Free-range parents cited but not charged

[Anonymous]

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20150312/80788942-a504-4285-92ba-7b6215236003

Attempted kidnapping of toddler:

"The incident began after Michael Wright left his three children with a baby sitter in Sprague on Sunday while he went to work. The children — Brenden, 10, Delicia, 8, and the toddler — were playing unsupervised in a city park near the sitter's house."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with the 10 year old walking out alone, but IMO that's too young to supervise a 6 year old sibling on a 1- mile walk.

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

Are you a developmental specialist? Because based on what you're saying my 6yo is not NT - a diagnosis that contradicts what his ped and teachers say. But if he's walking alone with his 10yo brother, I guarantee you he will try to race his brother, and he won't pay much attention to cars or crosswalks or traffic lights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Remember the Sesame Street animation where Wilhelmina's mom asks her to go to the store to get a stick of butter, an carton of milk, and a loaf of bread. She does it all by herself, too! Then again, the store is probably a block away... One of my daughter's favorite books is "Down the Lane" in which a girl maybe 7 or 8 years old, gets permission to walk alone down the dusty lane, through the old orchard, across the stream, and into town to get a dozen eggs: "Twelve big beauties, no cracks!" admonishes her dad. Mom's not sure she's ready, but dad says, "Look at this big girl. She can do it!"

Still, there's NO WAY I'd let my 7 yo into the village on her own. She's not ready. Maybe next year, at age 8, in third grade. I'd have to think about it. We live in a pretty safe-feeling little urban village. Then again, two years ago, a 13 year old fought off someone who jumped from a car and tried to drag her into it from the sidewalk. Broad daylight. Yeesh.

In basically every classic children's book written before 1980 that has children and parents in it, the parents would be found guilty of child neglect by today's standards. Starting with Ramona.

Heck, my parents would be found guilty of child neglect by today's standards, and my mother was considered overprotective at the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Remember the Sesame Street animation where Wilhelmina's mom asks her to go to the store to get a stick of butter, an carton of milk, and a loaf of bread. She does it all by herself, too! Then again, the store is probably a block away... One of my daughter's favorite books is "Down the Lane" in which a girl maybe 7 or 8 years old, gets permission to walk alone down the dusty lane, through the old orchard, across the stream, and into town to get a dozen eggs: "Twelve big beauties, no cracks!" admonishes her dad. Mom's not sure she's ready, but dad says, "Look at this big girl. She can do it!"

Still, there's NO WAY I'd let my 7 yo into the village on her own. She's not ready. Maybe next year, at age 8, in third grade. I'd have to think about it. We live in a pretty safe-feeling little urban village. Then again, two years ago, a 13 year old fought off someone who jumped from a car and tried to drag her into it from the sidewalk. Broad daylight. Yeesh.

In basically every classic children's book written before 1980 that has children and parents in it, the parents would be found guilty of child neglect by today's standards. Starting with Ramona.

Heck, my parents would be found guilty of child neglect by today's standards, and my mother was considered overprotective at the time.

+1. Though I think times has also changed a little. There was no filming and child porn as rampant as they are now. There is also no internet which fuels layering and layering of negative creativity. There was no strange overseas websites to write their experiences and terrible stuff they had done just to get more like votes. So in some way, we should be more careful nowadays. But police laws and stuff? That's unnecessary policing. Go catch the real criminals for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with the 10 year old walking out alone, but IMO that's too young to supervise a 6 year old sibling on a 1- mile walk.

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

Are you a developmental specialist? Because based on what you're saying my 6yo is not NT - a diagnosis that contradicts what his ped and teachers say. But if he's walking alone with his 10yo brother, I guarantee you he will try to race his brother, and he won't pay much attention to cars or crosswalks or traffic lights.

I'm not a developmental specialist but Louise Bates Ames ( see 22:51's post) was a prominent & well respected one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with the 10 year old walking out alone, but IMO that's too young to supervise a 6 year old sibling on a 1- mile walk.

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

Are you a developmental specialist? Because based on what you're saying my 6yo is not NT - a diagnosis that contradicts what his ped and teachers say. But if he's walking alone with his 10yo brother, I guarantee you he will try to race his brother, and he won't pay much attention to cars or crosswalks or traffic lights.

Fine, then don't let your 6-year-old walk alone with his 10-year-old brother. But just because you can't trust you're 6-year-old to do something doesn't mean that no 6-year-old is capable of doing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://enews.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20150312/80788942-a504-4285-92ba-7b6215236003

Attempted kidnapping of toddler:

"The incident began after Michael Wright left his three children with a baby sitter in Sprague on Sunday while he went to work. The children — Brenden, 10, Delicia, 8, and the toddler — were playing unsupervised in a city park near the sitter's house."

