This might be off topic, but go check Google News for "meitiv", and look at how much spam is there from The Week !
I don't see any.
Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
91–100 of 105 posts
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Hardly delusional and seriously un-fun when you are on the receiving end. When my son was 6-ish and my daughter around 1 years old, we got a visit from DFS(like CPS). This was 8 years ago and the amount of rage it brings up in me is immense. Being immediately threatened with your child being taken away for refusing to do ANYTHING that they ask is ridiculous. I'm sure it is there to be able to have some power over the…
Where do you live?
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand what you are saying? The CPS is required to follow up on every report, as a result of hand wavy crap likee "there really are abused kids out there slipping through the cracks". But when they act on it, they are still the bad guy. Whether I agree with the law or not - as it's reported by the article, the children's ages, and them being unsupervised, does in fact potentially qualify as neglect. The C…
> It isn't unreasonable for them to say "hey this takes a few days, we're not taking your kids, but you have to not do the same actions again, as they may be illegal". That's the opposite of what they said, though. Here's the part that pisses people off: > The Meitivs say that on Dec. 20, a CPS worker required Alexander to sign a safety plan pledging he would not leave his children unsupervised until the following Mo…
It's reasonable, in the same way it's reasonable to have people sign a receipt saying they got the package, or that its reasonable to have people sign a ticket (saying I am not admitting guilt by signing this, only that I was in fact presented with this paper). If I refuse to do any of those things there is an escalation (in the last case it's arrest and the impounding of the car!).
CPS does need to document that they took certain steps with the parent, or it doesn't count in court... instead they get in trouble for not being able to prove the parent was there, and discussed the welfare of the child.
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#94Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#95>At first he refused, saying he needed to talk to a lawyer, his wife said, but changed his mind when he was told his children would be removed if he did not comply.
Protecting children from abduction, by abducting them. GG America!
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
The OP never said "The government is going to take my children for playing in the front yard," so I'm at a loss where you got that quote. Maybe you inferred that's what he meant when he said "I'm afraid a neighbor will report me and the government will come take my kids away." That is a very real concern. When a CPS agent comes calling, any righteous indignation on your part can easily result in your children being t…
So you agree with keeping your child indoors because of the risk of a neighbor filing a false complaint? That is sad.
Where exactly did I say that?
You seem to love putting words into peoples mouths.
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#97I was curious about laws and such (since they said in the article that children under eight were legally supposed to be under supervision in that jurisdiction), and came upon this study on unsupervised kids: http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2003/04/unsupe...
That says that 7% of kids age 6-9 are under self care. Not a huge percentage, but millions of kids. Which is to say, there's nothing unusual about kids on their own – but maybe to avoid criticism, keep them hidden away inside when they are on their own.
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what places you are referring to as "much of Suburbia", but a large number of us who read HN live in Silicon Valley suburbs where you see people walking around all the time. Kids on skateboards, groups of young, Indian software developers, joggers, solo guys like me walking along listening to podcasts, old Chinese couples, parents walking over to a student-teacher conference, teens walking over to friend…
There's an entire country chock full of low density suburbia in between Cambridge and Silicon Valley.
Yes, I lived there, too. I lived in the Rocky Mountains for several years, and my comments are just as true of the suburbs of Denver (say, Boulder) or Salt Lake City (Provo/Orem) as they are of the coasts.
Of course, if you get far enough from a large city and low enough density, you'll get fewer and fewer people walking around, almost by definition, but then that's not where most American suburbanites live.
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#99A few here are giving examples of how this kind of thing wasn't a problem when they were a kid. I had similar experiences. But, I want to say that I actively do not allow my children to play in our front yard. Not because I'm afraid a stranger will take them, not because I'm afraid they'll wander into the street to get hit by a car, not because I'm afraid they'll get hurt without an adult present, not because I'm afr…
I wonder how many of your neighbours feel the same as you. I wonder, if after seeing your kids play in the front yard, how many would respond in kind, letting their kids outside to play with yours, assuming that if one parent was willing then they wouldn't feel so guilty about it.
I suppose we just don't live in that kind of world anymore. I used to play the suburbs with other kids, we were rarely in the backyard, going around on the cul-de-sac and the windy roads of suburbia. By the time I was about 10 or 11 I had biked across the entire city.
My daughter is 3, we live in the city, but there are kids. The roads are busier and the neighbourhood more crowded with more cars now. I'm not sure if I'll have the same attitude. Funnily as grandparents even my parents seem much more reluctant, and worried about my daughter than they were about us.
Re: Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone
#100In Finland, kids as young as 6 or 7 routinely walk to school on their own, and when it's winter time, that means they do it during night time. No one thinks this is weird, and nothing happens to them.