Free Range Parenting: How Letting your Kids Walk to the Park Can Get You in Big Trouble.

[TSwizzle]

The youngest child is only six years old. I don't know anything about the area they live in but I would not be able to relax knowing my six year old child was on walkabout unsupervised. As to whether the authorities need to be involved, not sure about that either.

That depends on the 6 year old.

Good work Captain Obvious.

 

[ZiprHead]

The youngest child is only six years old. I don't know anything about the area they live in but I would not be able to relax knowing my six year old child was on walkabout unsupervised. As to whether the authorities need to be involved, not sure about that either.

I tend to agree with this. That would make me uncomfortable too. However, there was the 10 year old with the six year old.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You realize that's just a letter to the editor, not an article with any facts in it?

what did I say it was Loren?

The point is that it isn't evidence against free range parenting.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That depends on the 6 year old.

And whether the 6 year old is in the presence of their 10 year old brother.

They shouldn't be doing road trips to the west coast, but locally? Heck, I walked to school when I was 6, and the distance was probably half to a full mile, and there was a decent size uphill (on the return trip). 10 years old? That is 4th grade. You can't drive, but you are old enough to know better.

I don't recall what I was allowed at age 6. I know at age 7 I was allowed main streets and city buses.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I wonder what would happen today if a seven year old tried to get on a city bus by himself?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I wonder what would happen today if a seven year old tried to get on a city bus by himself?

White boy, the police would be notified about bad parents. A black boy, probably get shot by the police.

 

[ronburgundy]

A word against free range parenting

The risks of ‘free-range’ parenting outweigh the benefits
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...2f12d2-b6d9-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

The parents in the story are not anti vaccination, btw.

They don't make anything even resembling an argument to support their claim. They do not give any consideration to the benefits to cognitive, emotional, and social development of kids negotiating their own playtime, decision making, and safety. So, how can they claim all the benefits are "outweighed" by the increase in risk of accidents, which would require actually quantifying all the risks and benefits. The probability of abduction is so tiny that it isn't worth factoring. Is there an increase risk in accidents? Maybe, maybe not. Kids constantly being supervised would likely be less careful to watch out for their own safety, presuming a parent will always reign them in and warn them when relevant. Also, minor injury (cut, scraped knees) that occur thousands of times more often than major ones are learning experiences that make kids more cautious. Unsupervised kids are more likely to experience these and learn from them, thus be more cautious and avoid the major injuries.
Whatever increase in risk of major injury exists will be for accidents that are already so low probability that such an increase has minimal practical utility, and certainly nothing remotely in the universe of "endangerment" that should get any authorities involved.

I lived in a somewhat "rural" area, but there were probably more ways to harm yourself there than in cities. In cities, more people might harm you, but there are also more people around to notice a kid doing something dangerous. When we played in the woods and fields at age 5 and up, there often wasn't any adults near us, and with no effort to pair the younger ones with older ones. Every kid from 5 and up in my neighborhood played outdoors with no adults around and the only kid I knew who got seriously hurt was thrown from a car that his mom was driving.

The article also makes a bullshit "two wrongs don't make a right" argument. They dismiss the benefit to fitness on the grounds parents should neither let their kids run around alone nor let them sit around the house. In the real world most people live in, where nannies cannot be paid for, their is a forced trade off between the two. IF kids can't run around outside by themselves, then they will have to spend less time running around and more time in the house where their busy parent can keep an eye on them.

Its too complicated and no good data to make any confident estimates of the costs benefits, other than that neither approach should get the law involved. Odds are that any parent so irrationally paranoid to think the authorities should have been involved in this case are doing far more harm to their own kids than these parents are.

 

[TSwizzle]

The youngest child is only six years old. I don't know anything about the area they live in but I would not be able to relax knowing my six year old child was on walkabout unsupervised. As to whether the authorities need to be involved, not sure about that either.

I tend to agree with this. That would make me uncomfortable too. However, there was the 10 year old with the six year old.

I am perhaps over cautious but in my neck of the woods, I would not risk my kids' safety to allow them out on their own at such a young age. I trust them to be able to cross the street safely etc. but my biggest fear is from the weirdos that are about. Here in Los Angeles there are more weirdos and sickos than you can shake a stick at.

 

[TV and credit cards]

The cops need to do a sweep of Holmes county.

 

[TSwizzle]

A narrow escape for one kid.

SPRAGUE, Wash. -- Deputies are hoping surveillance camera footage will help them catch a man who attempted to kidnap at 22-month-old child from a park in eastern Washington state.

The footage from a grocery store in the small town of Sprague captured the suspect running off with little Owen Wright in his arms.

Just seconds later, the footage shows the toddler's older sister chasing after him, followed close behind by his brother who is shown pushing an empty stroller.

ABC News/

And the kids were with a babysitter !

 

[ZiprHead]

The cops need to do a sweep of Holmes county.

View attachment 2473

Do you get fries with that shake?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I wonder what would happen today if a seven year old tried to get on a city bus by himself?

Yeah, it probably wouldn't work now. (It was a bit problematic back then--it wasn't exactly unusual for the bus to not stop for me.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They don't make anything even resembling an argument to support their claim. They do not give any consideration to the benefits to cognitive, emotional, and social development of kids negotiating their own playtime, decision making, and safety. So, how can they claim all the benefits are "outweighed" by the increase in risk of accidents, which would require actually quantifying all the risks and benefits. The probability of abduction is so tiny that it isn't worth factoring. Is there an increase risk in accidents? Maybe, maybe not. Kids constantly being supervised would likely be less careful to watch out for their own safety, presuming a parent will always reign them in and warn them when relevant. Also, minor injury (cut, scraped knees) that occur thousands of times more often than major ones are learning experiences that make kids more cautious. Unsupervised kids are more likely to experience these and learn from them, thus be more cautious and avoid the major injuries.
Whatever increase in risk of major injury exists will be for accidents that are already so low probability that such an increase has minimal practical utility, and certainly nothing remotely in the universe of "endangerment" that should get any authorities involved.