Again, the reason why events such as this make international news is because they are so rare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://enews.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20150312/80788942-a504-4285-92ba-7b6215236003

Attempted kidnapping of toddler:

"The incident began after Michael Wright left his three children with a baby sitter in Sprague on Sunday while he went to work. The children — Brenden, 10, Delicia, 8, and the toddler — were playing unsupervised in a city park near the sitter's house."

Again, the reason why events such as this make international news is because they are so rare.

It was from WA state. This just happened days ago. Rare or not, the older kid should not have been responsible for a toddler.

[Anonymous]

People often say "back in the day we used to ...." so if we aren't allowing that now, we must be "overprotective." That's one conclusion. Another conclusion is that we are smarter today. i.e. we didn't used to put kids in carseats, but we learned that it can be safer for the child, so now we do things differently. Are there more auto accidents today? probably not... but we have decided that we aren't willing to take even small risks so we put our kids in carseat (or use seat belts) b/c even if the risk is small, it could be catastrophic.

Our tolerance toward risk has decreased. To some people, that is simply "progress" (when you know better, do better). To others, that is confining. But, just b/c we allowed something in the past and don't allow it now does not mean that we are wrong now. We might have been wrong/unaware/less concerned in the past.

[Anonymous]

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

Wow, I guess my son and every single one of his friends who we have had over and taken to the park are raised in a bubble and not NT! Thank you so much for setting us straight about these many unusual kids.

[Anonymous]

Fine, then don't let your 6-year-old walk alone with his 10-year-old brother. But just because you can't trust you're 6-year-old to do something doesn't mean that no 6-year-old is capable of doing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

Wow, I guess my son and every single one of his friends who we have had over and taken to the park are raised in a bubble and not NT! Thank you so much for setting us straight about these many unusual kids.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that kids can't do because they have never had to do it.

Six-year-olds did used to be able to do this. Now (you say) they can't. What changed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with the 10 year old walking out alone, but IMO that's too young to supervise a 6 year old sibling on a 1- mile walk.

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

Please don't use that word. You mean "normal."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with the 10 year old walking out alone, but IMO that's too young to supervise a 6 year old sibling on a 1- mile walk.

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

There is a classic series of books on child development, one for each year, called Your One Year Old, Your Two Year Old, etc. They were published in the 70s. In the Your Six Year Old book, they lay out the indicators of readiness for school (1st grade). One of the readiness indicators is the ability to travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend's home. Sometime in the last 20 years it seems we've completely lost the ability to see kids as capable people.

Remember the Sesame Street animation where Wilhelmina's mom asks her to go to the store to get a stick of butter, an carton of milk, and a loaf of bread. She does it all by herself, too! Then again, the store is probably a block away... One of my daughter's favorite books is "Down the Lane" in which a girl maybe 7 or 8 years old, gets permission to walk alone down the dusty lane, through the old orchard, across the stream, and into town to get a dozen eggs: "Twelve big beauties, no cracks!" admonishes her dad. Mom's not sure she's ready, but dad says, "Look at this big girl. She can do it!"

Still, there's NO WAY I'd let my 7 yo into the village on her own. She's not ready. Maybe next year, at age 8, in third grade. I'd have to think about it. We live in a pretty safe-feeling little urban village. Then again, two years ago, a 13 year old fought off someone who jumped from a car and tried to drag her into it from the sidewalk. Broad daylight. Yeesh.

It proves the PP's point that somehow we stopped recognizing kids as capable people. Statistically the world is safer than 20 years ago but because we hear of every single abduction attempt and have the internet, people assume it is so dangerous. Add to the fact that kids are sadly starting to prefer staying indoors, so parents rather wait. So when kids this age who in previous generations had always been alone, we now think is child abuse? I agree with parents. I am glad they are voicing an opinion that needs to be more popular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Unless she has been raised in a bubble, any neurotypical 6-year-old should certainly know enough to walk on the sidewalk, cross at the cross walks when the sign says walk, look both ways for cars before crossing, etc. & should be well beyond the age where darting out into the street is a risk! So the need for the 10-year-old to supervise in a situation like this is pretty minimal.

Wow, I guess my son and every single one of his friends who we have had over and taken to the park are raised in a bubble and not NT! Thank you so much for setting us straight about these many unusual kids.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that kids can't do because they have never had to do it.

Six-year-olds did used to be able to do this. Now (you say) they can't. What changed?

This.