Free-range parents cited but not charged

[Anonymous]

The very nature of the charge "responsible for unsubstantiated neglect" gives me huge concern. The fact that any government can hold you legally responsible for something that cannot even be substantiated, or proven with evidence, should alarm everyone, especially when it concerns your children.

Regardless of whether I agree with the parents' decision to free range parent and let the children walk home alone or how they have been giving tv interviews, I cannot agree whatsoever with the government being allowed to charge and find "guilty" without having enough evidence to substantiate the crime. It's insane, and IMO unconstitutional. And I am a pretty strict not so free range parent.

I read the OP ed the parents wrote for the Post and I thought it was very well written and presented the parents in a better light than other forms of social media. I don't agree with people who let their kids eat excessive junk or processed food, or thwt let their kids hunt, or let their kids have too much screen time, or breast fed a 5 year old, or let their kids stay up way too late every night, or who don't vaccinate, or allow their children to get obese, etc., but I don't think that my disagreement trumps their right to parent how they see fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.wjla.com/articles/2015/03/silver-spring-parents-charged-with-child-neglect-for-allowing-kids-to-walk-home-alone-112094.html

What a crazy world we live in. Statistics show the world is safer but yet government now has to decide when we as parents can let them have some independence. My 11yr old goes up to the park all the time with my 5yr old. I would be PISSED off if a cop stopped them and someone threatened my kids had to go to foster care while they investigate me.

Do your kids cross a six-lane highway to get there like these kids did?

What six lane highway? Are you suggesting these kids jaywalked across the beltway?

From the news reports I saw, the kids' route took them across Georgia Ave. at a point where it expands to six lanes.

I would not walk across Georgia Av. myself!! Besides the dangerous traffic it's not the best neighborhood

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.wjla.com/articles/2015/03/silver-spring-parents-charged-with-child-neglect-for-allowing-kids-to-walk-home-alone-112094.html

What a crazy world we live in. Statistics show the world is safer but yet government now has to decide when we as parents can let them have some independence. My 11yr old goes up to the park all the time with my 5yr old. I would be PISSED off if a cop stopped them and someone threatened my kids had to go to foster care while they investigate me.

Do your kids cross a six-lane highway to get there like these kids did?

What six lane highway? Are you suggesting these kids jaywalked across the beltway?

From the news reports I saw, the kids' route took them across Georgia Ave. at a point where it expands to six lanes.

I would not walk across Georgia Av. myself!! Besides the dangerous traffic it's not the best neighborhood

Oh give me a break. I go downtown Silver Spring to shop and eat all the time and have walked along and crossed Georgia Avenue at many different intersections without ever being accosted or witnessing anything that made me uncomfortable.

I'm not sure I would have let my 10 and 6 year old cross the road at Georgia and Coleseville because of the traffic, but they are not the most mature, focussed kids....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The very nature of the charge "responsible for unsubstantiated neglect" gives me huge concern. The fact that any government can hold you legally responsible for something that cannot even be substantiated, or proven with evidence, should alarm everyone, especially when it concerns your children.

Regardless of whether I agree with the parents' decision to free range parent and let the children walk home alone or how they have been giving tv interviews, I cannot agree whatsoever with the government being allowed to charge and find "guilty" without having enough evidence to substantiate the crime. It's insane, and IMO unconstitutional. And I am a pretty strict not so free range parent.

I read the OP ed the parents wrote for the Post and I thought it was very well written and presented the parents in a better light than other forms of social media. I don't agree with people who let their kids eat excessive junk or processed food, or thwt let their kids hunt, or let their kids have too much screen time, or breast fed a 5 year old, or let their kids stay up way too late every night, or who don't vaccinate, or allow their children to get obese, etc., but I don't think that my disagreement trumps their right to parent how they see fit.

I agree. How can we live in a world where you don't have to vaccinate your kids and put other kids at risk, but you aren't allowed to decide if your kids are mature enough to handle walking to a park.

[Anonymous]

I love this article. It rings very true to me. Neighborhoods have gone to shit thanks to overworking and over scheduling.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2015/03/03/would-you-call-911-on-another-parent/?postshare=6491425698008868

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What earthly sense would it make to allow children under 8 to be out on the street alone walking for a mile but not alone in their own home? Again, if you don't agree that this should be the case, you can ask Maryland to change it.

Most accidents happen at home!

Burns, falling down the stairs, choking, slipping, getting food from the microwave and scalding yourself, toppling furniture; playing with an unsecured weapon.....

And parents THINK kids are safe at home so they are tempted to leave kids at home for much longer than is good for kids.

Walking one mile home, when parents know where you are and when you are expected home, and you have a cell phone, does not seem nearly as dangerous to me, as leaving a child home for 4 hours alone.

[Anonymous]

Not the best area? What intersection did they actually cross? And which park were they going to? I live close to this area. There is no crossing along Georgia near downtown SS that is dangerous from a mugging perspective. Except maybe late at night with no one around, and that can be true anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.wjla.com/articles/2015/03/silver-spring-parents-charged-with-child-neglect-for-allowing-kids-to-walk-home-alone-112094.html

What a crazy world we live in. Statistics show the world is safer but yet government now has to decide when we as parents can let them have some independence. My 11yr old goes up to the park all the time with my 5yr old. I would be PISSED off if a cop stopped them and someone threatened my kids had to go to foster care while they investigate me.

