Recess Temperatures

[Tri Girl]

We coddle our children. BUT...funny thing: if they'd dress properly for the weather maybe their candy a**es wouldn't be cold outside (meaning mom and dad should dress them appropriately or make them wear warm clothes when it's cold outside).
I teach at a preK-8th grade parochial school. Our policy is we don't go outside if the temp with or without wind chill is below 32F.
Of course we just had a frigid couple of weeks and some kids came to school in shorts and sweatshirts (and it was near 0 for many mornings). These kids ALL come from money and can afford coats/gloves/hats, etc. Most of them have nicer coats than I do. They just don't want to wear it (unless they're skiing in Aspen and then by golly parents wouldn't think about complaining about the temperature).

IMO we're raising a bunch of pansies... and not just concerning the weather.

Sorry- this didn't provide any helpful information. I apparently just vented at you instead.
40 seems ridiculous, tho.

[shootingstar]

I teach at a preK-8th grade parochial school. Our policy is we don't go outside if the temp with or without wind chill is below 32F.
Of course we just had a frigid couple of weeks and some kids came to school in shorts and sweatshirts (and it was near 0 for many mornings). These kids ALL come from money and can afford coats/gloves/hats, etc. Most of them have nicer coats than I do. They just don't want to wear it (unless they're skiing in Aspen and then by golly parents wouldn't think about complaining about the temperature).

IMO we're raising a bunch of pansies... and not just concerning the weather..

Interesting..I guess most of us did rebel at some point on amount of clothing. And it's relative. Maybe those kids should get warmed up playing soccer.

Don't any of us remembering wearing leotard under our dresses/skirts and winter boots in -20 C winters with snow drifts taller than our heads? With a winter coat, boots and running around the snowy playground.

I still joke with my partner that's why I can still wear just 1 cycling tight on 75% or more of Vancouver's winter days. My legs got toughened in childhood. But he wears 2 layers over his legs at near 0 to -5 C degrees, even when there is no wind chill.

[Tuckervill]

My son has really good cold weather gear, and he chooses not to wear it, no mater how cold it is. (He did wear the nice gloves when there was snow on the ground.) I don't think that makes him a pansy. It makes him tougher than me!

I remember seeing a frozen red-breasted robin on a snowdrift on my way to school once. Third grade. I was sad. I usually walked to school, but that day I went up the street and around the corner to ride the bus, because my friend thought it was too cold to walk. That was back in the day, in suburban Chicago, when girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school. So we put on stretch pants (remember the kind with the crease sewn up the front?) under our dresses and had to take them off when we got to school. And our classrooms had cloakrooms and we all bundled up in the cloakroom for recess and going home. We went out no matter what the temperature, so long as it wasn't raining. If there was snow on the playground all the better!

Karen

[zoom-zoom]

The ridiculous thing about keeping kids in when it's 40 is that most kids wouldn't even need a bulky Winter coat for those conditions. A fleecy jacket over a sweatshirt and undershirt would be more than enough for most kids. Heck, mine won't even wear gloves until it's under 35.

[lph]

Ah, kids are strange creatures sometimes. My son has all the clothing he needs for any temperature and any weather, and then some, but he'll still tell me about standing around in recess freezing his b*tt off "because it was raining" (not because he couldn't be bothered to put on a hat and a fleece jacket under his rain coat), or he'll come home from school in a soaking wet down jacket, that he wore running around playing football in -2C and sleet. He hates hates hates putting on snow pants, so he'll wear wool long johns underneath his jeans all winter indoors and outdoors instead. Go figure *shrug*. He's 12, he has to figure these things out for himself at some point. He has started asking me sometimes if I would suggest wearing this or that. Occasionally. I feel like shouting Hallelujah every time

And kids do still shovel driveways, shootingstar. No-one around here has a snow blower except the janitor, and we shoveled our (very short) driveway plus all our closest neighbours' last time we had a heavy snowfall. No way would he get paid for shoveling his own driveway, but I did tell him he could go and ask other neighbours if he could shovel theirs for money.

[Crankin]

The not wearing coats/appropriate cold weather gear seems to be a phenomenon that is fairly recent (last 10 years or so). I used to think that the parents were terrible by not sending their kids with coats, etc. when I taught at the middle school level, but then I realized they all ditched their coats somewhere after they left the house. Every day I go to my internship, I drive by a kid (younger teen) who is standing in his driveway waiting for the bus. Every day he is wearing shorts and a bulky sweatshirt. His legs are often bright red! It has to hurt, when it's 5 F out.
My kids never fought me on the coat issue; the younger one developed Raynaud's over the years and until he had his experimental surgery that cured it, he constantly was searching for good gloves. The other one just accepted the fact that you wear a coat in the winter. Maybe it came from living in AZ and when we got here, they felt cold!
I agree, we are raising a bunch of wusses and it's the parents fault.

[redrhodie]

The not wearing coats/appropriate cold weather gear seems to be a phenomenon that is fairly recent (last 10 years or so). I used to think that the parents were terrible by not sending their kids with coats, etc. when I taught at the middle school level, but then I realized they all ditched their coats somewhere after they left the house. Every day I go to my internship, I drive by a kid (younger teen) who is standing in his driveway waiting for the bus. Every day he is wearing shorts and a bulky sweatshirt. His legs are often bright red! It has to hurt, when it's 5 F out.

I wonder if this is a New England phenomenon? I always see kids around here waiting for the bus, in freezing cold and even snow, wearing just a hoody. It seems winter coats are very out of fashion.

[Becky]

I dunno if it's strictly a New England thing, but it's definitely not just a kid thing. My husband (in his mid 30s) still refuses to wear a coat most days! It was in the low teens here a couple of weeks ago, and it was all I could do to get him to wear a shell, let alone anything insulated

[Tuckervill]

My kid doesn't go to school and has never waited for a school bus. He has Reynaud's, too. He only wears gloves if there is snow to play in, and if he will be outside for longer than it takes to get to the car. When we had temps in the single digits recently (very rare for Arkansas), he did wear gloves more often, because his Reynaud's kicked in quickly then.

My son goes out in all weather, as he wishes. For him, it's about the inconvenience of wearing a jacket, when it's 30 seconds to the car and he'll be warm five minutes after the car starts. it's about not carrying the jacket in the mall. It's just too much fuss to wear a jacket when he's going to take it off in 5 minutes.

In certain weather, I insist that he bring with him appropriate weather gear even if he doesn't wear it. Because one never knows when the car may break down or we slide into the ditch. I just don't need to worry about that AND him not being equipped to do the walking or standing around or working that might require. It's our compromise. When he was 6 he didn't see the point of shoes. We had the same compromise.

I don't think he's a wuss. I think having such a high temp as the guideline for recess is coddling. But kids at the bus stop wearing nothing but a hoody does not a wuss make. I think that's a kid making a choice. I think that's more about adults making blanket rules without considering all the factors. I think that's about a nagging mother who always said "wear a jacket!" instead of "have a good day!"

My 25 and 27 yo's had the same issue with jackets in elementary school, so I don't think it's a new thing.

Karen

[zoom-zoom]

Really...if 40 degrees is too dangerously cold for these kids to be outside (and it's not, otherwise there would be no Humans living and spending time outdoors in Canada or Alaska...or any other areas where we have actual Winter)...I predict a generation of kids who will only be adding to the obese and inactive population in this country. All these kids are being taught is that any degree of physical discomfort is to be avoided at all cost and that the outdoors is only acceptable in a 30 degree temperature range. That's far scarier than any unlikely potential for hypothermia. It's especially upsetting given the cuts in PE programs. When are these kids ever supposed to have any physical activity?