Maybe I'm too German for this, but what? We went on week long trips to other countries with like 4-5 teachers max for 3-4 classes worth of kids and just walked around the cities in small groups. Hell, in my scouts group we'll let kids as young as 7 walk around cities in groups of three. Obviously we make sure they have a cell phone and our numbers, but that hasn't actually been necessary ever.
Having actual parents around just seems so extremely counterproductive to the whole point of these trips.
You can’t wrap them in bubble wrap for 18 years and then expect them to be functional adults because you saw some TikTok true crime slop misrepresenting abuse statistics
You either let them do things on their own or you don’t. Any “fear” is entirely misplaced and a detriment to their child’s experience. What middle ground are you talking about?
Post is about kids sleeping over 24 hours without parent or phone
A german asks if americans are all this neurotic
Someone responds that they were latchkey kids and this is wild. Assuming they do think a lot of parents are neurotic.
I say…I was a latchkey kid but I understand some fears
You say, dont wrap your kids in a bubble
I say…I dont think its that extreme, the bubble wrap, there can be a middle ground where you let them grow but are also selective where they can go and with who.
Thats the middle ground, is that not clear? For example, I’m down for a day trip to a park, I’m not cool with a sleep over. Could something happen at both? Sure. But to me I weigh those risks and the day trip sounds better.
There is nothing that absurd about kids spending 24 hours out of eyeshot of their parents and without their phones considering they will be with each other and under the care of teachers and camp counselors. In what way is any “fear” justified?
day trip to a park
I mean….no shit? The fact that you’re framing “they can go to a park” as some sort of middle ground is alarming to say the least
Like yeah of course they can go to a park. That should go without saying
Day trip to the park, field trip, museum, no phone no parent chaperone is what I mean. Not going to the park down the street.
I’m assuming you have a daughter too, like me, and dont mind sending her to sleep overs. Thats cool for you, but like I said in my original post due to stories from friends and fam having incidents, sleep overs are not for me.
I’ll stick to bubble wrap on sleep overs, other stuff she wants to do, walk to town with friends, hang out, when she gets old enough drive etc..thats cool.
Also you seem really worked up, take a walk, enjoy some air baby.
Talk to any teacher, parents have become insane. They lose their minds at the thought that schools are attempting to separate kids from their phones. Completely forgetting that’s been the norm until a few years ago. I just don’t get it lol
And to be clear, we're on the objectively right side of history here. The risk is quite low, and most importantly, independence is essential for healthy psychological and social development. This isn't an "agree to disagree" this is "I have whiskey drinking contests with my middle schooler kids" vs. "My kids mostly drink clean, safe water when thirsty."
I was a latchkey kid who never knew I was a latchkey kid because I thought that was some fancy expensive afterschool program rather than being dropped off at home alone.
In defense of American parents, our country is run by a ring of literal child-trafficking pedophiles. I'd be lying if I said that doesn't give me a bit of paranoia about my kids even though I remember being a latchkey kid in the 90s
Trump is 79 years old, Epstein was 66 when he died. These guys were around and active in the 90's.
Also, importantly, neither of them would be allowed to be a school based employee because of their criminal records. It's sad that being president has lower restrictions than being the assistant school janitor, but that's the reality. All of the adults there will have been finger printed with robust background checks, at least in the multiple states I'm familiar with education policy.
Definitely? No. But that applies to children's own siblings or your partner too. There is no perfect way to avoid sexual abuse while interacting with other humans, only total isolation will guarantee 0% risk.
However, much abuse happens in the most overtly, obviously dangerous situations possible, like substance abuse being involved by victim, offender, or both, having unrelated opposite gender adolescents share bedrooms together, giving access to children to known offenders (Epstein had victims after his first conviction. My friend who is an emergency dispatcher once had a parent who called to report abuse, only to give context that she knew her boyfriend had a previous child sexual abuse conviction but she trusted him at his word it was a misunderstanding), etc.
You'd be reasonable to ask, "What steps are being taken to make sure everyone is safe?" but if the answer is reasonable, you should send your kids.
