Stranger Danger Effects on Kidlit? [Old thread: '07]

CoriSCapnSkip · Jul 17, 2007

A problem of modern society is "Stranger Danger," that is, fear of what a stranger may do, is making kids into couch potatoes. The other fear is, if a kid has an accident, the parents are blamed as negligent, so can't let kids participate in activities of any risk. They sit around watching TV or go no further than their own yards where they do something really strenuous like playing with handheld video games. If some danger arose where they really had to outrun a stranger, they might not be in shape to do it!

How is this affecting modern children's literature? So much of the best children's literature, from Tom Sawyer on, deals with children evading the watchfulness of caregivers. Nowadays, kids all carry cell phones (or soon will) and have to check in with parents every 15 minutes, and before long they'll all have microchips implanted so the parents can just check on them via a GPS device. How would kids solve mysteries if their parents "know" they're meddling around that old haunted house?

Does this cause a lot of frustration for modern kids reading classic books, especially works from the 1930s-1960s? When I'm reading a Carolyn Haywood book, for instance, and see some quaint old-fashioned touch, I think, nowadays you wouldn't do that--or if you did, you'd be advised against it! While reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, all I could think was LAWSUIT! I mean, inviting in a runaway child whose parents didn't know where she was, and letting children practice such potentially hazardous skills as cooking and woodchopping on her property. Not nowadays you wouldn't. I remember my sixth grade teacher having some trouble this way while reading us My Side of the Mountain, in which the boy's father LETS him run away alone to the wilderness! And look at The Enormous Egg, in which the boy's parents simply hand him over to a professor because the man is a dinosaur expert, and this man simply turns this innocent farm kid loose on the streets of Washington, D. C., at all hours! For an adult book, J. M. Barrie's The Little White Bird serves as a veritable primer of how a child/adult friendship should NOT happen!

Trouble is, every one of these is a way more interesting book than anyone would get sticking to an even marginally realistic depiction of kids' lives today.

Most affected I would think would be outdoor adventure and mystery books. I'm thinking of all the bicycle and horseback riding without helmets, even boating without life jackets, in books of the past. Nowadays you'd spend half the day just assembling the equipment for an adventure! Not to mention a child's parents might quite normally not know the whereabouts of a school-aged child (10-15 years old) for hours.

Anyone care to comment on how modern concerns are already being addressed in children's books and how trends may go in the future?

Ziljon · Jul 17, 2007

I am a big fan of Jean Craighead-George. My Side of the Mountain is one of my favorite books and you're right, I can't imagine it being written today.

I'm not an outdoors-man, nor a naturalist ,and yet I yearn for the old-fashioned life she depicts in her books. I think many a boy will feel the same way, however, when I gifted the book to my two nephews (7 & 9), my brother said he was going to postpone giving it to them or read it aloud and skip over the running away part.

I recently bought a gift for this same brother's 46th birthday: The Dangerous Book for Boys, a kind of "how to" book for all those things that you lament the loss of: building tree houses, going fishing, building fires, navigating . . . but they don't explain how to skin a rabbit and make winter underpants out of the fur. Still, he absolutely loved it.

I do fear for our fat, frightened, fast-food-fed youth, but I don't fear for the outdoor adventure novels; as long as the world has wilderness, our imaginations will be drawn to it.

Toothpaste · Jul 17, 2007

If you think about Harry Potter, my god Hogwarts is a lawsuit just waiting to happen. The fact that they allow Quidditch to be played at the school (which is the most violent sport out there) and the Tri Wizard Tournament where there is a possibility of death . . . it's a good thing the school's location is off the charts.

I don't think stranger danger etc is affecting book content. It may be affecting how readers read them, but even then I don't think it would be kids who would be concerned.

Tish Davidson · Jul 17, 2007

First, I think your initial assumption is far too broad. Second, I don't think kids have any trouble entering settings different from their own without frustration. If they did, there would be no YA fantasy.

batgirl · Jul 17, 2007

I wonder if that's one of the reasons for the boom in YA fantasy? Because it's a simple way for children to envision autonomy? Or rather, a simple way for YA authors to envision child characters having autonomy? Historical fiction may have the same excuse, being a setting where children are assumed to have both more responsibility and less supervision.

In most cases of children reading the older or classic books, they'd probably have some idea that 'things were different then', or just accept the happenings as part of the tall tale of (for instance) having a pet dinosaur.