Not only that, but the constant supervision and protection can backfire. We had a perfect example here some years back. 13? year old girl, the crosswalk in front of the school, two minutes before the lights came on. She looked only the wrong way and stepped out right in front of a pickup.

As far as I'm concerned that school zone killed her. She's plenty old enough to have been taught to cross the street safely--but she was used to a world where the cars would stop for her. She stepped two minutes outside that world and died.

- - - Updated - - -

I tend to agree with this. That would make me uncomfortable too. However, there was the 10 year old with the six year old.

I am perhaps over cautious but in my neck of the woods, I would not risk my kids' safety to allow them out on their own at such a young age. I trust them to be able to cross the street safely etc. but my biggest fear is from the weirdos that are about. Here in Los Angeles there are more weirdos and sickos than you can shake a stick at.

The actual rate of child predators is very low. It's just they are big news. The vast majority of child abuse is people known to the victim.

- - - Updated - - -

A narrow escape for one kid.

SPRAGUE, Wash. -- Deputies are hoping surveillance camera footage will help them catch a man who attempted to kidnap at 22-month-old child from a park in eastern Washington state.

The footage from a grocery store in the small town of Sprague captured the suspect running off with little Owen Wright in his arms.

Just seconds later, the footage shows the toddler's older sister chasing after him, followed close behind by his brother who is shown pushing an empty stroller.

ABC News/

And the kids were with a babysitter !

Note that the vast majority of such abductions are parental in nature and pose basically no threat to the kid.

 

[Archimedes]

Heck, I walked to school when I was 6, and the distance was probably half to a full mile, and there was a decent size uphill (on the return trip).

Half mile uphill on the way home? When I was at school I had to walk 12 miles to and from school and it was a steep climb uphill both directions!

Seriously though, I used to walk about a mile to and from school with friends and older siblings from when I was about 6 or 7.

 

[Perspicuo]

Danielle and Alexander Meitiv believe that the best way to raise children is to give them the freedom to play, walk and explore without parental supervision.

That philosophy got them in trouble when police picked up their two children – Rafi, age 10, and Dvora, age 6 – when they saw the kids walking home from a park one mile from their house in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Montgomery County Child Protective Services says the parents are responsible for “unsubstantiated child neglect” and will keep a file on them for the next five years. The Meitivs say that will not change their belief.

I think the US's big overarching problem is that the culture says you have the right to believe anything. Most other cultures, such as the one in my country is that no, you don't have such a thing.

I think that could be a Catholic thing. Even today, I feel the RCC is patiently and quietly vigilant of science and political thought in order to approve/disapprove of developments in those areas, which they have no problem with, unless if it clashes with outright catechetical tenets.

Not bad at all.

 

[Sarpedon]

I am not in favor of giving up the right to believe anything.

I am in favor of greater use of the right to ignore what stupid people believe.

 

[Perspicuo]

Wrong, Sarpedon.
You only have the right not to be harrassed or descriminated, but substantiated truths are socially mandatory. It's basic ethics.

If professing wrong beliefs is as socially harmful as pricking random people with infected syringes, there is no right.

 

[dystopian]

I think the US's big overarching problem is that the culture says you have the right to believe anything. Most other cultures, such as the one in my country is that no, you don't have such a thing.

I don't think that's the problem. Much of Europe's cultures also say you have the right to believe anything you want. And apart from some religious nutters deciding that means they can ignore their duty to vaccinate their kids, we tend not to have these same sort of problems. Somehow we seem capable of letting kids out unsupervised without taking absurd risks in the process. I expect the same is generally true in the US. It's just that there seems to be a much bigger tendency for media and lawmakers to overreact in a paranoid fashion in the US.

You only have the right not to be harrassed or descriminated, but substantiated truths are socially mandatory. It's basic ethics.

If professing wrong beliefs is as socially harmful as pricking random people with infected syringes, there is no right.

I would tentatively agree; but I'm not sure how one can single out the US for having a culture that gives people the 'right' to profess false beliefs that are as socially harmful as pricking random people with infected syringes. Pretty much every culture gives people the right to adhere to blatantly false and harmful beliefs and put them into practice. It's just that the US (and most of the rest of the developed world) doesn't (in theory) restrict this right to just the blatantly false/harmful beliefs that happen to be held by the majority or influential.

 

[fast]

That depends on the 6 year old.

Good work Captain Obvious.

I'm sorry, but that's not obvious to me. I agree with what you originally said. I might cautiously buy into that "it depends" crap with an 8 year old on a 1/4 mile trip to a schoolyard, but a mile to a park? Nay, I'm going to side with caution, and I'm as wreckless as they come.

 

[TSwizzle]

Good work Captain Obvious.

I'm sorry, but that's not obvious to me. I agree with what you originally said. I might cautiously buy into that "it depends" crap with an 8 year old on a 1/4 mile trip to a schoolyard, but a mile to a park? Nay, I'm going to side with caution, and I'm as wreckless as they come.

There are a number of factors to consider when letting your child out unsupervised. The nature and age of the child is something to consider. Maybe the kid was nearer seven than six. Each to their own. I never did let my kids (both girls) out on their own at such a young age.