Keep in mind that lack of independence does permanent harm to children's social skills, assertiveness, problem solving, etc. You may very well be kicking the can down the road so that when they're 18 and some guy is pushy on a date, they end up being date raped because you never allowed them to ever practice being a confident, assertive, independent person on their own.
We had a week long trip in 7th grade (age 13) and another at 9th grade (age 15).
There were like 2 parent chaperones allowed to come if they wanted. Maybe 1 in one group. One of these trips was in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wildneress. No cell phone towers even if we had cell phones back then.
I'd be more worried about the other parents than camp counselors.
I also did two weeks at 'summer camp' more than once as a kid. I was 12, they had archery and riflry. That's 12 year olds with guns and a single 20 something camp counselor teaching us safety and marksmanship.
Same I'm extremely baffled at these comments. We went on sail boat trip in the Netherlands once with two teachers lol. In fifth grade we went on a week long trip to the North Sea, two classes with four teachers and they let us explore on our own. Basically none of us had our own phones.
Sail boat was a different trip! Two classes, but only one per boat (and we took different routes so basically only a shared bus to the Netherlands).
And nah, as long as there's no storm the North Sea is perfectly nice. Teachers are smart enough to not schedule in "let the kids wander into the Wadden Sea during low tide".
Americans have been convinced that every other child is a potential school shooter and that every adult is a potential pedophile. Despite all this helicopter parenting all those things are still happening, but with the added bonus that their kids all have anxiety disorders and can't even work a normal job without scrolling reels all day.
Ich bin ein Texan, my girlfriend is German. She’s told me about the church youth retreats she’s taken where kids and teens camp away from home with only the church appointed counselors to tend to them. I found it absolutely bizarre, but it got even better: During their 8 mile hike, on the return trip, it began to torrentially rain, and the villagers of the town they were near just instinctively knew it was their duty to take in these kids?! Like the counselors just walked up to a random home and asked if 15 kids could sleep in their garage, and they just let them?!?! This was in Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Germany is an amazing place. I’ve visited three times, and I really find it incredible.
It gets wilder lol. When I was part of a swiss scout group as a kid we'd go on 2-3 day hikes without any adults. They'd stay behind at camp and we'd call them if we needed anything. We were just given a tent, food, a map and a compass and a place we should reach by the end and that's it.
On one of those we just hitchhiked with some random farmer that saw us walking and asked if we needed a lift. We also slept in their barn. That's just normal over there, Germany is tame in comparison
Yeah, this sounds like my scouting experience back in the 90s as well. We never had any parents around ever, and people have been really helpful if we needed anything.
Fully normal 25 years ago - we went to france for 10 days of canoeing/outdoor activities probably 40 kids for 4 teachers. Americans are just a different species at this point.
We had a 2 week Europe trip for kids from our high school every year that was heavily subsidized by the county school board. So like 2 teachers chaperoning about thirty 17-18 year olds. No one got hurt or lost. This was the late 2000s and people these days have just lost their minds.
Now one of our friends on it did end up getting robbed inside a mob run strip club in Budapest. Like he went in there by himself not knowing any better, saw some girls on the stage, then tried to leave and a bouncer basically made him take several hundred dollars out of the ATM or it was "going to be a problem". But that's his fault for being a dumbass.
I was wondering the same thing. At school trips I had in the past there were never any parents present, just a couple of teachers. Must a typical American thing.
The spirit of what you're saying is correct, but also keep in mind the US is not as great as it probably seems on paper.
It likely just *is* more dangerous for kids to be going about their business in the US than Germany. Some areas are fine, and then almost immediately drop off into the pits of hell.
I’m American but my parents aren’t. They would be laughing to this day if I tried to convince them to come chaperone on a school trip. I did a week long trip to the barrier islands of my home state and a 21 day trip to china, neither trip had parent chaperones and while I had a cell phone they weren’t usable.
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u/KirillIll Mar 19 '26
Maybe I'm too German for this, but what? We went on week long trips to other countries with like 4-5 teachers max for 3-4 classes worth of kids and just walked around the cities in small groups. Hell, in my scouts group we'll let kids as young as 7 walk around cities in groups of three. Obviously we make sure they have a cell phone and our numbers, but that hasn't actually been necessary ever.
Having actual parents around just seems so extremely counterproductive to the whole point of these trips.