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Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

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Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#21

Post by johndhi »

neaden wrote: post #2

This is one of those frustrating things. You're just not allowed to not be scared with kids. If you aren't scared of letting your kid walk to a pond, you get punished for it. If you're not scared of the kidnappers, you have to be scared of the police. None of it is rational, it's different how many of us were raised, yet if you try to opt out the law gets involved.

I'm sympathetic with this sentiment but surely it's pretty rare the law actually gets involved? Our kids play outside a lot and no cops have ever raised an eyebrow (except for at our crazy drunk of a neighbor, where eyebrow raising is appropriate).

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#22

Post by jareklupinski »

ragazzina wrote: post #6

In the US a kid cannot walk half a mile on their own inside a gated community patrolled by security guards? This sounds more dystopian than all the AI talk. "I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks," he says, "in order to grow up non-anxious." I guess the system prefers to breed anxiety.

> the system prefers to breed anxiety

a happy consumer consumes less than an anxious one :(

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#25

Post by thewillowcat »

johndhi wrote: post #21
neaden wrote: post #2

This is one of those frustrating things. You're just not allowed to not be scared with kids. If you aren't scared of letting your kid walk to a pond, you get punished for it. If you're not scared of the kidnappers, you have to be scared of the police. None of it is rational, it's different how many of us were raised, yet if you try to opt out the law gets involved.

I'm sympathetic with this sentiment but surely it's pretty rare the law actually gets involved? Our kids play outside a lot and no cops have ever raised an eyebrow (except for at our crazy drunk of a neighbor, where eyebrow raising is appropriate).

It's rare, but if it happens it is catastrophic. You will be paying a lawyer 10's of thousands of dollars and if you do have to plead out, the charges you plead to may look very bad on paper on a background check.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#27

Post by wil421 »

ragazzina wrote: post #6

In the US a kid cannot walk half a mile on their own inside a gated community patrolled by security guards? This sounds more dystopian than all the AI talk. "I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks," he says, "in order to grow up non-anxious." I guess the system prefers to breed anxiety.

All the kids in my neighborhood do this weekly in the US.

Re: Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond

#29

Post by comrade1234 »

Here in Switzerland children start walking to school at around 5-years. Parents aren't allowed to bring them to school. If a parent escorts their children to school they'll be told not to. If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. And if they continue (I never heard of it getting to this stage) they may be fined.

It's funny in the morning. One child walks to another child's home then they walk to another child's home and so on until you have a big group of kids walking to school together. In Austria they call it something like a children train.

Twice a year you see the children practicing crossing streets. The police are out at the intersections and show the children how to do it. It's very cute. Also how to ride bicycles properly.

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