Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Bicycle stunts, Skateboards and other adolescent activities

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

At Sharingwood, the kids are involved in making their own rules. Quite some
time ago, the kids all decided that helmets were mandatory, and they self
enforce this rule on each other. You might want to get the kids together to
talk about the issue and see what they come up with. A well facilitated
teen meeting has potential for lots of good things to happen, even if the
outcome is that the teens decide not to do the helmet thing for now. In
general, teens often feel disenfranchised in cohousing because the adults
make the rules. Giving them the opportunity and encouragement to make their
own rules can engage them in the process of community decision making.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Fred H. Olson
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 5:19 PM
To: cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_Bicycle stunts, Skateboards and other adolescent
activities


DocArtemis [at] aol.com is the author of the message below.
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
  http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html
 --------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

We have a strong group of adolescent boys here at Bellingham cohousing who
have been enterprising enough to emulate a skatepark and various ramps for
mountain bike stunts.

We are trying to devise a policy regarding the use of helmets.  Some members
feel very strongly that all children should wear helmets to prevent serious
injuries - especially head trauma.

Other people, particularly the parents, feel that their teens would not wear
them and then opt to do their skateboarding away from our site.  They would
prefer that their kids feel welcome here or that they feel that their kids
are skilled enough that it wouldn't be worth fighting "this battle."

We are also interested if anyone knows about the issue of liability.

Thanks for any insight

Liz Bernstein
Bellingham Cohousing

"True Peace is not the absence of tension, it's the presence of justice"
Martin Luther King

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