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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

#282
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parents aren't allowed to bring them to school. Huh? So if they live 10 miles away they must walk 10 miles? Surely not, but then how does it work?

The example I know of like that is in Zermatt. The children go to school in Visp. They take the train down by themselves and live at school for the week and come back home on the weekend.

That sounds horribly cruel.. little kids are separated from family all week? Is that for real?

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

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Genuinely curious…is it rare because there are less kidnappers, or because parents are more vigilant and there is less opportunity for them to commit the crime?

Most probably kidnappers and pedophiles found a better way. Kidnapping small children has been institutionalized.

And before to say that I'm crazy or trolling, we need to remind that some estimates claim that until 300,000 small immigrant children could had vanished in the last decades after being taken by the USA government. Even if the real value is a tenth of that, we would be still talking about a very concerning and astonishing cipher

And we need to remind that ICE has happily employed some very seedy people lately. Journalists disclosed some workers with a criminal past that includes sexual assaults to minors and that wouldn't be allowed to work with minors in any other circumstance.

The sad truth is that lots of recent recordings prove that criminals are now allowed to shop for children in the streets and parks and take them somewhere with them, as long as this children aren't white. And some of this children are not seen again. Nobody in the government can explain were they went.

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

#284
The most dangerous things for that child in that gated community, apart from its citizens, are the _three_ golf courses: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

Yeah, sorry kid, play inside. It's indeed safer there: you'll become a couch potato with anxieties and heart disease, but at least you won't get poisoned that much. /s

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

#285
While I agree with the overall sentiment in this thread, it should be clear that any body of water is highly dangerous for kids until they can swim. It is not disclosed in TFA if the kid was able to swim, but the average 5 year old in the USA is not.

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

#286

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…

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…

That's not just a rough sentence though, it kinda flies in the face of trying to protect the child. Putting a parent of a 5 year old in jail? For this? To make sure the child has a better childhood?

I would not feel safe walking the street, or being at home, or even being dead or in the afterlife, while such stupid and vindictive adults walk freely. Who knows what they'll get up to next!

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

#287
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Summoning the police due to this still sounds excessive.

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias. More children ages 1–4 die from drowning than any other cause of death. For children ages 5–14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes. https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/data-research/facts/index.html

Do you think young children should never be in a car either? There is always a chance of death, and at some point you have to let your kids enjoy life, some of my best memories are at that pond watching dragonflies and listening to the water splash. It just seems so sad to not allow a child to be free to enjoy the natural world, yes a very scary speech about the dangers is important, but at some point it's important…

Children in a car get expensive, cumbersome equipment to protect them. And of course they are never unsupervised when they are driving around. They don't get freedom.

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

#290
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a high trust homogenous society without lots of different groups with all kinds of grievances about the past, present and the future. And it's probably rural, where everyone knows each other. When I read the headline, I sided with the mother. But a five-year old having to cross four roads in total to and from (with vehicles going up 25 mph legally, and who knows how fast illegally) is a bit much.

It doesn't have to be homogeneous or rural, you just have to address the grievances, make sure everyone is adequately housed, has access to medical attention, and has something to do; and then you get peace.

No that's really not sufficient

Some groups of people have absolutely endless amounts of grievances. They have made the grievances their entire personality. They will never be sufficiently satisfied with whatever concessions you make to them

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