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A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

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Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#501

Post by GordonS »

bencollier49 wrote: post #110
resoluteteeth wrote: post #99

This image from a daily mail article of all places shows the trend over multiple generations in a family very well: https://i.imgur.com/YcjjsiI.jpg It's from the UK but it's probably even worse in the US (I think in the US now most kids aren't allowed out of the yard of their house on their own until they're old enough to drive basically.)

That's a great graphic. I can't figure out what it is doing this - I'm UK-based too, and I know logically that everything is now safer - I used to walk two miles to the woods with friends at the age of eight or nine, but I wouldn't trust my own children to walk to the bottom of the hill here. I don't really understand what has changed. Why were my own parents less paranoid? There are lots of people giving lots of rea…

I'm the same - growing up I was allowed to roam freely, within reason. For example, I would hike and camp overnight with my parents having only a rough idea where I was.

But like you, I don't think I'd be happy with my kids doing things like that (my kids aren't quite old enough yet anyway).

I think part of it is realising that some of the things I did were pretty fucking stupid, and could have ended very badly. For example, I recall exploring a dilapidated house that was falling to pieces - in the middle of nowhere in rural Scotland. I could very easily have died if something had gone wrong.

I'm certain the media is a large part of it too - the overwhelming focus on doom and gloom feels very unhealthy for society as a whole.

That doesn't explain all of it though; I realise we live in safe times, but still find myself being overprotective, sometimes seemingly irrationally.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#502

Post by JimTheMan »

jamier1978 wrote: post #202

As a someone living in the UK I find a lot of these comments by people in the US mind blowing. People calling CPS / police because they see kids playing alone in the park? What the hell is going on over there!

I completely agree, it's wild to hear as an Australian as well. I've never ever heard of anyone having any issues with social services being called on them. If anything, it's really hard to separate children from their parents...

Sometimes I also catch threads/tiktoks/comments talking about sex trafficking in the US as well. Where there's an ever present fear their child is going to get abducted and sold into prostitution? And I can't tell if that's a genuine fear or a completely manufactured one. Seems implausible to me.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#503

Post by NikolaNovak »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #390
beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

>>if you're raising kids, to consider the upsides of so-called "free range" you can't. It's basically illegal in USA and Canada, and your neighbours and school will report you and child services will have a nice chat first time, less nice next time.

Above was typed on phone late at night and may sound abrasive, so for context: I live in the Toronto, Canada area. On regular basis, local or national news will have an article about child protection services being engaged for items such as 12 year old left at home alone or a 8 year old being alone on sidewalk etc. Schools and Neighbours are typically the ones who report the incident. Culture is one of protection, and a child seen alone on the street raises immediate alarm bells amongst bystanders. Three provinces have legal limits of either 12 or 16 years old for children to be left alone for any period of time; but in all provinces and federally, canadian social services organizations "advise that children under 12 should not be left unsupervised". This is typically pursued under "supervisory neglect" and "placing children under risk of harm".

In my province of Ontario, the statutory limit for leaving a child without adequate supervision is... sixteen years old. Fine of up to $5000 and up to 12 months in jail.

Which is insane to me, having walked to school since age 6, taking buses solo since age 11 or 12, lived through civil war at age 12 and flying unspervised over three airlines and four countries to another continent at age 15. But there you have it.

So a suggestion to raise kids free range is just not an option where I am, unfortunately :(

---- Edit A background of Canadian legislation framework: https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/Legal%20Age...

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#504

Post by throwawaylinux »

ryan_lane wrote: post #426
turrican wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Most of the people in your area are probably on, or cooking meth.” Are you saying this tongue-in-cheek?

No. There are some rural towns where every single town member, including the police, firefighters, etc. are addicted to meth. Rural areas are where most meth is cooked because it makes it considerably less likely to be detected. A considerable amount of heroin addicts in the US are also in rural areas. Drug use is rampant in rural areas, but it doesn't get the press that it does in cities, because it doesn't present…

Which are some of these towns? I assume you're not talking about one of those towns with two residents (either way it doesn't mean that any rural area probably has more than half the residents using or making meth which is obviously balderdash, I'm just curious about these alleged towns).

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#505

Post by BurningPenguin »

vimy wrote: post #495
BurningPenguin wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are heavily overrepresented in crime statistics Judging from my own anecdotal experiences as someone who "doesn't look like a German", i'm willing to take a wild guess why: Because everything they do is under a microscope. I got my bags searched, because i "walked suspiciously through the isles" in a store (woman thought i'm a foreigner) and i got a false accusation by a police officer who said he "knew people…

Research shows that even corrected for what you’re describing the numbers still show an overrepresentation compared to their % of the population. Just an example, they were 63 % of prisoners in The Netherlands a couple years ago. Similar numbers in other Western European countries.

