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I hope that the neighbor was spoken to also by the police. The police should be called when the child is in danger. This is clearly not the case the child was taken back to the house which the concerned neighbor knew where the child lived. The police have better things to do then to go to house and tell a parent how to parent or what the child's liberties are.
As for the mom in the story she says she is humiliated. I would be humiliated putting it out there for everyone to judge. I personally would have went over to the concerned neighbor and confronted them. It was not a very Christian how the concerned neighbor acted. The child was not in harm, there were no indications to warrant a call to the police. Think about it in this way if the child was concerned they could have watched out the window and just kept an eye on the child and did a good dead without having to call attention to their good dead.
If I were that mom I would have told CPS that I need a lawyer present for any questioning of my children to make sure their rights were not infringed on. Don't know if I could do this but since the law was called in without my consent I would make sure the law was there when it was my turn. Also, I would put a restraining order on the concerned neighbor not to be able to come within 500 ft of my residence or kids. I would be very vengeful because of the stress it caused my kids with the questioning not myself but in the large world this is small. Too bad those concerned neighbors couldn't go to the hospitals and volunteer their time where it would be appreciated by the sick children.
Six years old is too young to be left alone. If you have a fenced in yard, and you are watching from inside that is different. Near where I live an 8 year old was just found murdered after leaving home alone to walk a small distance away. It would be great if the world was a safe place, but it is not.
Also, I would put a restraining order on the concerned neighbor not to be able to come within 500 ft of my residence or kids. I would be very vengeful because of the stress it caused my kids with the questioning not myself but in the large world this is small. Too bad those concerned neighbors couldn't go to the hospitals and volunteer their time where it would be appreciated by the sick children.
Well then you'd better not plan on your kids playing by themselves unsupervised in a public park almost 500 feet away. Because you'd never know who was near them, restraining order or not. Which was kind of the neighbor's point.
This child was not being watched by anyway - the mom already confirmed that in her own version. She could see the bench from her house, but not when she was inside not looking, completely unaware of what was going on.
This child was approached by a stranger, talked to that stranger, accompanied that stranger out of the park. It's a good thing that the worst thing that happened here was that the stranger walked the child home and reported the incident to the police.
Anyone who thinks that is more awful than some of the other possibilities is pretty naive IMO. Yes, kids can play alone. But there are reasonable, age-based limits for what is appropriate and what's right for a 10 year old may not be right for a 6 year old. An unsupervised child that far from home at that age is something that many people find potentially problematic. Things never would have gotten as far as they did if the police and CPS didn't also find potential concerns given the circumstances.
If the child was taken or ended up injured because he was viewed as target of opportunity, how would the mom have felt...
I was raised in very rural central Texas--my sister and I were allowed a great deal of autonomy and frequently rambled around the area w/o having an adult--and COULD have had all kinds of problems (I sat on a fallen tree one time and had a copperhead snake coiled up beside me)...
and I know that children living in urban environment in the decades I grew up--50 & 60s--were also probably given more freedom...but times are different...
The neighbor might have been unduly obtrusive--
what if she had just called the police regarding a "lost child" and didn't get personally involved??? The police likely would have taken the child home and cautioned the mother--
but they TOO might have called CPS--
who knew if the mom was even home until the child was returned???
there are many stories in the news from time to time of parents who leave small children home w/o supervision (except for maybe an older child) and there are terrible accidents...
If you want your child to learn to be self sufficient there are better ways than letting him play alone on the side of a city street 400 feet from your house...
The child was not alone the daughter was out there and had left. In this case it could have been handled better on both parties part. Know your neighbors and their kids and be neighborly. The park is close to the house the children should be able to play there.
I am not an advocate for leaving a child alone in the park in no means if you look at previous posts, however, children need to be able to be trusted for a certain period of time unsupervised and not be afraid of being able to play out in a park. I have been in parks, public pools etc where the parent is there but is not. They are playing/talking on the cell phone, talking to other parents and not aware of their surroundings. Which one is worst?
The good neighbor I guess wanted more from the mom since she called the police. If she was concerned only about the child then the child was returned to the parent and was not harmed, period, why call the police and waste their time. There were other motives by this good neighbor.
As for the CPS being involved anytime an issue with a child is called into police the CPS has to come out and follow up. In this case the questions that CPS asked "My eight year old was very concerned about the questions that were asked, like had she seen people's private parts or those types of movies, and those are things she had not really thought of or known existed,' this line of questioning was uncalled for by CPS, if a lawyer was present this line of questioning would have never happened. This is the reasoning for a restraining order against that good neighbor, the government and the neighbor took away the child's innocence.
couple of points--and I am sure they have been made before--
1--if the mother entrusted the younger child into the older's care and she stopped being "responsible" (although I think it is laziness to have an 8 yr old supervise a 6 yr old sibling in that way) then the mother obviously wasn't aware of what was going on...she had NO CLUE the child was there...
