171–180 of 280 posts
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Kids are really sturdy and will heal from basically anything. Adults don't remember the reason kids "believe themselves immortal", and think they're dumb. They're not. The play that kids do evolved to teach them motor skills - not die.
physically I'd agree. Emotionally, no way.
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No, not at all what I'm saying. My point is that the parent who is accidentally negligent most likely is providing their child with a safer environment than the parents who intentionally leave their child alone. BTW have you even had a 2-year old? I doubt very much there was ever a point in history where 2-year olds were left with zero supervision. Sure it might be an older sibling or some other community member watc…
I was very surprised to discover that Sophie, in "Sophie's misfortunes", is not even 4 years old (in recent illustrations and movies she's pictured much older, around 7). She is left alone to play, and obviously cause some mischief — she's 3 going on 4! Her mother also tell her that if she wants to cross the forest with her she'll have to keep pace and she won't help her or even check if she's around. And the forest…
I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…
Yet, how does society morally look down on a parent that places their children at such a huge risk?
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EDIT - I should have read the article, sounds like the child was not only not asleep but in pretty bad condition. --------- It doesn't say if the 2-year-old was asleep (does it? skimmed the article) - if it was asleep in a crib then it was probably in very little danger. When we lived in an apartment we would sometimes put the baby down and when we were sure he was asleep we'd go to the apartment hot tub. The hot tub…
The OP really just uses the title of the news article as a sort of segue. Reading the news article itself shows that the parents were fairly negligent. >According to the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, a neighbor found the 2-year-old boy outside his home in the 700 block of East Payton Street Thursday night and called authorities. >Deputies arrived and found the child screaming and crying, attempting to get into the r…
Even since I was 10 or so I would often come back to school on my own. Then let myself into our apartment. Eat some lunch, do homework, play until my parents came home in the evening. I was effectively often alone for about 4 or so hours. I wouldn't let my kid do it here in US. Not because I wouldn't trust them or think it is dangerous. But because I am afraid what neighbors, school, CPS would do. My co-worker let hi…
Seems like what "CPS would do" is the same logic described in the article itself, but instead of the perceived (but not statistical) risk to the children it's the perceived (but not statistical) risk to the parents of those children. I doubt (don't have real data) that reporting actually happens often at all, but it's so easy to imagine and potentially embarrassing and scary for a parent that they avoid it. So even i…
I do however have some level of knowledge here. I have spoken with people involved in child protection about questions like this. I have been told that if this person saw a parent allowing their 11-year-old child to cross the street to play on a playground unsupervised that they would have to write it up. They backed this up with citations of specific laws (Maryland - which does, indeed, have absurd laws on this subject). So while statistics might convince me that this is an anomaly, I do have personal experience that suggests the CPS risk is real.
I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child. For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accid…
You're absolutely right that you can sometimes take a parent's willingness to leave a young child unsupervised as an indication of worse general parenting, but the problem I have with your statement is that I don't think that indication is enough to draw any conclusions from. There are other reasons that a parent might leave their child unsupervised and you have to give them the benefit of the doubt that their reason…
I think in that instance our moral judgement of the parents is pointing us in the general right direction of the risk to the child. Though our moral judgement IMO massively overinflates that risk.
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First of all, you are mixing dimensions. If I perceive a kidnapping as an actual occurrence, I will call the police and/or intervene. The situation may be real, or it could e.g. be a stag party. Risk is different - it's about what isn't even perceived to have happened in a given situation. If I walk in the street, there is a risk a piano may have fallen out of an airplane and be falling towards me. If I perceive that…
Your view is in line with developmental psychologists. Children who are never given a chance to think and act independently will grow up stunted and incomplete. By overprotecting, you weaken the child.
I really wish people in the US would prefix these sort of statements with "In the US, we ..." The rest of the world isn't so crazy. Speaking as if what people in the US do is universal makes these sort of things seem as though they're the result of the passage of time, that some other solution just isn't possible, that the outcome was inevitable, and those people affected are somehow victims. When really it's a matte…
Actually a lot of the crazy shit you might associate with "USA" is only relevant for certain communities.
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I'm sorry, but I think this is making the same errors in the opposite direction. 1) Yes, child abduction/predation is unlikely ... because we've adopted a huge number of countermeasures that close of this vector. That doesn't (by itself) mean you can just stop doing those measures and act like the risk is still low. 2) The risk of death by bathtub is not 75%. 3) Terrorists ramp up efforts against any vector they've f…
> 1) Yes, child abduction/predation is unlikely ... because we've adopted a huge number of countermeasures that close of this vector. That doesn't (by itself) mean you can just stop doing those measures and act like the risk is still low. There is no reason to think that the elasticity of crime is enormous and in ranges like 10 or 100. You can see this just by considering the tight range of crime across the US, and t…
Yes, there is -- people are fickle like that. Society often leaves methaphorical unlocked doors for a long time, that no one thinks to enter through -- but then once it becomes "a thing", you're an easy target if you don't secure it.
Do you lock your (literal) doors? If so, then I guess you must have mistaken beliefs about crime rates and the elasticity of crime with respect to door-bypass-difficulty?
See also my reply to dragonwriter https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12346586
She's had the police and the neighborhood watch called repeatedly because our children were playing in our own yard.
It's not a world I recognize and I'm increasingly disturbed by people's strange ideas about children.