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Old 04-01-2018, 10:07 AM
 
51,618 posts, read 25,681,640 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OttoR View Post
Good! Now maybe children can play outside without the parents being jailed!
So where are all these parents being jailed for their kids playing outside?

Links please.
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Old 04-01-2018, 10:08 AM
 
51,618 posts, read 25,681,640 times
Reputation: 37806
If you want "free range" parenting, move to Alaska. You aren't even required to educate you children there. A decade ago, a law was passed that you didn't have to register your children in school. No proof of homeschooling, no testing, nada is required. .

Your kids. You can raise them the way you want without pesky interference from the government.

Of course, if they grow up unable to read, write, add, or subtract, then government assistance may be needed. But until then, the pesky government has got no business telling you what parenting approach you practice.
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Old 04-01-2018, 10:50 AM
 
1,201 posts, read 798,965 times
Reputation: 3188
Quote:
Originally Posted by GotHereQuickAsICould View Post
So where are all these parents being jailed for their kids playing outside?

Links please.
I’m not going to spend all day searching but here is one - Mom Arrested for Letting Her 4-Year-Old Son Play 120 Feet from Home | PEOPLE.com

And another - https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/livin...ark/index.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/national...-alone/374436/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...lone/25700823/

https://thinkprogress.org/mother-arr...-64f123929663/

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/lif...alk-alone-law/
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Old 04-01-2018, 11:09 AM
 
423 posts, read 287,278 times
Reputation: 1389
In the 1960s mom used to let us kids (me being the oldest, 12) get on the bus and ride from Marin County into San Francisco and free range there. We ran wild. We went to the Zoo, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Planetarium. We would even get on city buses and go check out the Mission District (bums), Chinatown, Fisherman's Warf and the Fun House. We knew not to talk to strangers and get into cars. Hey, we all survived. I feel sorry for these kids with helicopter parents. Heck, kids don't even go outside anymore, they are stuck to their video games and their phones. What deprived childhoods.
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Old 04-01-2018, 11:33 AM
 
1,201 posts, read 798,965 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackberryMerlot View Post
In the 1960s mom used to let us kids (me being the oldest, 12) get on the bus and ride from Marin County into San Francisco and free range there. We ran wild. We went to the Zoo, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Planetarium. We would even get on city buses and go check out the Mission District (bums), Chinatown, Fisherman's Warf and the Fun House. We knew not to talk to strangers and get into cars. Hey, we all survived. I feel sorry for these kids with helicopter parents. Heck, kids don't even go outside anymore, they are stuck to their video games and their phones. What deprived childhoods.
Yes and it’s created a generation of kids with all kinds of issues and children incapable of basic common sense and streetsmarts and young adults I’ll-prepared for the real world. I have so many friends with young teens suffering from debilitating anxiety and panic attacks! Any kind of bump in the road is just too much for the, to cope with. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.ef2afc67a96a The world was a much more dangerous place when we were growing up but our parents taught us to use our brains. They also didn’t coddle us. I remember getting lost one time while out riding my bike around the city with my friend. We stopped at a store and they let me use the phone to call my mom. Her response was I was in a store, buy a map! Lol. That is exactly what I did and I got myself home about an hour later. She didn’t jump in the car to come rescue me. I also remember a man exposing himself to me in a classic trench coat style. Instead of shocking me or making me cry, I looked at it and told the man if my penis was no bigger than that, I would keep it in my pants instead of showing it off - he literally RAN away from me. My mother told all her friends that story. My mother worked full time and then some after I was 11 or 12 and we were expected to take care of ourselves until she got home. We roamed all over the neighborhood with friends! We had to call my mom once it was dark to prove we were back in the house.
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Old 04-01-2018, 11:35 AM
 
Location: Seattle Eastside
638 posts, read 527,587 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke View Post
I don't think letting the kids walk back and forth to school qualifies as free range parenting
I had a lady tell me my eight year old was too young to walk four blocks to the bus stop. I think she actually did call CPS and her complaint was dismissed because she was really forceful about it and then suddenly stopped. I don't care. I know CPS has bigger fish to fry and that I am allowed that discretion.

So apparently letting kids ride their bikes around the block and to school IS "free range".