But I do think it must affect realistic stories with modern-day settings. The 'unhappy or isolated child befriends reclusive neighbour' plot may be too implausible now. Certainly I have trouble imagining a modern parent saying 'if not duffers, won't drown', rather than enrolling the children in a lifesaving course and watching to make sure they always wore proper flotation gear.
-Barbara

reenkam · Jul 17, 2007

I read those books when I was younger and lots of others where kids were alone. All my friends did, too. None of us ran away. (Well, one ran away to the end of her block, but that probably doesn't count.) Like others said, kids would seperate the book world from the real world. And as far as I know, the people who have actually run away from home don't read very much, so I doubt that's where they got the idea.

Soccer Mom · Jul 17, 2007

Yeah, my sons are ADDICTED to the Hardy Boys, but when you read the things they do and their Dad just accepts....well...no one was EVER that permissive. It doesn't matter. It's a fantasy. They enjoy imagining themselves as detectives.

Mike Martyn · Jul 19, 2007

give me your opinion

I loved the Hardy Boys although I was confused by words like roadster. Even back in the sixties and I was a kid, that term had fallen out of fashion.

I've written several (trunk) novels and I'm working on a fourth. This one is based on my childhood up North. I spent a lot of my time outdoors.

Through this school I attended , I went on a grueling eight day boat trip. The boat was a 25 ft. 2000 lb Navy cutter and we rowed it for 300 miles. The youngest boy was 8 and the eldest and the leader of our expedition was 14. We camped each night on the river banks and had no adult supervision whatsoever. I was eleven years old. None of us were great atheletes or even close. We just pulled away on our 10 ft. oars for 300 miles like we'd been trained.

So here's my question if I take that sort of experience and novelise (sp) it would people especially kids dismiss the whole thing as preposterous? I'm 7000 words into this thing and I'm beginning to have my doubts.

Mr. Fix · Jul 19, 2007

Its all just so sad...

The 'Other Side of the Mountain' was one of the main readings that sent me on my life of adventure. (Boy Scouts, Y-Indian Guides, 4-H and the the bigger ones like US Army, Park Services, Etc.). I never thought about it in today's world with today's youth. In my days of youth we were still pretty much left to our own devices. Which I can tell you led to some disastrous situations. (The burning down of a tall three story tree fort comes to mind - and yes - there was adult supervision at this camp.) This makes for some adventurous memories, but your right, in today's world this would have resulted in a lawsuit. In the case of me, my brother and our friends... we were banned from the camp for a week (ouch! Such severe punishment!)

Of course the difference to today's 'couch potato' issue is that in my day our parents pushed us outside to play. Mainly to get us out from under our Mothers' feet. Today, as stated above, parents want to protect their kids from... well, maybe kids like me and my brother.

Stijn Hommes · Jul 20, 2007

batgirl said:
But I do think it must affect realistic stories with modern-day settings. The 'unhappy or isolated child befriends reclusive neighbour' plot may be too implausible now. Certainly I have trouble imagining a modern parent saying 'if not duffers, won't drown', rather than enrolling the children in a lifesaving course and watching to make sure they always wore proper flotation gear.
-Barbara

'Hearts in Atlantis'. It may be set some time back, but the parents (read: Bobby's mom) were already paranoid then and they still got to play outside. I think getting rid of the cell phones and GPS devices would be the hardest bit to get kids away from adult supervision in adventures today.

CoriSCapnSkip · May 24, 2012

Zombie thread alert for a zombie case.

Wow, finally. And it isn't either of the major suspects.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...-who-disappeared-33-years-ago-with-candy?lite

This was the case which changed everything. Previous to this, I was (still am) interested in children's literature, which comprises about five sixths of my rather extensive reading. Since 1979 with Etan Patz, and particularly 1981 with Adam Walsh, kids have been denied any sort of real freedom to get into adventures. So unless you're writing historical or fantasy, you're a bit restricted for material.

jaksen · May 24, 2012

Write around it. Have the kid you want to put in a certain situation the son or daughter of a mother who falls asleep in the middle of the day. She's divorced or drinks too much or is depressed. All totally realistic. If the kid wanders off or is gone for hours at a time, Mom doesn't even know it.

Or do it the old-fashioned way. Make your MC an orphan, kill off or remove the parents some way. Put the MC in a foster home with overworked foster parents or a grandparent who falls asleep in their rocking chair or an uncle who says, 'Get lost, kid. Don' bother me.'

There's still plenty of ways to get your MCs off into Wonderland.

