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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

#221

Post by qball »

softwaredoug wrote: post #42
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.

Stranger kidnappings are basically unheard of. It's never been a safer time for kids in terms of crime like that.

Your child is more at risk of being abducted by the State than some random stranger.

That's why they don't go outside. You can teach them to run from the panel vans; teaching them to run from the police (who were called by some Karen) is much more difficult.

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

#224

Post by palemoonsinking »

watwut wrote: post #211
comrade1234 wrote: post #29

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…

> If they keep doing it they'll get a letter from the school and probably a police visit. That seems excessive.

I've rarely heard of that going to the letter. Many city schools are way too lax and let some helicopter parents reinforce the anxiousness of their children until the imagined requirements become disruptive within school grounds. These highly trained parents can prolong the insecurity any child would feel on the first day until their children really start to have a problem and abnormal social bonds.

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

#227

Post by nxm »

sh-run wrote: post #192
comrade1234 wrote: post #29

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…

I live in Colorado, we have a "free-range" law that protects parents allowing their children to play outside unattended. It's a bit sad that such a law needs to exist, but I'm glad we have it here. 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.…

Why was the law added in the first place? Just not creating a stupid law that prevents such restrictions is enough by default (it's legal unless it's formally illegal)

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

#228

Post by stephencanon »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #200
Aurornis wrote: post #128

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…

As an international reader I'm missing some context here. Isn't a gated community supposed to be singularly safe? With private guards (like the guy who took the kid to his mom) patrolling and no strangers allowed in etc? Why did the guard tell the kid that "bad people" might take him? Where would those bad people come from? It really all does sound very weird.

Gated communities, by their nature, attract and encourage the sort of busybodies who think that everyone needs to be protected from everything.

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

#229

Post by stephencanon »

nxm wrote: post #227
sh-run wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Colorado, we have a "free-range" law that protects parents allowing their children to play outside unattended. It's a bit sad that such a law needs to exist, but I'm glad we have it here. 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.…

Why was the law added in the first place? Just not creating a stupid law that prevents such restrictions is enough by default (it's legal unless it's formally illegal)

I would assume that the state law protects parents against a city adding a restriction in their municipal code.

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

#230

Post by megagpt1 »

OtomotO wrote: post #99
teekert wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is extremely car focused, which they often don't really realize. Things that are normal here (like everybody has a bike) conflicts with their cyclers vs drivers culture. Such a distinction simply does not exist here. Instead we have roads that are red with signs "Cars are guests". Or indeed city centers where cars aren't allowed. When I go to the US I'm often surprised that you can't get to things that are onl…

The last time I was in the US - a couple of decades ago, I admit - people were aghast that we walked to a store just a few hundred meters away. 3 people stopped and asked whether they can drive us somewhere... I mean, super friendly people, but... it's just a few hundred meters, come on! You were the wild west, once!

This happened to me in Germany. To be fair, I was walking 10km on a rural road with two suitcases and no sidewalk.
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