2--CPS gets calls every day regarding "suspicious" circumstances--
based on coming to the incident so far after the original occurance they are tasked with finding out if THIS incident is symtomatic of other levels of "abuse"--
maybe the person who did it was heavy-handed, maybe the mom has something to feel guilty for...
CPS is usually condemned because they have been too ineffective in sniffing out serious child abuse in situations and preventing harm to children...maybe this person/agency wanted to ensure there were no other issues that might be harmful...
3--LAZY parenting can often cloak itself in various politically correct descriptions--
I would guess this wasn't the first time the mother allowed those children out of the home w/o a specific destination in mind and w/o supervision...
I would never have allowed my kids to play in a park unsupervised (w/o an adult there) even if it was 100 ft from my house...
I did allow my kids to play outside in my yard or in neighbor's yard WITH other children when adults were nearby--
in that same neighborhood in the early 80s--so pretty far back--a young girl playing in HER yard with her mom in the house was taken from the front yard by guy in a car--
luckily he dropped her off w/o any physical harm at shopping area just outside the neighborhood--MAINLY because her older brother was able to get the license plate of the car and they called the county sheriff right away---
THAT situation was totally different from this one because there was NO ONE really there to see if that child was taken by someone like the guy in the car
It is certainly possible that THIS CHILD could have been picked up by a predator--
he just wasn't...
DON"T let children under 12 be basysitters--that is the LEGAL age in TX someone can be left to babysit a younger child and the parent is absolved of responsibility...
IMO a lot depends on the 12 yr old when making that choice and the situation/age of the younger child(ren) left to be watched...
DON"T leave children unsupervised in open/public areas--
DO teach your children NOT TO GO WITH STRANGERS!!!
that child obviously wasn't taught that--would likely have gone with anyone who came by...
Don't assume that because something like this has happened w/o problems in the past that it is not a dangerous precedent...
I grew up in East Texas on a Methodist church camp of some 800 acres with an 80 acre lake. When Mama said, "Don't leave the yard," that's what she meant. When I was 5, I had about 40 snakes in jars in my back yard, because whenever the campers found a snake in a cabin, Daddy would go get it and put it in a jar so that I could learn which ones that I could pick up and which ones I couldn't. ("This is a king snake. That is a coral snake. That is a rattlesnake.") When I was 8 I announced to my mother that I was going to hike around the lake (surrounded by woods), and I did, all by myself. Some of the most vibrant memories of my childhood are from that walk - the beautiful mushroom growing out of the side of a rotten log, glowing red in the shade, the great blue heron in the water at the base of a couple of pine trees, with a snowy egret in the top of the tree. It was a difficult hike, but I still remember how tired I was and the profound feeling of accomplishment afterwards. It was expected that I would wander and explore my world as part of growing up.
I also remember helping to fight a forest fire. Given that we moved from there when I was ten, I had to be younger than that, though I don't remember my exact age.
I was taught to shoot a .22 rifle at age 8 (I was a bit behind my peers in this).
There were thousands of people coming through that camp every year, so it's not like there wasn't the human element to consider.
My parents were the furthest from neglectful or abusive that can be imagined. They judged my abilities accurately, and let me stretch them appropriately. If anything, my childhood was TOO idyllic.
Some of you here would be assuming the worst. That is such a sad thing, for the children.
How about--mind your own business. That mother's child, it is HER child, it isn't your child, or CPS' child, or society's child, it is HER child. She should have practically zero accountability to anyone with respect to how she parents her child, and her authority should be just the tiniest eyelash short of 100% absolute. She should be able to look at the police and CPS both and say "my child, my business, now leave me alone" and slam the door in their face. Unless she's locking her child up in a basement, passing her around to every known pervert like a bowl of bread in a restaurant, or burning her with a cow prod, she's untouchable. I think any of us, and that includes me, could understand some involvement in such extreme cases.
Lacking that, she doesn't need anyone butting their Pinocchio-sized nose into her private business--in fact, if I had my way, people who can't mind their own business would be subject to harassment charges. There would be real and tangible ramifications for sticking your nose in other people's business. You aren't being "concerned" at that point, you're being a meddling busybody, and frankly, I'd rank such a person just the tiniest bit above the likes of a North Korean dictator.
Wow. It sounds like you have some anger issues. No one said the child wasn't the mother's child. There's that saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Are people just supposed to ignore everyone else? Well, that would make society wonderful!
Children do wander off. Myself and my sister used to wander off quite often. One time our dad was watching the little kids and my sister walked across a highway and was walking down a riverbank. A person driving down our street saw her and grabbed her before she got too close to the water. They brought her to our house. I thought my mother was going to kill my father. This was 30+ years ago so calling the police wasn't as prominent as it is today. Without someone sticking their "Pinocchio-sized nose" into what my sister was doing she would have died because she would have drowned!
As for the mom in the story she says she is humiliated. I would be humiliated putting it out there for everyone to judge.
I always love how the "humiliated" run to the media and have their face plastered all over the tv and newspaper. Apparently, they're not that humiliated.
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