Free-range kids picked up AGAIN by police

[Anonymous]

Let's just for a minute think like the kids. Why do they really want to go to the playground by themselves?

Answer: To get away from their parents or exercise independence and show maturity?


My children want to go to the playground by themselves because they think it's fun.

I really didn't care whether my parents came to the playground with me or not. When they were there they chatted with other parents or read a book. It wasn't as if they were involved in what I was doing or cramping my style.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After everything they went through the first time around you would think they would be a little more cautious. Those poor kids. The parents must really be clueless. Regardless of how you feel about letting the kids go to the park alone, you've got to admit that they screwed up this time. Their prior involvement with CPS obviously didn't phase them. I suspect this time it might.

Question: why don't they just take their kids to the park? It was gorgeous outsude this weekend. What on earth are the parents so busy with at home? I suspect they simply aren't involved parents. They're probably at home reading.

You know who really screwed up, though? CPS and the police.

As to why they didn't just take their kids to the park -- my kids (who are 8 and 11) really like going to the playground by themselves. I assume that their kids do too. I honestly don't know what to tell my kids now about what to do if somebody gets nosy, or if the police show up to take them away.

If it's against the law --- and the cops and CPS told them so --- then the parents screwed up. So now a judge will teach them a lesson.

I totally agree. Let the judge decide.

Your kids are 8 and 11. Nobody cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New post article up with actual statistics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/

"So where does that leave us in the debate over "free-range" children? Kids are dying less. They're being killed less. They're getting hit by cars less. And they're going missing less frequently, too. The likelihood of any of these scenarios is both historically low and infinitesimally small."

How much of that is due to increased supervision?

Actually it is mostly science. Parents aren't any "better" than they have been for the last 50 years.

Car seats, helmets, Heimlich maneuver, EMT enabled response, better ERs, better understanding of SIDS, child-product safety regulations.

Parenting - not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So now I'm paranoid for not thinking 4 is old enough to walk to school by yourself. Okayyyyy

How come four-year-olds used to be able to do it, and now they aren't?

Just a guess, but two thoughts are fewer cars on the road and more mothers at home during the day? Plus other kids were likely walking the same route with them?

How does that make a difference to the ability of the four-year-old? And as various PPs have said, there were not always other kids walking the same route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Well, look, I am sure that there are some 10 and 6 year olds who the situation would be fine for. But that's not how CPS and the law works. They don't judge whether an individual kid can do something alone, they base it on what is determined to be appropriate for the majority of kids. Who knows, maybe some 13 year olds are tall and would be awesome drivers, but we still don't give them learner's permits.


We used to think that it was fine for almost all, if not all, 10-year-olds and 6-year-olds.

Maybe so. When I was 11 years old, people in my neighborhood felt it was ok to hire me to babysit their infants. It probably wasn't.

Me too! I thought about it after I had kids and no freaking way would I let an 11 year old watch an infant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Let's just for a minute think like the kids. Why do they really want to go to the playground by themselves?

Answer: To get away from their parents or exercise independence and show maturity?

My children want to go to the playground by themselves because they think it's fun.

I really didn't care whether my parents came to the playground with me or not. When they were there they chatted with other parents or read a book. It wasn't as if they were involved in what I was doing or cramping my style.

That's nice. My children do care, though. Different people are different people!

[Anonymous]

I mean, I don't really understand why people keep saying that because they walked a certain distance from home when they were 4 or 6 and didn't get hurt, that means it was fine. When I was a kid, I never sat in a car seat. Ever. My parents didn't use seat belts. We are all just fine, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The part of this story that bothers me most is that the kids were picked up by the police around 5 pm and then held them in their car until 7pm before transporting them to CPS, presumably parked on road between the park and their home. The parents said they expected the kids to be back by 6pm.

While we can argue all day long about whether free range parenting is legal or not... what the heck did the parents due from 6pm-7pm when their kids were missing.... they obviously did not look for them on the way to the park because they would have found them right there with the police officers... they didn't go look for them until they got a call at 8pm from CPS... If my kids were missing for even 15 minutes I would have been frantically looking for them and flagged down the cop i saw on the way to the park they were playing at...

Maybe the parents did go looking, saw the kids with the police, knew they were safe, and decided to let this whole thing play out for maximum media coverage...

Bingo!

[Anonymous]

I really didn't care whether my parents came to the playground with me or not. When they were there they chatted with other parents or read a book. It wasn't as if they were involved in what I was doing or cramping my style.


That's nice. My children do care, though. Different people are different people!

maybe you're just not as cool and unobtrusive as my parents were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Let's just for a minute think like the kids. Why do they really want to go to the playground by themselves?

Answer: To get away from their parents or exercise independence and show maturity?

My children want to go to the playground by themselves because they think it's fun.

I really didn't care whether my parents came to the playground with me or not. When they were there they chatted with other parents or read a book. It wasn't as if they were involved in what I was doing or cramping my style.

That's nice. My children do care, though. Different people are different people!

What is it that your kids think is so much fun about going to the park without an adult with them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, I don't really understand why people keep saying that because they walked a certain distance from home when they were 4 or 6 and didn't get hurt, that means it was fine. When I was a kid, I never sat in a car seat. Ever. My parents didn't use seat belts. We are all just fine, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea.

They're not saying that it was fine. They're saying that they were capable of doing it. The proof that they were capable of doing it is that they actually did it. Therefore, people who say that 4-year-olds or 6-year-olds are not capable of doing it are wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe the parents did go looking, saw the kids with the police, knew they were safe, and decided to let this whole thing play out for maximum media coverage...

Maybe the parents are actually carnivorous reptilian humanoids who arrived on Earth on huge, saucer-shaped motherships.

What's your explanation for why they didn't look for the kids on the route they had told them to take?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Let's just for a minute think like the kids. Why do they really want to go to the playground by themselves?

Answer: To get away from their parents or exercise independence and show maturity?

My children want to go to the playground by themselves because they think it's fun.

I really didn't care whether my parents came to the playground with me or not. When they were there they chatted with other parents or read a book. It wasn't as if they were involved in what I was doing or cramping my style.

That's nice. My children do care, though. Different people are different people!

What is it that your kids think is so much fun about going to the park without an adult with them?

They like being out on their own. They like being independent. They like being unsupervised. They like being able to make their own decisions. They like the feeling of being responsible for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So now I'm paranoid for not thinking 4 is old enough to walk to school by yourself. Okayyyyy

How come four-year-olds used to be able to do it, and now they aren't?

You say they did. I never knew any 4yos who walked to school alone. I know my dad was walked to school by his teenage sister when he was 6. And that was the fifties. Somehow, he's the most capable independent person I've ever known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe the parents did go looking, saw the kids with the police, knew they were safe, and decided to let this whole thing play out for maximum media coverage...

Maybe the parents are actually carnivorous reptilian humanoids who arrived on Earth on huge, saucer-shaped motherships.

What's your explanation for why they didn't look for the kids on the route they had told them to take?

My explanation is that your facts are wrong. Specifically,

1. the parents actually did look for the children, and
2. nobody has said that the parents told the children to take a specific route.