Do your kids cross a six-lane highway to get there like these kids did?

What six lane highway? Are you suggesting these kids jaywalked across the beltway?

From the news reports I saw, the kids' route took them across Georgia Ave. at a point where it expands to six lanes.

I would not walk across Georgia Av. myself!! Besides the dangerous traffic it's not the best neighborhood

H E L I C O P T E R

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't disagree with the spirit of "free range parenting" -- but I do disagree with how these particular parents are implementing it. There's free-range, and then there's just stupid or negligent. IMO, they are the latter.

Who knows more about the capabilities of these particular kids -- their parents, or you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the best area? What intersection did they actually cross? And which park were they going to? I live close to this area. There is no crossing along Georgia near downtown SS that is dangerous from a mugging perspective. Except maybe late at night with no one around, and that can be true anywhere.

New PP who works in downtown SS and lived here previously. I would not worry about muggings. I would worry--a lot--about traffic in this area. To say drivers are inconsiderate is putting it mildly. I'd be afraid they would not even see that 6-year-old.

I don't think the law should have gotten involved. I do think the parents are dumb to have let them navigate these particular streets. And I get really, really irritated when this story is reprinted elsewhere accompanied by a stock photo of a kid with his backpack, strolling down a sylvan pathway free of cars. That's not the terrain these kids were on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

New PP who works in downtown SS and lived here previously. I would not worry about muggings. I would worry--a lot--about traffic in this area. To say drivers are inconsiderate is putting it mildly. I'd be afraid they would not even see that 6-year-old.

I don't think the law should have gotten involved. I do think the parents are dumb to have let them navigate these particular streets. And I get really, really irritated when this story is reprinted elsewhere accompanied by a stock photo of a kid with his backpack, strolling down a sylvan pathway free of cars. That's not the terrain these kids were on.

No, the terrain the kids were on is a terrain that literally thousands and thousands of people traverse on foot every single day without incident.

Downtown Silver Spring is certainly not as pedestrian-friendly as I would like. But it's not the Beltway, either. And the parents know their own kids better than you or I do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

New PP who works in downtown SS and lived here previously. I would not worry about muggings. I would worry--a lot--about traffic in this area. To say drivers are inconsiderate is putting it mildly. I'd be afraid they would not even see that 6-year-old.

I don't think the law should have gotten involved. I do think the parents are dumb to have let them navigate these particular streets. And I get really, really irritated when this story is reprinted elsewhere accompanied by a stock photo of a kid with his backpack, strolling down a sylvan pathway free of cars. That's not the terrain these kids were on.

No, the terrain the kids were on is a terrain that literally thousands and thousands of people traverse on foot every single day without incident.

Downtown Silver Spring is certainly not as pedestrian-friendly as I would like. But it's not the Beltway, either. And the parents know their own kids better than you or I do.

People. Not kids. I have 40 years of navigating urban traffic on the 10-year-old. He may be the most mature child in the country, but he does not have the experience to read drivers in an area that is that traffic-heavy. I won't even discuss how wrong it is that the 6-year-old is out there without adult supervision. Not a CPS situation, but I won't budge in my opinion that these parents are idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

New PP who works in downtown SS and lived here previously. I would not worry about muggings. I would worry--a lot--about traffic in this area. To say drivers are inconsiderate is putting it mildly. I'd be afraid they would not even see that 6-year-old.

I don't think the law should have gotten involved. I do think the parents are dumb to have let them navigate these particular streets. And I get really, really irritated when this story is reprinted elsewhere accompanied by a stock photo of a kid with his backpack, strolling down a sylvan pathway free of cars. That's not the terrain these kids were on.

No, the terrain the kids were on is a terrain that literally thousands and thousands of people traverse on foot every single day without incident.

Downtown Silver Spring is certainly not as pedestrian-friendly as I would like. But it's not the Beltway, either. And the parents know their own kids better than you or I do.

People. Not kids. I have 40 years of navigating urban traffic on the 10-year-old. He may be the most mature child in the country, but he does not have the experience to read drivers in an area that is that traffic-heavy. I won't even discuss how wrong it is that the 6-year-old is out there without adult supervision. Not a CPS situation, but I won't budge in my opinion that these parents are idiots.

Agreed entirely. And remember, CPS didn't make it a CPS situation - someone called in a concern to the police and then that automatically gets CPS involved. I'd rather live in a world where the sight of two relatively small kids (and from the news coverage, these kids looked as though they could well be younger than 6 and 10) wandering alone across busy streets prompts concern and inquiries rather than disregard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

People. Not kids. I have 40 years of navigating urban traffic on the 10-year-old. He may be the most mature child in the country, but he does not have the experience to read drivers in an area that is that traffic-heavy. I won't even discuss how wrong it is that the 6-year-old is out there without adult supervision. Not a CPS situation, but I won't budge in my opinion that these parents are idiots.

Kids are people too.

And I'm astonished that you think it is wrong for a 6-year-old to be out in public without adult supervision. If you are 50, you should know from your own experience that 6-year-olds used to do this routinely. People's jaws would have dropped in disbelief at the idea that a 6-year-old needed a parental escort to walk to school.

[Anonymous]

THIS!

https://gma.yahoo.com/kids-saved-brother-alleged-abductor-strange-man-tried-123718791--abc-news-topstories.html