Tufts University made an arts and crafts center available.
The University of Kanas invited therapy dogs to campus for comfort.
The University of Michigan had a play area with coloring books.
Seems better than what was mentioned before:
riot and destroy, and post videos of themselves sobbing
If all the protestors and rioters called the police ahead of time and said "we're going to occupy wall street, loot and riot and shoot cops, and menace the internet....unless you give us some coloring books, some play doh, and some hot chocolate..." would you be all "f you! We don't negotiate with terrorists!" or "That's all they want? That will appease them and then they'll just go back to normal? Well, okay, coloring books and playdoh and hot chocolate is fine."
prefer to remain children rather than take their place as adults
IMO they don't "prefer" to remain children, they're simply the product of a crappy education system and crappy parents.
They're children because they were never taught how not to be, and it was never demanded from them.
I mean
just the way to prepare for the real world
Theoretically, kids should be "prepared" for the real world at least by the end of 8th grade.
Colleges and Universities now have to offer or mandate what are essentially remedial courses in things like how to write a paper, professionally communicate, and/or math skills that students didn't acquire in high school or before.
Lots of parents treat k-12 as their babysitter.
With the push towards "everyone needs an education!!! Gotta go to college. Here's a student loan, education education education!" you are simply making college an extension of compulsory k-12.
Colleges and Universities are responding to the role they are being forced into by the failure of parents and a compulsory gov't run education system.
This is what happens when you teach an entire society that 'feeling' are the only things that matter.
This is what happens when you are over protective of kids.
When you say crap like "focus on your education, and career, before worrying about relationships, you've got plenty of time!"
This is what happens when you start spending more time interacting through impersonal means, via text, email, social media.
Direct relationships offer a far wider range of emotional experience, as well as direct personal feedback, and better help in properly responding to them.
This is what happens when you "think globally, act locally," and get trained to believe in concepts like "well Europe has a universal health care system that works for them, why can't we just cherry pick laws and stick that here? Australia has gun control, why can't we just adopt that system?" This is what happens when you can see news and lifestyles around the world and form a distorted potential for utopia by picking and choosing ways things "can" be without really understanding the reality of where you are and how things work.
This is what happens when people don't solidly identify with a close knit interdependent community, focusing more on patriotic nationalist identity mixed with personally chosen identity labels. e.g. "I'm a polyamourous bisexual hysgender fiscally conservative socially liberal open minded free thinking American that only focuses on logic and reason."
When you feel really sad, depressed, like life sucks and is unfair, and you're frustrated at the stupid people, alienated, disenfranchised, complete loss of control of your life, what do you do?
Go to the forums and rant about "all the stupid people" or say something like "oh, I'm just addicted to the forums!" or "ha ha this place is a mental institution, make me a sammich!"
Call your mom and say "hey, just seeing how you were, I had a tough week."
Go out with your friends and have a beer?
Those are all just your version of coloring books and play doh.
Some people don't get off on forums or see fellow forum participants as their social peers, some people don't see their family as a "safe space" for emotional sharing, possibly thinking they're bad if they try and dump their emotional problems on others by sharing.
Some people don't have friends past facebook wall posts and text messages.
And people have an extremely difficult time finding other "polyamourous bisexual hysgender fiscally conservative socially liberal open minded free thinking Americans that only focus on logic and reason."
Kids in college that need coloring books and safe spaces and play doh are victims but only so much as a dog that was repeatedly beaten so attacks everyone around them is a victim.
You should feel bad for them being the way they are, but you can't use kid gloves anymore.
It's just against the law to do to them what actually needs to be done.
So, best to just kick the can down the road (like what probably happened to them in k-12 as they didn't have to learn) and throw some coloring books and playdoh their way until they're someone else's problem.
That seemed to have worked for the African American community.
Ignore the problems, kick the can down the road through minimally placating gestures, until there's no solution left except breaking the law, then let the police handle it.
That's the American way!
