Children left home alone - the Finnish way

[Liam1]

Hi
I liked this post as 1) I'm also a Brit getting used to Finnish schooling 2) I did risk perception as my econometric thesis 20 years ago but have never shaken off a nerdy interest in it!!

IrnBru - my issue with what you say is that I agree with the sentiment, but risk doesn't work that way. We all are really poor at assessing risk (why people buy lottery tickets!). The point is that your solution is just a transfer of risks to something you perceive to be lower risk but may not be. I'll use the first person to avoid this sounding personal. Statistically even as a well intentioned parent, I (if I go crazy) or my spouse are a far greater risk to my children than a stranger abducting them. Also if my wife straps our litle boy into our car to oversee our 8 year old girl getting from school to after school she has massively increased my boy's chances of injury vs the reduction in my girl's (compare #car crashes with # abductions - in Finland this data is quite well normalised as we all agree that kids are alone often so exposed to abduction risk)

Sounds dumb I know, as we implicitly trust things we know. However look at the natural experiment (e.g. 10 years of Finnish, even UK crime). Compare the injuries inflicted by parents / trusted carers at home vs abductions. The abduction examples given are telling - one was a case from 1993, the other from 2007. Abductions get massive media attention so it's not like other crime where it can be argued that the crime is unreported. While still thankfully low, trawl a crime database and you wil see child injury through neglect/abuse at home is daily. Also, as Pursuivant points out houses are potential deathtraps whilst schools have had "elf 'n safety professionals" inspect them / first aiders at all time etc. Agree with Adrian as well - there are lots of other things you can do to reduce your child's risk using the same time and with a far bigger safety payoff (teach them to swim very competently, teach yourself first aid, advanced driving course).

The point I think (and this get really nerdy socio - economcs) is that people want to reduce their own feeling of potential guilt, so they perhaps reduce the risk that they could be blamed for and leave the ones that are no-ones fault.

One point - and most important - if you WANT to spend lots of time with your children because you like them and think you are their best influencer, then that is 100% fine with me. I wished I could do this, but prefer a balance of work (feeling I'm providing for them in other ways) and seeing them less.

[Pursuivant]

I remember watching an UK series on the Finnis telly back in the day... "Latchkey children" was it, läski children, läski children and they had a fancier playground with an ufo-looking concrete thing with a railing... Or was that in the German "Kocken Konstantin" - they were posh living in houses though.

[irnbru]

Soz but school finishing at 12pm and the after school club (if you're lucky) staffed by "god knows who" is ridiculous. My lads after school club these past couple of weeks has consisted of the kids "playing out" for 4 hours, no planned activities, we found out the after school club has a load of equipment in a store room which the workers there are too lazy to take in and out. The workers sit on chairs in the playground chatting to each over while the kids "entertain" themselves. A disgraceful system. When I was in primary school we did the work in the morning and arts and crafts or sports in the afternoon. Finland's system of providing none of this is rubbish.

My son was digging holes in the dirt with his bare hands once when he was picked up as he had nothing to play with. The alternative is he goes to the local park where no one tracks who is coming or going. They sad they will call you if they notice your kid hasn't showed up there for a week.

I repeat it's a disgrace, we pay enough taxes for our kids to have a proper school day.

[irnbru]

Statistically

*Makes w4#73r sign*

[jahasjahas]

That's a shame. When I was a kid, we had lots of cool stuff to do at our afternoon club. Based on what I remember, outside of meals and story time and such organized activities, we mostly did what we wanted independently (oh no, there's that word again!) - played outside, played Nintendo and board games etc.

[AldenG]

My lads after school club these past couple of weeks has consisted of the kids "playing out" for 4 hours, no planned activities, we found out the after school club has a load of equipment in a store room which the workers there are too lazy to take in and out. The workers sit on chairs in the playground chatting to each over while the kids "entertain" themselves. A disgraceful system.

So fairly obviously, the system expects the workers to make that equipment available. What you describe is indeed disgraceful, but is it systematic or is it this one facility? Could you recruit a Finn to help you inquire about that -- several levels up the ladder? You'll be able to tell a lot from the response you get. And then things will change as a result of your inquiry or they will not. But to say that this is the whole of the Finnish system based on this one facility when you've made no effective attempt at remediation is a tad hyperbolic, don't you think?