Morrell · May 24, 2012

Agree with Jaksen. It's fiction. Use your imagination & give the characters the autonomy they need. Sure, the world has changed--but there's a lot of good out there along with the bad. It bothers me when people moan and groan about the evils of today and idealize an earlier era. There were problems then, too. And ... kids still do play outside, believe it or not. They still manage to evade their caregivers' vigilance and get up to mischief. The story about the little boy who was abducted over 30 years ago is tragic indeed, but what does it have to do with writing fiction?

sissybaby · May 24, 2012

I hope when kids read about these kids who run off and have adventures, they ask themselves, "why or how could they do that?" "What's different about the real world that makes it such an unsafe place to be allowed to go off on an adventure?"

Then those children can realize that life shouldn't be so filled with fear that we can't have our freedom, and make efforts to change it.

I'm not trying to put myself on a soapbox, but the danger of this is because the adults have allowed society to digress to a point where fear rules us too often. And I'm one of the ones who would freak if my kid ran away.

My son was three when he told me he was running away. He had filled his hands with three pairs of underwear, his favorite DVD's, a CD or two, and our church directory. I guess he figured if he had to call someone for help, he wanted to be prepared.

Of course, he wasn't even legally mine yet, so I had to stop him, darn it.

Morrell · May 24, 2012

I love what he chose to take with him! :roll:

Kitty Pryde · May 24, 2012

CoriSCapnSkip said:
This was the case which changed everything. Previous to this, I was (still am) interested in children's literature, which comprises about five sixths of my rather extensive reading. Since 1979 with Etan Patz, and particularly 1981 with Adam Walsh, kids have been denied any sort of real freedom to get into adventures. So unless you're writing historical or fantasy, you're a bit restricted for material.

Yeah, not really true. IRL kids are very restricted. In fiction they are not. I've read recent realistic middle grade novels about kids hitchhiking cross-country, stealing cars and leaving town, rafting the Rio Grande without adults whilst being chased by drug runners, summitting Everest, cycling through the desert to rescue kidnapped children, and surviving Hurricane Katrina, wildfires, earthquakes, avalanches, snowstorms, and other natural disasters. To name a few. As writers, we have license to make things more awesome than they are in real life, including leaving kids free to adventure.

MsJudy · May 24, 2012

CoriSCapnSkip said:
Since 1979 with Etan Patz, and particularly 1981 with Adam Walsh, kids have been denied any sort of real freedom to get into adventures. So unless you're writing historical or fantasy, you're a bit restricted for material.

Your premise is extremely flawed.

Yes, some parents are paranoid/overprotective/worried. Yes, some neighborhoods are not safe for young people.

But all kids? Denied any sort of real freedom? Chained to their homes and forced to be couch potatoes because the world is such a scary place?

Simply, completely, absolutely not true.

The kids I know spend hours hanging out together--at the mall, on their parents' farms, down at the creek, on the beach, under the redwoods in the state park, at the Boardwalk, at the movies. Sure, they have cell phones. That's what makes it okay to let them wander about a bit, knowing they can call if they get lost or bored.

Bad things happen every now and then. And some parents do live restricted lives out of fear. But to say that no one can write a realistic novel in modern times because modern children aren't allowed to do anything is just...ridiculous.

Smish · May 24, 2012

I have to agree with the others. My work with juveniles in the court system proves that kids still get into lots of adventures... some of them illegal.

And in fiction, kids have even more freedom. So do adults, for that matter. Fiction is bigger than life, after all.

A.R. Starr · May 24, 2012

I'm 25 (well, 25 tomorrow) so my childhood days aren't so far away and in someways it resembled the lives of characters of the famous five ect, though without the solving crime part.

Maybe it's just that I was a small country town girl, but stranger danger was never much of a part of my life. I was up from dawn to dusk, usually in the bushland behind our house with my friends or camping somewhere on my best friend's huge farm. Our parents made sure we had basic first aid training and survival skills if something went wrong, then let us have our adventures.

Stranger danger makes me sad, particularly since it's a rarity. Statisticly, kids are in more danger from people they know.

Ferret · May 25, 2012

I write contemporary stories, and my characters generally have loving, attentive parents, but I still manage to get them out on adventures. Okay, I write contemporary fantasy, and sometimes that helps (magically induced comas! kidnapped by monsters!) but I still think, as many others have said, that there are lots of ways to get around the paranoid parent issue.

