pure.application.studies @PureStudies

@GrayConnolly nominally orthodox. churchgoing rates in russia is very low. theres a pew poll from 10years ago that put it at 7%. ukraine was more than double.

Cycles are ending. Declutter your space, your home, your mind, your life. Rid your energetic field of all chaos and confusion so that clarity can flow. Spiritually cleanse your place, get into every crevice. No more blockages. Create room for new blessings and new beginnings.

***Longer post, feel free to skip*** Bring Back Low-Stakes Activities for Kids We took a wrong turn in the last ~20 years as a society by transforming too many of our organized extracurriculars for kids into high-commitment and high-cost activities. Low stakes, high mountain High-cost, high-commitment organized activities have some or all of these attributes: - Many practices per week and/or long sessions - Expensive uniforms, gear - Expensive registration fees - Year-round or multi-season schedules - Tryouts to make the team/league - Weekend competitions - Mandatory travel - Expensive facilities - Paid coaches - Prevalence of additional, private coaching When high-cost, high-commitment activities become the dominant form of activity, it brings some major drawbacks: - Kids are more isolated in single friend groups that align to whatever their "main" interest is. - Kids have far less unstructured free time. In what is arguably the great blunder of our generation, we've created a world where kids have little time to act under their own direction, spontaneously doing something, exploring, being bored, etc. One major factor in this is high-volume organized activities after school. - Family time is crowded out with nightly sports/dance obligations. - Parents' emotional investment amps up with their financial and time investments, causing people to say and do stupid stuff at their kids' games/competitions. - Kids are far less able to try out different things, as there is little room for beginners and the cost is prohibitive. - Parents with limited means can't afford to have their participate, especially if they have multiple kids. - Coaching becomes very costly as a time commitment for parents and volunteers, even verging into paid gigs (further driving up cost). On a more speculative note, it's worth thinking about whether the (increasingly valid) perception of kids being super expensive to raise in the "normal" way makes people more reluctant to have kids. It's also worth thinking about whether the college admissions rat race and the stupidly high cost of tuition are driving some desperation for kids to get good enough at a thing to receive a college scholarship. Thinking About Low-Stakes, Low-Cost Kids Activities I'd propose that we try to bring back more low-stakes organized activities for kids. I think they occupy an important place between unorganized stuff and the higher-commitment stuff. Kids do benefit from organization. Parents and others benefit from volunteering to coach. It's fun to have some measure of scoring/judgment to keep things sharp. The low-stakes, low-cost organized activities might have some or all of the following characteristics: - Just a couple practices per week for an hour - Simplified uniforms/gear - Lower registration fees - Single season structures - No weekend competitions - No travel - Open to all who register - No expectation of private lessons/coaching - Publicly available facilities used - No paid coaches Wanting more low-stakes activities does not mean wanting to get rid of the higher-commitment stuff. Every kid is different, and many of them (and their families) really thrive in a more intensive environment. I question how often that is really true for younger kids (under 12?), but this is also a nuanced thing. But simply adding more low-stakes activities opens up the option for families to craft a different model for their situations, even on a kid-by-kid basis. One family might do exclusively low-stakes activities for kids until a particular pursuit really jumps out at them. Gratuitous extra shot of the Wasatch mountains So how can we create more low-stakes activities? This is the hard part, but here are some thoughts on increasing the number of low-stakes organized activities for kids: - Cities and counties can make it a priority. Make fields/facilities available for these activities, provide some basic structure for registration and volunteering so people can coordinate. - Parents can coordinate with each other. The cost of coordination is as low as it has ever been, so it is probably easier than you think to find like-minded people to organize (and coordinate with the cities and counties). - People protect existing lower-cost activities by pushing back on higher cost and higher commitment changes. This can take a variety of forms, but speaking out about wanting a lower cost uniform option, having one fewer practice in a week, etc. can help adjust the norm. This one is tough as it often feels bad to be the cheapskate and/or signal that you don't care about the activity as much as others do. - People can reflect on whether a lower-stakes approach could benefit their family in some way. This is not exactly an airtight bit of advice, but perhaps we can just ask whether the higher-cost, higher-commitment versions of the organized activities our kids do are bringing them real fulfillment, leaving time for their lives, providing them with the right mix of friendships, and broadening their horizons. If the answer feels shaky, then there can be motivation to talk about this more. What did I miss?

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