I think it is a culture clash. Lots of people moving out west freaking out? Asian (not genetically but born and raised overseas) are the worst culprits in my neighborhood. I don't know how they do it in China but judging by our neighborhood and school tattletelling, mom drags you around by the hand until approximately 13 at which point you are reliably going to just go home.

We try to tell them, kids out here need to be tougher. They think there is some system to learn, one big test that they can shepherd kids towards in a hierarchical structure. But kids here need to learn to navigate chaos.
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Old 04-01-2018, 11:58 AM
 
Location: SW Florida
15,207 posts, read 10,238,419 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla View Post
I know several people who have been reported to CPS for their 10 year old playing at a nearby park in the daytime, or 12 year old walking home from school. Things like that. Since every report has to be investigated, no matter how trivial it might seem, then it is an issue for families. CPS will follow up on everything.

Ha! Except here in Florida. They are completely incompetent. I'm tired of reading about kids being murdered by their relatives because DCF (that's what it is called here) dropped the ball.
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Old 04-01-2018, 12:04 PM
 
371 posts, read 286,809 times
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The first link is a parent of a 4 yr old toddler who was playing in the playground adjacent their home.
The issues were....she had no contstant visual access to the child which you need at that age. Toddlers need to be supervised pretty much 24.7.

The other links are debatable. Some are just silly arrests that shouldn't have occurred. A child of 10 walking with their 6 year old brother around the neighborhood shouldn't be arrested UNLESS this went on for a long long time and was a regular occurrance. Meaning the kids were neglected. Kids need to get out and play without helicopter parents.

There truly are arrests for parents just allowing their children to play outside. It does happen

And of course CPS doesn't always follow up on everything they should
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Old 04-01-2018, 12:15 PM
 
1,201 posts, read 798,965 times
Reputation: 3188
Quote:
Originally Posted by ItIsWritten. View Post
The first link is a parent of a 4 yr old toddler who was playing in the playground adjacent their home.
The issues were....she had no contstant visual access to the child which you need at that age. Toddlers need to be supervised pretty much 24.7.

The other links are debatable. Some are just silly arrests that shouldn't have occurred. A child of 10 walking with their 6 year old brother around the neighborhood shouldn't be arrested UNLESS this went on for a long long time and was a regular occurrance. Meaning the kids were neglected. Kids need to get out and play without helicopter parents.

There truly are arrests for parents just allowing their children to play outside. It does happen

And of course CPS doesn't always follow up on everything they should
A 4 year old is not a “toddler”, the playground was 120 ft from the front door, and they live in a gated community. The child wasn’t dropped off at a sketchy city park while the mom had her nails done. And she is spot on, 50 years ago, or even 30 years ago, this would have been a non-issue (like an adult taking away a cell phone for misuse).
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Old 04-01-2018, 12:43 PM
 
10,196 posts, read 9,849,639 times
Reputation: 24135
I met a woman who had the police and then social services called on her because she left her 12 year old in a coffee shop (small safe city) so she could take her other child to a 1 hour appointment next door. She only gave the child enough money for a small hot chocolate because of food issues the child had (binge eating - trauma related).

A man also in there thought the girl was much younger (she does seem small for her age but not tiny and was reading a large novel) and she was asking for someone's left overs and said she didn't have any money. She also didn't have a phone because of misuse.

I see how someone could jump to conclusions but perhaps they could have talked to the girl and/or the staff who saw her there weekly and knew where her mom was (and told her mom she could use their phone to call her if she needed to). But they didn't.

You would think social services would have cleared it quickly, but they insisted on talking to everyone involved, the therapists etc she saw, and really humiliated the family and made them terrified they could lose custody. Maybe social services took it more seriously because they were foster parents as well?

Anyways, months later after the social worker "counseled" them, they closed the case. But it was "founded" and now I know the family is very afraid of any calls on them.

I live in the same community and let my 12 year old do all sorts of things on his own (stay home for short periods, hang out at the library, walk to the store a mile away). Just got my fingers crossed some overly paranoid person doesn't cause problems.

Man when I was 12, I swear, all I had to do was be home for meals (if I wanted to eat them) and be home by curfew, which was 9pm or later. I rode the bus all over, I went to friend's houses and hung out, I went to movies, stores, coffee shops, McDonalds, walked miles some days. All my friends did too. There wasn't a second thought. Parents who didn't let their kids roam were the ones who were thought of as weird. And I am not *that old* LOL
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