191–200 of 301 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it’s to counteract the desire of parents dropping of their kids in front of school with their car and causing traffic jams.
The original comment makes it sound like you'd get a police visit for walking with your kid to school though, which is hopefully a misunderstanding.
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…
In our neighborhood it's very common to see kids (including mine!) outside doing things by themselves. We bike with our oldest son to school (he's 7), but plenty of other parents let their kids bike to school on their own. I think it helps that we live in a city with good pedestrian infrastructure and lots of green spaces. The whole city is better for it and I wish more US cities would do the same. My sister's neighborhood in a different state feels like a very fancy prison, nice homes, but you can't even go to a park without getting in a car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Young children also walk to the elementary schools near me. When I’m at the park with my kids, it’s common to see other very young kids show up alone on their bikes or on foot to play in the park. This is in the US. I think international readers see these headlines and assume the entire US is like this, but the reason the story is a headline is because it’s a dumb sentence. This is going to get appealed. The US is a…
I'm also in the US, in a city in a populous state and I've never seen that, as a matter of fact it counts as child abuse in my state as well. Why don't you mention where you live and what state you see this within? Is it because what you're seeing is anecdotal in some particularly rich area? I can assure you leaving children under 16 unsupervised is illegal in most states.
The only state that I can find with the oldest age defined is 14 in Illinois (but it's defined as "for an unreasonable period of time").
Most states otherwise don't define it (~38 states), and of the ones that do, it's between 6-10.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parents and Adults in America are often afraid. Sometimes rightfully so, sometimes not. There is likely too much crime in urban areas for children to walk freely, and it could be dangerous to even try to walk in areas that barely have walkable streets. Europe can let this happen since their city planning is much better for people who either walk or bike to different areas. Some, like in Switzerland, even have extreme…
> There is likely too much crime in urban areas for children to walk freely This is very much not true. If there are any urban areas that have too much crime for kids to walk freely, it's a vanishingly small percentage, and certainly does not include gated communities in Williamsburg, VA. GTFOH with that nonsense.
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Perhaps the neighbor who called it in thought that if they approached the child themselves, they might be seen as a potential child molester.
If you automatically assume somebody approaching a child is a kidde fiddler (!) then your society has problems.
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I'm in Zurich which is far from rural. Not really very homogenous either - it's 50% non-Swiss.
I'm sorry that you have to be around Germans, Austrians, Italians, Spaniards, and—worst of all— the French . Nobody should ever go through that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is likely too much crime in urban areas for children to walk freely This is very much not true. If there are any urban areas that have too much crime for kids to walk freely, it's a vanishingly small percentage, and certainly does not include gated communities in Williamsburg, VA. GTFOH with that nonsense.
That's why I said it was a harsh sentence for a probably safe area at the end of my statement, why so angry?
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…
In Japan they call it a Katamari.
I blame the media, mostly, for the fear / paranoia that seems to have captured us in the past decades. Sure, media was always sensational, but it was local. Now stuff travels through social media and the internet and so you might be in Maine but hear about every weird thing that happens in Florida or Arizona.
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…
Young children also walk to the elementary schools near me. When I’m at the park with my kids, it’s common to see other very young kids show up alone on their bikes or on foot to play in the park. This is in the US. I think international readers see these headlines and assume the entire US is like this, but the reason the story is a headline is because it’s a dumb sentence. This is going to get appealed. The US is a…