Divorced parents would have to answer to their formers spouse, their former spouse's attorney, a child's rep, the Court, etc. for any serious mishap. Its not worth the knee jerk tragic outcomes the Courts can produce. Therefore, a divorced parent is best served playing it ultra conservative and ignoring this article.
Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
61–70 of 280 posts
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#62It's easy and lets us perceive ourselves as better than them.
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#63I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…
> I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. The risk to the child for a specific situation does not change based on the reason why a parent put the child in a situation, the same way that the probability of getting hit by a landmine doesn't change based on whether you're walking across a minefield to cheat on your spouse or to s…
So you think a child being left alone in the home of a drug-addicted negligent parent will have the equivalent risk of a child of an otherwise caring parent who accidentally left them at home alone?
I'm not saying the reason itself changes the risk. I'm saying the reason gives me insight into the kind of parent a person is and the likelihood of their being higher risks in the child's environment. Or to use your analogy, there's probably a lot more 'land-mines' in the house of a parent who leaves to play pokemon than in the house of a parent who left their child alone due to an accident or unforeseen circumstances.
If you can't see that than you are blinded by your own sense of rationality.
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perception: there's a 75% chance my kid will be kidnapped by a pedophile. Reality: there's a 0.01% chance of the pedophile kidnap, but a 75% chance of drowning in the bathtub. Numbers are made up. Perception is not reality. Another example: Trayvon Martin was a dark-skinned young male wearing a hoodie. Perception: he is a criminal casing the houses in order to commit a future crime. Reality: he was a kid walking home…
I'm sorry, but I think this is making the same errors in the opposite direction. 1) Yes, child abduction/predation is unlikely ... because we've adopted a huge number of countermeasures that close of this vector. That doesn't (by itself) mean you can just stop doing those measures and act like the risk is still low. 2) The risk of death by bathtub is not 75%. 3) Terrorists ramp up efforts against any vector they've f…
> Yes, child abduction/predation is unlikely ... because we've adopted a huge number of countermeasures that close of this vector.
Actually, most of the social "countermeasures" were adopted after high-profile single incidents in the 1990s (perhaps largely because the larger 1960s-1980s crime wave that had been the pretext for expanding government powers in the law enforcement arena previously was ending, and a new pretext was needed) and later, when the overall rate of incidents had been dropping for decades (since, IIRC, the 1950s or 1960s), but media attention to them -- and hence public perception of the prevalence of incidents -- had, at the same time, been increasing.
AFAIK, there is little-to-no evidence that any of the "countermeasures" have had any significant effect on the prevalence of child abduction/predation.
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accidentally leaves their kid alone > Letting children play is dangerous, being negligent is safe Very 1984.
No, not at all what I'm saying. My point is that the parent who is accidentally negligent most likely is providing their child with a safer environment than the parents who intentionally leave their child alone. BTW have you even had a 2-year old? I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision. Sure it might be an older sibling or some other community member watc…
> My point is that the parent who is accidentally negligent most likely is providing their child with a safer environment than the parents who intentionally leave their child alone.
In both cases you usually don't see whether the parents left their child intentionally or not.
Whatever the real reason, harassing the parents is quite a judgement based on a statistics with sample size 1.
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#66> A 2-year-old was found unattended after his parents allegedly left home to play Pokémon Go. > How much risk was there of some harm coming to the child while the parents were gone? As a parent to young children, I would say pretty damn high, actually. Kids do stupid things all the time, and if you aren't there, and they know you aren't there, there is no limit to the stupid things a 2 year old can do. It's a normal…
Kids are really sturdy and will heal from basically anything. Adults don't remember the reason kids "believe themselves immortal", and think they're dumb. They're not. The play that kids do evolved to teach them motor skills - not die.
To take this to an extreme (and not even as a reducto ad absurdum): if a child does something that has the potential to break a bone... that thing should still be basically considered "safe." Children's bones heal!
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, not at all what I'm saying. My point is that the parent who is accidentally negligent most likely is providing their child with a safer environment than the parents who intentionally leave their child alone. BTW have you even had a 2-year old? I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision. Sure it might be an older sibling or some other community member watc…
"I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision." In Denmark today 0-2 year olds are regularly left outside in a baby stroller to nap while their parents are inside.
That's not zero supervision IMO. The parent is easily within range of the child, and most likely checks up on them from time to time.
Edit: I think a lot of people in this thread are getting the idea that I'm advocating parents need to helicoptor parent their 2-year olds 24/7. Not at all what I'm saying. I don't think you are greatly increasing risks to your child in that scenario.
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#68Ladders to help children get up to neck-breaking heights when climbing trees (in Denmark):
http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2016/08/23/ladders-to-help-ch...
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#69I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…
The best thing to do here is to accept the fact that some parents will take more risk and some kids will die every year because of that. We cant do a zilch about it besides charging the parents after the incident has happened.
We can remove the children if the risks and behaviour are severe enough.
Here's a mother who left young children (oldest was four) to fend for themselves for a day while she went off on a drink and drug "binge": https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/nov/17/binge-mother-drug...
Plenty of deaths feel preventable. Her's a mother who didn't supervise her children and they ran into traffic. That event caused social services to take interest in her, and they advised her to cover a garden pond. She didn't, and one day while she was not paying attention to her children one of them died. That's a tragedy for that family.
Re: Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?
#70Interesting research. Looks like a cognitive bias related to the reverse-Halo Effect ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect ). The mother left for some morally bad reason, so the predicted events receive bad associations (larger risk). Sounds easily exploitable too. Want to advertise something dangerous? Just show people doing it in morally good situations.
I started out thinking that, but after considering it some more, I'm not sure it's just a halo effect.
Here's a chain of correlations: parents who leave their children alone at random (rather than in a structured and pre-planned way) are probably more impulsive. Trait-impulsivity is hereditary. Thus, leaving a (blood-related) child alone is predictive of that child taking more risks and being the kind of child who can't be left alone safely.
(On the other hand, leaving a child you're the adoptive parent or guardian of alone isn't predictive of anything.)