Are kids raised in the country at a disadvantage?

[Alan L.]

There were 11 in my graduating class in high school, a total of 125 1st through 12th grades. That was a long time ago, but even now my old school only has about 295 in high school which is medium class 2A in Texas. Based on testing the school rates exemplary every year.

When I got to college freshman and sophomore English and math courses were pretty easy. I was far advanced compared to most. Our small school was very strong in English grammar and math but did not have the choices of the elective courses that a big school offers. I raised my children in the same small town schools and I think its just better.

 

[dmccarty]

We bought our land prior to having kids. A big issue we had was the quality of schools and neighbors. NC lists the "grades" of schools. I think it is based on the testing that is done at certainly grades. The "city" school our oldest was attending had about the same score as the "rural" school. We had the kid in a Charter school before we moved. If our kids had to go to a county school in the city they would have been bused somewhere. The county is moving kids around to adjust test scores. One of our kids went to the rural county school which was very good before we eventually got both kids into the same Charter school.

The advantage of the Charter school is that the parents are involved and have to make an effort to get the kids into the school. Compared to the county system where kids are just dropped off as prepaid child care. The teachers we had in public school were very good. No complaints.

The other big advantage of our Charter school is that the school had grades K to 12 so our kids will be going to the same school until graduation. In public school they would have to go to at least three different schools. At the charter, the kids know the teachers and vice versa. The kids also get to know many of the other kids because of the small school size. It really is as close to the one room school house as you can get now a days.

Another big concern was that the kids would not have other kids to play with after school. This has not been the case. The reality is that by the time the kids get home during the week they have home work to do and there really is no time to go play. During the summer there is a pool we go too and the kids are there almost daily.

When the show interest, which thankfully has waned, they have played soccer and basketball.

If we had stayed at our city house, we would not know which school are kids would go too. Even though there were schools within walking distance. The county was and is moving kids around. Once you get past their BS reasoning, I think it is just to average test scores at all of the schools.

Our kids are so much better off in a rural setting. We were in a county that has some of the best schools in NC. We made the correct decision to move.

Later,
Dan

 

[Larry Caldwell]

One nice thing that has happened over the last generation years is the way modern communications have broken down rural isolation. I was born the same year as the first commercial TV broadcast in New York City. I was 5 when we got our first TV set, and we turned on to see a test pattern because the local station only had about an hour a day of programming when it first went on the air. Now, I have a satellite dish for TV (no broadcast signals at my house) and DSL internet. Rural kids today are exposed to a variety of things that were completely unknown to their great grandparents.

 

[jbarker855]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I didn't need any convincing that bringing kids up in the country is a bad thing, but I think that you helped put my wife at ease a little bit. Thanks again!
-Jay

 

[dusty3030]

So, are kids raised in a rural home at a disadvantage? Will they grow up to be socially awkward as a result of the more sparse population? Are they at a handicap from an education standpoint, given the generally smaller schools they will need to attend?
In my own inexperienced view, I don't think that kids who are raised in rural communities are at a disadvantage at all. But I won't comment further at this point, as I am asking for your opinion (not mine!)
My wife and I have a 2 and a 4 year old. We live in a small town in an agricultural district. We don't have neighbors within walking distance. With her natural tendencies to worry as a mother, my wife is terribly concerned about the above posted questions. She wonders if our children will be deprived of the social interaction needed to develop into normal, well balanced, productive members of society. She has serious concerns about our children's education, given that they will be attending a small-town school.
What are your thoughts on this? Anybody here grew up in the country, but moved to the suburbs/city for their children's well-being? Or vice versa? Thanks in advance for any input.
-Jay

My 3 year old has our 10 acres to himself, adjoined by few thousand acres of non populated farm land on the West, the unpopulated wildlands / farmlands adjoining the Mississippi river to the South and East (river makes a bend there, it is South of us, trust me), and what few neighbors we have to the North. We LOVE it. Everyone in the city takes their kids to a jillion programs and activities to get to do what my kid does in his yard. "Little Gym", give me a break. My 3 year old can scale a 3 rail fence and hit the ground running on the other side. Run to the mailbox? It's 2 tenths of a mile to the mailbox. He and his mother do it every day. Go to the zoo? We are a zoo, he's got our horses, mule, donkeys, chickens, turkeys, cows plus the wildlife. How often do you see a red tailed hawk catch prey in your yard in the burbs?