Can you link some of those research papers?

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#506

Post by vimy »

BurningPenguin wrote: post #505
vimy wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research shows that even corrected for what you’re describing the numbers still show an overrepresentation compared to their % of the population. Just an example, they were 63 % of prisoners in The Netherlands a couple years ago. Similar numbers in other Western European countries.

Can you link some of those research papers?

If I had saved them but I didn't, so no. I don't feel like googling a long time to find them. You can google yourself, they were in Dutch and French.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#507

Post by gilbetron »

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

One of my biggest disappointments as a parent was choosing the wrong neighborhood for our son. We picked one that we thought was going to have lots of kids, but it ended up not happening. It has some kids, but the problem these days is that a minority of neighborhoods have the critical mass combination of number of kids X number of free range parents. We can kick our son out of the house, but there is really no one else to play with. We've tried it, and the only kids regularly outside are 3-4 years younger, and he tried to play with them but got bored quickly.

It's really depressing as I am all for the free range parenting. But our location is just the wrong match of things to do around and number of kids :( In hindsight I would've moved elsewhere, although my wife moved when she as a kid and she is still scarred by that experience.

Our son is 13 now and we need to keep him in camps because the only other option is for him to sit at home and screens all day - last summer he had almost no camps, and we tried to get him outside, but he'd go house-to-house and see if he could get friends to go do anything, and it basically never worked. And if it did, they'd go sit on some swings at the school, chat for 30 minutes, and then the friends would leave.

Depressing as all hell. Pandemic didn't help the situation. When I was a kid, it was "out of the house" after breakfast, and then maybe stop by for lunch, and then "be home when the streetlights come on or if Dad whistles".

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#508

Post by alistairSH »

jandrese wrote: post #119
alistairSH wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like a mix of both. Even in my relatively walkable suburb (Reston, VA), it's not really walkable by a child. And things are far enough that a bike is better. But, just around the beltway in Silver Spring, there was a family that made the news a few years ago because they let their kids walk to/from the playground. This was a few city blocks, in an urban area. Somebody saw the kids, went full Karen and called…

Reston is hit and miss for pedestrians. It was built during the height of automobile centered development, but the primary constituents were artists who cared about aesthetics. It has a lot of housing developments that are fully equipped with sidewalks, but are also not near much of anything. You can walk, but not really go anywhere. At least it's not Tysons Corner. They're going to be spending decades trying to undo…

You can walk, but not really go anywhere

Yeah, not as bad as Ashburn, but not as good as Ballston or Clarendon (both of which now qualify as fully urban).

They added bike lanes to the major road outside my subdivision. Great, except they stop for 2 blocks near the school complex (ES, MS, HS on same big plot) because they needed extra turn lanes for cars. And then stopped the bike lanes again for 2 blocks near the shopping center for the same reason. So, the two places you'd want to ride a bike aren't connected. Massive failure. I sometimes wonder if VDOT/Fairfax planners half-ass these things on purpose just to prove "but nobody uses the bike lanes, see, empty!"

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#509

Post by amerkhalid »

beej71 wrote: post #47

I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs. But I will tell you my perspective. As someone who grew up in the "be back home in time for supper" 1970s, today's world seems completely foreign. When I started kindergarten, Mom walked me to school on the first day so that I'd know the route. And after that I walked to school on my own until I learned to ride a bike. I rode…

> I don't have any kids, so I don't really feel comfortable telling folks how to raise theirs.

Before I had my kids, I was same way. Or maybe even worse. I would bring up statistics and showed my friends with kids that odds of kidnapping are so much lower than many other bad things.

Then I had my kid.

I am not worried about neighbors judging me like some other commenters are. But my perspective has changed a bit. When it is not your kid, it is very easy to make logical decisions based on statistics and probabilities. But when it is your kid, emotions get in the way. You think of worst case scenario.

It is the same reason why many people make money when paper trading but lose when using real money.

Re: A 4-year-old can run errands alone and not just on reality TV

#510

Post by rootusrootus »

jccalhoun wrote: post #500
rootusrootus wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is confusing, because you are linking here to a story about a couple in Maryland. "Cindy and Fred", as quoted in the post you replied to, are in Florida.

My mistake. I highlighted one sentence from the parent's post and it led me to this story. I thought it was the same people? I guess not.

It's a similar situation, so the confusion is not surprising. I had to bounce back and forth a couple times myself because it didn't quite seem to line up. Thought maybe one was an updated version of the other with the false names revealed as actual people, but it turns out the situations are different. One of the kids is a different age, and in one case the kids were going to the park and back and in the other one the older kid was walking home from school playing ball in his own yard waiting for his parents to arrive.
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