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Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

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Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#311

Post by evancox100 »

Aeolun wrote: post #154
danjoredd wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends on where you live. If you are a suburban or rural kid, playing outside all you want is fine. Let them explore the neighborhood. If you live near a highway though, or a high crime area, then you might want to reconsider what you want to allow. You still need common sense. My main worry is people who live in relatively safe areas, like a suburban neighborhood, but with neighbors that will STILL call CPS…

> a high crime area What exactly do you expect to happen to your 6 year old? They’re not a very useful target for anything I can think of.

Not to support the “what about the children” arguments, but 1) try thinking a little harder, and 2) probably a good thing that nothing comes to mind for you.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#312

Post by ethbr0 »

vore wrote: post #305
RHSeeger wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy makes no sense. If I ground my child, preventing them from leaving the house, that's a reasonable punishment. If I prevent an adult from leaving my house, that's kidnapping. There are some things you can do to your child that you cannot do to another adult. And that's normal and good.

That's fair, and I don't disagree that parents and guardians should have rights over their children to punish them for discipline. That said, you certainly still can't spank your pets... Look, I agree that the state should have a lot of leeway in letting parents decide what is best for their children. But in and of itself, spanking is the direct use of physical harm (the fact people even split straws on whether or no…

Inflicting pain (physical, mental, emotional) is an acceptable option when there are no alternatives.

I know a lot of people who were physically abused as children and became screwed up adults as a result of it.

I know a lot of people who were never physically disciplined as children and became screwed up adults as a result of it.

I know many people who were occasionally (1-10 times) disciplined as children and became great adults.

As a result? Who knows? But the line doesn't seem to be 0 vs >0.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#313

Post by ethbr0 »

devtul wrote: post #287
45453836 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo there's two factors at play only one of which seems to get much attention. There's the legality (and burden of compliance even when abiding the law) of leaving your children unsupervised but there's also the complete lack of penalty for being wrong. A person reporting abuse incorrectly is for all intents and purposes, an attacker. Why is attacking someone else with only a brief observation of the situation cost f…

Charge $5 bucks for some type of reports, it's a small annoyance which should be nothing for someone truly concerned.

I'm convinced the internet would have been better if we had charged $0.05 per email.

Making something free definitely has its costs.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#314

Post by DanHulton »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

We also have this problem in Canada, but being as we import a great deal of our culture from the US, we're frequently "America-lite" for things like this.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#315

Post by nerdponx »

logicchains wrote: post #293
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's not the corporations, it's the rich people. Corporations are (rich) people too.

Corporations are only free if they are associated with rich people. Small businesses often get screwed for one reason or another pretty much everywhere (the exact reasons vary from place to place).

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#316

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bluGill wrote: post #302
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China they might get kidnapped for adoption, at least that is what my (Chinese) wife thinks.

That happens in places, but probably not in the places where people living here are. But if you are adopting from a foreign country beware that it is easy to kidnap some baby from a remote village. Some of the less ethical adoption agencies have done this in the past.

When China was adopting kids to abroad, I'm sure that happened. These days, I'm not sure if child trafficking is still a problem, I only hear anecdotes, and its all domestic (because China doesn't allow kids to be adopted abroad anymore except in very rare circumstances).

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#317

Post by californical »

uulu wrote: post #306
andrepd wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a reasonable risk is tolerable. But, for instance, car-centric infrastructure has *intensely* exacerbated those risks: space is completely surrendered to cars, sidewalks are non-existent, crosswalks go across 8 lanes of 60+mph traffic. All of this, plus terrible public transport, makes it impossible to travel anyway except by car. This leads to lack of independence for children, and sedentarism.

> crosswalks go across 8 lanes of 60+mph traffic Do such crosswalks really exist? Seriously. AFAIK, 60+mph speed is allowed usually (if not exclusively) on Controlled-access highways where pedestrians are not allowed at all. I highly doubt such crosswalks exist at all.

People easily go 60+ on 55mph roads

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#318

Post by s1artibartfast »

makeitdouble wrote: post #308
danjoredd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its been a genuine problem. I have heard people actually say that if a kid is playing outside by themselves, then the parent should be charged with child neglect because the kid could get hurt. Any time a kid gets hurt on YouTube the comments are filled with people blaming the parent for not being outside with them. Thing is, playing outside by yourself gives you a strong sense of independence. The kid might get hurt…

As a general rule, parents seem to be blamed for anything happening to a kid under any specific setting. Kids playing outside is one of them, kids talking to strangers, kids browsing the internet will also be seen the same...and then kids using voice chat in online games, kids talking to strangers in VR, kids just playing in VR, kids watching youtube etc. It seem well accepted that pervert/criminal will go after kids…

>I think there is a real issue on what people perceive as society's role and what parent's role is.

Not only that, but you a society has become obsessed with risk mitigation over the last several decades. The problem is that people are poorly equipped to estimate risk with very low occurrences against low or unclear cost. You see it in all facets of society with a platitude of better safe than sorry.

It shows up in increased medical licensing to reduce error, which means less accessible and more expensive care. It shows up in new parents who don't introduce their children to family for risk of covid. It shows up San Francisco city policy to reduce traffic death to zero even if it means reducing traffic to a standstill.

At the end of the day, a life with zero risk is not a life worth living but people are scared into the safest option.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#319

Post by grecy »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #209

How is the situation in Canada, compared to the US?

I live in a small town in Canada, it's extremely common to see 5 to 10 year olds riding toboggans downhill to school every day.

The ones who live downhill from school walk up in the morning carrying their tobaggans, and then ride them home at the end of the day.

Also at our local ski hill, once kids are old enough to ski, it's perfectly normal for them to ski "alone" - they just ask any random adult to help them onto the chairlift. Getting off is no problem. The parents ski where they want, or have a coffee in the main building while the kids are out doing that.

It's extremely common to see packs of 5 to 10 year olds skiing around without any adults.

Everyone loves it that way, and nobody wants it to change.

Re: Making It Legal to Play Outside: “Reasonable Childhood Independence” Bills

#320

Post by lolinder »

45453836 wrote: post #280
kwhitefoot wrote: post #26

The US seems to be the only country that has this problem. Children here (Norway) walk to school on their own at the age of five or six, some of them take buses. "Ashley Smith, a foster dad, testified about being investigated for neglect because one afternoon his daughter, 8, was doing her homework on the front lawn. A passerby reported an “unsupervised” child (not knowing Ashley was actually inside). The upshot: “We…

Imo there's two factors at play only one of which seems to get much attention. There's the legality (and burden of compliance even when abiding the law) of leaving your children unsupervised but there's also the complete lack of penalty for being wrong. A person reporting abuse incorrectly is for all intents and purposes, an attacker. Why is attacking someone else with only a brief observation of the situation cost f…

I was reading Hammurabi's code the other day and was struck by the fact that the very first thing the code does is establish the consequences for bearing false witness. There's not even an allowance for "well, I thought it was true", if you are accusing another in court then you are running the risk of the same penalty that you are hoping to impose on the other person, whatever penalty that may be.

There are lots of problems with Hammurabi's code and I wouldn't suggest emulating this particular implementation, but it's interesting to note just how far back this concern of false accusations goes and how our legal system seems to have backslid a bit in this regard.

http://www.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm

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