Kids: city v. suburban v. rural

City kids vs. suburban kids vs. rural kids; from what you have observed, is there a significant behavior difference between kids who live in certain communities?

Good question. I know kids from each of those demographics, and I think that there isn't a huge difference. How kids are parented has more to do with how the kids behave, and their level of maturity. Even in a rural area, parents can take extra effort to introduce cultural things to their kids, even if a lot of it is via books or online. I think kids behave immaturely when they are not exposed to enough current events, history and pop culture. I think that bad behavior can come from any demographic, no matter the area....the type of bad behavior differs, but the percentages of problem children is probably the same for all.

I lived in a LOT of different places growing up, being a "Coastie" and the biggest differences were that in the super small towns, everyone was the same...If something was a trend, it was what all of the kids did. For instance, in Seaside when I was 13 it was a trend all of the sudden to listen to country music and wear cowboy boots and pretty much everyone at the school did it. Also, people weren't "racist" per se, but there was NO exposure to people of other races so I think there was probably a lot of ignorance about different cultures that wasn't mean spirited, it was just from lack of experience. There was one black family in town and the kids from that family were not outcasts exactly but they also weren't popular and didn't have many friends. I befriended them and then they were really strangely over the top nice to me, bringing me flowers all the time and stuff (I was 13 and they were 14 and 18 yo boys), I think because they just didn't have very many social skills to know what was "odd" behavior and what wasn't, because they didn't have any friends to learn what was normal? Or maybe they just had a crush on me.

When I moved to Seattle, at my school white people were the minority and it was a WHOLE different ball game. Ignorance of other cultures wasn't an issue, in spite of the self segregation that occurred in the lunch room.

Anyway, the other difference seemed to be that in the really small towns, there was nothing for kids to do and drugs were a huge problem. In the city, there were skating rinks, movie theaters, malls to hang out at, concerts to go to, museums, bowling alleys,amusement parks...In the small towns, all my friends started high school and started doing heroin...NONE of my city friends did heroin. Pot, acid, shrooms, cigarettes, sure...But they did those things as a supplement to all the other stuff they did. In the smaller town, they started out with pot but got bored and progressed to other harder drugs.

The trade off of course is that now I'm in the city and terrified of gangs. I know they are around, there have been drive by's down the street from us and I know someone who has been shot. I'm trying really hard to give my kids the support from their family that I hope will keep them from feeling like they need a "street" family because so far minding our own business has kept anyone from bugging us personally. I do sometimes wish we could move because of it, but it's not realistic right now...However I'd do anything to stop it if I felt like it was becoming a problem for my family. I'd home school my kids, I'd walk away from my house and file bankruptcy, I'd move in with my in-laws in the suburbs (shudder at the thought)to protect my kids from becoming involved in a gang because that is life and death and nothing is more important to me than my kids.

For now though, I'm happy that my kids are exposed to all different cultures, that there are museums all over the place for them to go to and that there's plenty of constructive stuff for them to do here. There also are a lot of resources for me as a parent here that my parents didn't have when I was growing up.