New Study Says ‘Kids Love Being Kids’ So They May Never Move Out Of Our Basements

A new article in the LA Times start off with the intro of:
Children are increasingly more likely to enjoy their childhood. Some attribute this to the involvement ”” or helicopter pampering ”” of their parents.
Helicopter pampering whaaaaaat? I assume this is like “Helicopter Parenting” but with more dishes of ice cream with extra sprinkles, and due to this sort of behavior exhibited by parents, a new study says that kids really like being kids. The study, done by the Nickelodeon Network, surveyed over 900 kids and discovered over 85 percent of them aged eight to fourteen “liked being my age.” From the LA Times:

In that same survey, carried out by market research firm Harris Interactive, more than three out of four said they weren’t in any hurry to grow up.

The findings startle many childhood researchers, who have watched as modern kids cast off dolls earlier and gravitate to all things teenage. Yet the phenomenon seems to echo a shift already spotted among teens and twentysomethings ”” the lengthening road to adulthood.

Nickelodeon chalks up the change among kids to many of the same forces attributed to the longer transition to adulthood, including parents becoming more involved with their children.

“They’re in no rush to be older because they have it so good at home,” said Ron Geraci, executive vice president of research for Nickelodeon. And during the tough economy, “they see what their parents are going through.”

 

Do you know what this means? This basically means our kids will never move out of our basements, ugh. I think what we all try to do as parents is do a better job than our own parents did. If our own parents screamed a lot, we try and scream less. We take every aspect we disliked about our own childhoods and try not to make the same mistakes with our own kids. The article interviews parents about their own parenting philosophy :

In Los Angeles, some moms and dads have embraced parenting philosophies that look little like the way they were raised. Los Feliz mother Karen Mejia said that her twin daughters decided to be vegetarian at the age of 10 ”” a choice she can’t imagine being allowed to make at the same age.

“My mom would have said, ‘You eat your chicken,’ and that’s it,” Mejia recalled. Her 13-year-old son is free to wear his hair long.

“I was never allowed to talk to my parents the way my children are able to talk to me,” said Mejia, who works as a nanny and embraces the philosophy of “nonviolent parenting” with her own children, avoiding rewards, bribes or punishments. “I grew up to be seen but not heard.”

Some scholars believe long-standing changes in parenting have already shown up in adults. Twentysomethings today talk to their parents more often and more openly than baby boomers did at the same age, an AARP survey found last year. The Pew Research Center found that most young adults who weathered the recession by moving in with their parents were satisfied with their living situation.

 

I always assumed that “nonviolent parenting” – which I thought I practiced, meant not hitting your kids or screaming at them or berating them. If nonviolent parenting also includes not using rewards, bribes or punishments than I’m totally not doing that, because I bribe my own kids a lot. And I love having my kids open and honest and able to talk freely with me and their father, but that doesn’t include them using unkind language or being tiny little assholes to us. Childhood is such a fun, magical time in many ways, and I’m glad so many kids don’t feel in a hurry to grow up, but I really don’t think kids feel this way because parents are “helicopter pampering” them or letting them get away with being jerks. I want my kids to love being at home, but I want them excited about the prospects of moving out of my home and into this great big world to experience everything it has to offer, and to go out there and do everything they can do to make the world a better place.

I think it all boils down to the fact we yell a lot less, spend more time playing with our kids and are more open with them then our own parents were with us. I think we try and do better. depending on what sort of childhood we had growing up. And I do love having my kids at home, but I have a big feeling I’m going to love having them leave too.

(Photo:  Blend Images/shutterstock)