[AldenG]

Or you could see if a local newspaper is interested in pursuing the story. I'd guess maybe 55% or more likely not, but there is that chance. You could look into that first, and if you get no bites, try the chain of command. It sounds like blatant goldbricking and it ought to give leverage for twisting someone's balls, somewhere, somehow. Media love to expose government employees slacking off. Is it legal to covertly make a cellphone video of the workers sitting around slacking off and the kids digging unsupervised in the dirt?

[Upphew]

Soz but school finishing at 12pm and the after school club (if you're lucky) staffed by "god knows who" is ridiculous. My lads after school club these past couple of weeks has consisted of the kids "playing out" for 4 hours, no planned activities, we found out the after school club has a load of equipment in a store room which the workers there are too lazy to take in and out. The workers sit on chairs in the playground chatting to each over while the kids "entertain" themselves. A disgraceful system. When I was in primary school we did the work in the morning and arts and crafts or sports in the afternoon. Finland's system of providing none of this is rubbish.

Next you tell that you just put the food on the table and don't feed it to your kids...

Seriously, you should inquire about the after school club. Are the equipment their and are they allowed to use them or are they just too lazy? Are the workers supposed to entertain the brats or just look after them?

[Liam1]

Statistically

*Makes w4#73r sign*

irnbru wrote

"It's quite difficult to find any information on h1n1 infant mortality rates. I've been trying for a long time now. It seems that babies and young kids are a large percentage of hospitalizations and intensive care patients though unfortunately."

So stats are good when you want them... or don't you understand what the word means?

[Pursuivant]

My son was digging holes in the dirt with his bare hands once when he was picked up as he had nothing to play with.

So sorry to hear about your son having no imagination, but we all had wooden toys nailed to the floor and our head between the radiator when we were kids. So you need to come up with something better than that for sympathy I'm afraid. I didn't have airfix kits, but milk cartons, match boxes, toilet rolls, and miscellaneous other household debris made quite awesome battleships and spaceships covered with gluepaper and painted with watercolors... Come to think of it most of those 60's props were made that way in the first place...

[irnbru]

Are the workers supposed to entertain the brats or just look after them?

There lies the problem and my point in it's entirety. The workers are just badly paid, low qualified, low motivated people. In a decent system the kid would still be in school in the afternoon with a real teacher and possibly some teaching assistants. I love Finland but the school system for first graders here is stupid and quite dangerous, society might be good here and the chance of bad things happening low but it's no reason to neglect kids. The system was designed for mummy to be at home and looking after the kids and dad to be out working so finishing at 12pm was OK back then. Who can afford to live like that anymore? Society has changed, time for the school system to catch up.

[Upphew]

The system was designed for mummy to be at home and looking after the kids and dad to be out working so finishing at 12pm was OK back then. Who can afford to live like that anymore? Society has changed, time for the school system to catch up.

The system was designed during time when two thirds of mothers were working.
http://kotiliesi.fi/lehti/naisia-tyossa ... aulalapset

[irnbru]

The system was designed for mummy to be at home and looking after the kids and dad to be out working so finishing at 12pm was OK back then. Who can afford to live like that anymore? Society has changed, time for the school system to catch up.

The system was designed during time when two thirds of mothers were working.
http://kotiliesi.fi/lehti/naisia-tyossa ... aulalapset

Then it was designed by an idiot. Time to change it now to match reality.

[AldenG]

The system was designed for mummy to be at home and looking after the kids and dad to be out working so finishing at 12pm was OK back then. Who can afford to live like that anymore? Society has changed, time for the school system to catch up.

The system was designed during time when two thirds of mothers were working.
http://kotiliesi.fi/lehti/naisia-tyossa ... aulalapset

Then it was designed by an idiot. Time to change it now to match reality.

"Be the change you want to see."

Finns are not complainers -- not against authorities and governments, at least. The person who might cause the problem to be fixed is you. Or not. But writing about it in Finland Forum will not change it.

[cors187]

By the start of 3rd class, he was used to way more independence than a kid the same age in an English speaking country. Remeber that a child being educated in a typical Finnish school in Finland is expected to be quite independent in school...keeping track of their stuff because there are no lockers, taking care of themselves at lunch time because all children eat lunch at school, etc..

I thought every kid walked to school in the 70,s when they were 6.No lockers back then either.
What type of Finnish propaganda is this?