Anonymous wrote:Why are you so obsessed with this, OP? Do you even have young children?

I'm not the OP. I have a child in elementary school and a child in middle school. And I'm really angry.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scenario: 6 yo falls off the monkey bars and breaks his arm. What will the 10 yo do?

Call for help, presumably. What do you think?

I was 11 when my 9 year old sister fell off the monkey bars and broke her leg. I called for help - a woman was running nearby and I asked her to help us. She called an ambulance, paramedics called police, police called parents, we all met at the hospital. No big deal. No one accused my parents of being negligent. It's disturbing that we've created a mentality that kids of this age can't be left alone for a moment in public places.

^^^weekend afternoon

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whether or not I agree that these kids should be able to do this type of thing, I can't imagine doing it after the first instance of CPS involvement. Seems kind of stupid and asking for trouble.

THIS!
You can argue all day about whether they should be allowed to be free range, but after the initial involvement of police and CPS, it takes extreme hubris and poor judgement to risk getting your kids taken away and put into the system. Defending your parenting philosophy is really worth your kids going into foster care?
Really?
You can abide by the rules/laws while you lobby to change them .
This is a walk to the playground, not voting rights!

What laws?

You know what else takes extreme hubris and poor judgment? Picking up a 6-year-old and a 10-year-old from the park on a sunny weekday afternoon, hauling them off to CPS, and not releasing them to their parents until late in the evening. CPS is supposed to act in the best interest of the children. Is that really what's in the best interest of the children?

Why are you so obsessed with this, OP? Do you even have young children?

Anonymous wrote:Whether or not I agree that these kids should be able to do this type of thing, I can't imagine doing it after the first instance of CPS involvement. Seems kind of stupid and asking for trouble.

THIS!
You can argue all day about whether they should be allowed to be free range, but after the initial involvement of police and CPS, it takes extreme hubris and poor judgement to risk getting your kids taken away and put into the system. Defending your parenting philosophy is really worth your kids going into foster care?
Really?
You can abide by the rules/laws while you lobby to change them .
This is a walk to the playground, not voting rights!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were 3 kids under 10 at the park by my house yesterday, and are often kids around the same age without parents.

Time to be a good citizen and call the police

Time to be a good NEIGHBOR and call the police!

(That's the part that really gets me -- that a neighbor called the police.)

Or I can be a good neighbor and watch the kids while I'm there, which is what I did. They were nice kids, not doing anything unsafe or destructive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6 is way too young to be without adult supervision.

Maybe for some kids, or even a lot of kids, but definitely not every kid.

No, for every kid. The end.

Six-year-olds used to be capable of being out without adult supervision. Six-year-olds in other countries to this day are capable of being out without adult supervision. Do middle-class people in the US just have particularly incompetent six-year-olds, these days?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were 3 kids under 10 at the park by my house yesterday, and are often kids around the same age without parents.

Time to be a good citizen and call the police

Time to be a good NEIGHBOR and call the police!

(That's the part that really gets me -- that a neighbor called the police.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scenario: 6 yo falls off the monkey bars and breaks his arm. What will the 10 yo do?

Call for help, presumably. What do you think?

So the kid has a phone? I didn't give my child a phone until middle school. Another poor parenting choice.

"Help, please!"<---calling for help

So, in the view of these parents, and in your view, the other parents are to be the safety net for their "free range" kids if something bad happens, but if anyone dare expresses concern that something bad MIGHT happen, they are to be scorned for interfering with a radical and anti-social lifestyle choice?

Spare me.

This one time, when I was in college, I stepped off the curb and twisted my ankle. I couldn't move. Somebody stopped and offered to help. By your thinking, it was unreasonable of me to expect other people to be the safety net for my out on my own if something happens. Perhaps it was even a radical and anti-social lifestyle choice for me to walk around the streets by myself, knowing that something bad might happen?

Anonymous wrote:There were 3 kids under 10 at the park by my house yesterday, and are often kids around the same age without parents.

Time to be a good citizen and call the police

There were 3 kids under 10 at the park by my house yesterday, and are often kids around the same age without parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6 is way too young to be without adult supervision.

Maybe for some kids, or even a lot of kids, but definitely not every kid.

No, for every kid. The end.

Anonymous wrote:Back in the day, this mythical "free range" thing involved kids moving in packs. Safety in numbers, be in a group.

Two siblings rarely played alone at a park, even in the 1970s.

BTW, I lived the 1970s. The fondness for them that is expressed here sometimes if misguided. It wasn't that great.

I lived in the 1970s too, and that was not the case for me. Sometimes kids moved in packs, sometimes they didn't.

Anonymous wrote:6 is way too young to be without adult supervision.

Maybe for some kids, or even a lot of kids, but definitely not every kid.