Anonymous wrote:

Clarendon = Silver Spring. Thanks for the laugh!

Anonymous wrote:These parents seem to be focussing on their agenda more than on the reality of their kids/neighborhood. It's one thing to let your kids go outside and play on the same block, or at the park that is a block away. It's another thing to let them play 9-12 blocks away... if anything happened and they needed help, it would take a lot longer to get back and it's possible the hurt one would have to be left alone while the other went for help.

It's one thing to let your kids play in a neighborhood where they know people, it's something different when they are walking through areas where they know no one and there are random adults hanging around or a place where lots of cars are driving through.

It's one thing to leave a 10 yr old in charge of a 6 yr. old if they are in a very controlled setting and you will be out for a short time (i.e. you drop off the library books 1 mi. away while they are watching tv. at home), it's something different to leave a 10 yr. old full decision-making authority over a 6 yr. old in an uncontrolled environment (outside, streets, playground where swinging and climbing are happening). Kids get injured. My own kids have have playground dramas and traumas many times.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Misquote my posts if you like, but in the meantime, I said "out there" without adult supervision. As in, *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring.* I myself walked to kindergarten alone for 9/10ths of a mile every day, but the street was not *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring.*

Oh, *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring*? You mean the intersection with pedestrian signals, wide marked crosswalks, lots and lots of pedestrians, and a 25 mph (or 30, I don't remember) speed limit?

My kids (age 10 & 12) routinely walk to places along busy Wilson Blvd. in the Clarendon area. Pretty much equivalent to that downtown Silver Spring area. I'm MORE comfortable with them there because it is well traveled with signals and good crosswalks. They also walk around our neighborhood and I remind them a lot more about being cautious there since it seems drivers are less consistent about stopping at neighborhood stop signs and they are much more likely to be approached by a creep in a car on a quiet, isolated neighborhood street than on busy Wilson Blvd. But, I still let them do it because it's important to learn to navigate the world and allowing that independence, with plenty of training to get to this point, builds their confidence in their own abilities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Misquote my posts if you like, but in the meantime, I said "out there" without adult supervision. As in, *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring.* I myself walked to kindergarten alone for 9/10ths of a mile every day, but the street was not *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring.*

Oh, *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring*? You mean the intersection with pedestrian signals, wide marked crosswalks, lots and lots of pedestrians, and a 25 mph (or 30, I don't remember) speed limit?

Anonymous wrote:

Misquote my posts if you like, but in the meantime, I said "out there" without adult supervision. As in, *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring.* I myself walked to kindergarten alone for 9/10ths of a mile every day, but the street was not *Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring.*

Anonymous wrote: When people are more concerned about their own agenda than the consequences (whether or not they agree) -- then something is very wrong. If someone saw my kids walking along a major road alone and called the cops, who am I to mad at them? At least I know that if something really was wrong than there was a chance that someone saw something and called for help. And I may disagree with the law, but I'm going to follow it rather than get hung up with CPS for months. That is dumb as s***! Folks are way more attached to their so-called rights than doing what is right. Philosophy does not trump reality.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

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 wrote:

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.