents at 18/19.

voisin 3y ago
> Politics also enables this by giving grants and loans to students, which makes the majority of people economically independent from their parents at 18/19. Can you elaborate on these grants and loans? What are they for? When do they start?
- tordrt 3y ago
  Whereas higher education is free in most of europe, you are still usually reliant on getting sent money from your parents to finance your living expenses. In Scandinavia you are not dependant on having parents with money to pursue higher education. If you get accepted to a University, you apply and you'll get equivalent of 13-14k usd every year of study to cover living expenses. Up to 40% of it gets converted to a grant, depending on how many of your classes you passed. The loan is also under very favorable conditions, interest free while studying, very low interest after finished, usually paid over 20 years, and you can postpone payment up to 36 times (3 years) whenever you want.
  - Broken_Hippo 3y ago
    Another thing about the loan: My understanding (as an immigrant) is that the loan can be forgiven completely if you move, live, and work up north for a number of years.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]