Listen to me on this, todays young families are trying to keep up with the Jones' on the kid raising so hard they don't raise their kids. Your wife is not less of a mother just because your kids don't spend half their life tied down in a friggin mini van going from "activity" to "activity" because they are bored at home because where they live they have to stay chained up in a pen (small yard) or kept inside playing idiot video games and watching the boob tube. How blessed you are to be in rural America. I feel sorry for kids who have to be taken to day cares and umpteen other places they don't want to be because they don't live somewhere they can run around free on their spot of heaven playing, digging holes, climbing trees, watching animals, and being a kid.

FWIW, our little boy goes to Sunday School and goes one day a week to a deal at church where he gets to play with other kids. He's fine. He is well adjusted. He isn't missing anything. We aren't worried.

 

[AGGIE00]

My 3 year old has our 10 acres to himself, adjoined by few thousand acres of non populated farm land on the West, the unpopulated wildlands / farmlands adjoining the Mississippi river to the South and East (river makes a bend there, it is South of us, trust me), and what few neighbors we have to the North. We LOVE it. Everyone in the city takes their kids to a jillion programs and activities to get to do what my kid does in his yard. "Little Gym", give me a break. My 3 year old can scale a 3 rail fence and hit the ground running on the other side. Run to the mailbox? It's 2 tenths of a mile to the mailbox. He and his mother do it every day. Go to the zoo? We are a zoo, he's got our horses, mule, donkeys, chickens, turkeys, cows plus the wildlife. How often do you see a red tailed hawk catch prey in your yard in the burbs?

Listen to me on this, todays young families are trying to keep up with the Jones' on the kid raising so hard they don't raise their kids. Your wife is not less of a mother just because your kids don't spend half their life tied down in a friggin mini van going from "activity" to "activity" because they are bored at home because where they live they have to stay chained up in a pen (small yard) or kept inside playing idiot video games and watching the boob tube. How blessed you are to be in rural America. I feel sorry for kids who have to be taken to day cares and umpteen other places they don't want to be because they don't live somewhere they can run around free on their spot of heaven playing, digging holes, climbing trees, watching animals, and being a kid.

FWIW, our little boy goes to Sunday School and goes one day a week to a deal at church where he gets to play with other kids. He's fine. He is well adjusted. He isn't missing anything. We aren't worried.

So true so true! Plus, there aren't many overweight kids raised in the country. We would make little plows using whatever scraps we could find and a chisel sweep and attach to our bicycles. We would make scatches all over the place until our legs hurt from pedaling. Then we upgraded to go-carts and rode down country roads to our friends houses. I remember making bows and arrows out of bamboo and baling twine and shooting at each other on bicycles pretending we were indians. There's a lot to miss out on being raised in the city.

 

[cisco]

In mental health, attitude, and self reliance, country kids are usually much better off. In education at the upper high school levels (college prep calculus/chemistry/physics, foreign language, etc), country kids are frequently at a disadvantage to those in the wealthier suburban areas though probably on par or better than inner city schools. If one peruses the senior student SAT scores of rural vs. suburban (of larger cities) school districts in my state it's real obvious, in fact it's embarassing. I was the product of very small schools, home schooled some years, until attending a high school for 3 years at a military base, though my class size even then was only ~ 20. For my senior HS year my family moved to a premier suburb of DC, a Virginia HS with a graduating class of 700 and tons of opportunities for students, art to astronomy. Going from the best kid in my former school to average at the large HS was an eye-opening experience, repeated the next year at my first year in a major college. Sure, I crawled up to a 3.75 gpa by year 3 but it was a grind; most kids from my background bailed, or just got by to a basic BA/BS (which is fine, but what was their potential - who knows). So, it's the education that rural kids may have an issue with, nothing else of importance. Now with the incredible opportunities for net-based learning the suburban - rural difference can be erased, but the kids involved need to be motivated, as sitting in front of a computer for an extra hour a day, and I'm not talking playing games, takes maturity not present in many teenagers; the rural/suburban SAT difference in my state supports that - I expect most kids who do "make it" have very involved parents.