Laura J · May 26, 2012

I have my setting in the country. My MC is visiting her grandmother. Part of the story is that she is a city kid and has more freedom which she has a hard time with. The town is small, her grandmother lives on a small farm and the neighbors are close. She has severe anxiety and that's part of the reason she is visiting her laid back grandma. She isn't used to such freedom. But she must get away from the grownups to have anything happen. She even sneaks into the woods in the middle of the night. She does go for walks in the woods nearby, something that kind of makes me cringe. But, she asks if it is safe, alot. Well, not towards the end, because she's a hero.

I know that it is hard to have an adventure with the adults around in a MG novel. I sat and thought about all of the settings where a kid could be so unsupervised. summer camp, boarding school, rural area, the list isn't long.

In my first book, (still resting), I realized that I had an adult along with the kids for part of the story. He was injured, but still able to make decisions for the group. I knew I had to get rid of him. I made him a bit more injured and he exited to get help. Still keeping the kids in charge.

I can't help but think that most kids read books and think about the freedom kids have in stories. But, they may not relate these to their lives. My kid is pretty sheltered, homeschooled and living in an iffy neighborhood. He has anxiety as well. He loves books where kids go on adventures. Something he would never do. I asked him about that and he said 'that's what makes it a story. duh'. I'm not sure they think 'well, that couldn't happen because kids today are so sheltered and protected'. They just enjoy the ride.

Britwriter · May 26, 2012

Laura J said:
I'm not sure they think 'well, that couldn't happen because kids today are so sheltered and protected'. They just enjoy the ride.

I clearly recall thinking, as a rather unsheltered child myself, that stories like Famous Five, where kids went off on adventures, were ridiculous, because who the heck got to go off on the moors for days on end without a parent going with them?

But, I still loved the stories. It's fantasy, and on one level you know it's highly improbable for a kid to have that freedom, but on another level, you enter the fantasy.

Rather like my kids know that the chances of them going to Hogwarts are slim-to-nothing. They think it's nuts that the wizards' parents just send them off to this school where monsters roam and kids die. But that doesn't stop them loving it.

If anything, children's fiction is even more important for kids who are overly sheltered. I don't think the fact that society has become overprotective of children has any connection with what books people write. It certainly doesn't affect what I write, anyway.

Laura J · May 26, 2012

I did this Hogwarts Correspondence course for my son. It is amazing. There is a yahoo group that gives you everything. Textbooks to print, lesson plans. Such detail and high quality work from other parents. Well he was convinced he was a student there. But, he wasn't allowed to tell anyone, because he could get expelled.

I also evaluate homeschoolers. I recognized the curriculum from a few of the families. The kids were all 'don't show her that, I'll get expelled.' It was so much fun. Hagrid sent him a stuffed dragon. The Weasleys sent candy, Hermione sent books. He got lessons from Charley on Dragons, herbology from Prof Sprout. One of the saddest things I had to do was deal with the death of Dumbledore. Ben found out that he died. I had to explain it by sending his letter from McGongall saying that she found his acceptance letter on Dumbledore's desk and she wanted to be sure he was enrolled.

We talked about the Harry Potter stories being the history of a real place. He believed that it was real. He loved the fantasy. I told him recently that it was all me. I appreciated the work but was bummed he wasn't really a student. He is now 13 btw. He says just because there is no proof, doesn't mean it isn't real. He finds it easy to get lost in fantasy, but now he knows the difference.

Many thought it was wrong to let him get so involved in it, but it was fun and he loved it. At eleven, he said, "I guess I will be getting my letter soon."

I also teach fairy school at our homeschool co-op. The girls were convinced I could teach them to fly.

Kids have such amazing imaginations. I'm tired and kind of forgot where I was going with this. But, I think my point was that you can have a really rich fantasy life no matter how much personal freedom you have. Sorry for the ramblings.

MsJudy · May 27, 2012

By the OP's logic, Tom Clancy shouldn't be writing anything, either. Surely adults know better than to think a lone wolf soldier can save the world, right?

Marzipan · May 28, 2012

What about all the apprentice books? I mean we have boys hanging out with older dudes that they barely know. In The Cirque Du Freak series, the MC runs away from home, lets his new master fake his death, and joins a circus. You can see similar stories in several of these types of books, and kids love them. I don't believe I've heard any stink about them either. Oh crap, I just saw the old thread alert D:

Stranger Danger Effects on Kidlit? [Old thread: '07]

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