Man put on probation for making 8 year old walk 1 mile

[Maggie Mae]

I was forced to run a mile in school at that age. I WISHED someone would've called CPS at the time because in my opinion that was torture.

Actually, as an adult, I'd STILL consider it torture.

We weren't running for punishment though. It was some school requirement... Some sort of presidential competition thing?

And then, since the teacher didn't discover her stop watch broke, we had to run the mile AGAIN. I was PISSED.

You could have walked some of it. I did. It was 20 laps around the gym. If we had run outside, I might have enjoyed it more than just running in a circle. Now I love running and pay money to do it.

It was the Presidential Fitness Test. It's been replaced by the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which looks to be exactly the same. Only they claim it's less competitive, because you do an assessment and then work toward personal goals of improving your initial assessment. I don't see anything wrong with it, really, as keeping fit improves respiratory and cardiac health. I found it to be much less scary than team sports, because sit-ups, push ups, pull ups, and running are all things a person can do by themselves. And pretty much everyone at my school was reasonably fit so it wasn't a huge deal.

Personally, I enjoyed the PFT, because for one it meant we weren't picking teams. IIRC (and I remember way too much about everything), it was a mile run, then see how many sit-ups, pull-ups, and pushups you could do in a certain amount of time. Probably a minute. And then you wrote it down and compared it to your classmates and the national percentages of kids your age. Eventually, if your teacher wasn't a slacker that year, numbers and ages were sent in an you got a certificate "signed" by the president. I still have mine, because I'm a dork and thought it was actually signed by President Clinton.

[Trynn]

O think that either I was walking most of it, or the teacher wouldn't allow that as an option. I was too young to rember it well.

I don't have an issue with it being optional, but in general I have a problem with stuff like that being forced on kids. If you want them more physically active and fit, it just seems like here are better ways to do it...

To rebel, I purposely didn't even bother trying during those tests. When we were supposed to do pull-ups, I just hung from the monkey bars. I really couldn't do a pull up, but even if I could i still wouldn't have because the whole thing was stupid to me.

THey made me run my mile outdoors, and we STILL had to run around in circles.

[Phoenix]

It's a town with 2,000 people on Kauai. I think the most danger would be from the feral chickens.

I agree the whole situation was absurd. I would like to know what the neighbor has against the father involved because any sane neighbor in a small community with concerns would take the kid home and talk to the parents to find out what was going on, not take the kid back to school and call the police. :cray-cray:

Growing up in a safe suburb I walked three or four blocks each way starting in first grade. Middle school made it an eight block walk each way. So by 6th grade a touch over a mile and a half round trip each day. Not a big deal.

I remember those Presidential Fitness tests with hatred. I wasn't good at sports and I wasn't athletic although I was stick thin and not only did the mile and a half walk five days a week, but aqua-aerobics two or three mornings a week before school. So not a fat kid and not utterly unfit, just not coordinated or sporty.

I was forced to do that mile run in dress shoes which hurt like hell. Once my parents found out I needed them I had proper running shoes which put me on the shit list of one of my classmates because her parents couldn't buy her running shoes and she was a serious runner. I wasn't, so it wasn't fair I got quality running shoes and she didn't. That was fun. She managed as running got her through college on a scholarship.

Our PE teacher did not like me, even now I am not sure why. Part of the Presidential Fitness mandatory program was body mass measurements with calipers. The jerk took my measurements and then commented in front of the whole class that I needed to work on that. Stick thin, walked uphill a mile each day, did aqua-aerobics multiple times each week before school oh and ate like a health food aficionado since my Mom was about a decade ahead of everyone else in that arena. Seriously no pop, no chips, no sugar and all this jackass could do was tell me I was sub-par and humiliate me in front of my class. Whatever good intentions that program was launched with I considered it an utter failure. :angry-banghead:

[Onomatopoetikon]

I feel like the distance is probably not the issue here, rather the fact that the 8 year old was left alone walking next to a highway, likely upset because his dad had been strict with him.

I certainly would have found it weird if I drove past an 8 year old kid walking alone along a highway, crying, and would likely stop and wonder what was going on.

I walked to and from school regularly from about the age of 6, but that was in a residential area, with pavements and a smaller road.

Not saying the dad should be arrested, just that the whole article is told very much from his perspective, and he's glossing over some of those things.

[Mama Mia]

I don't have a problem with the dad having him walk, or with the neighbor picking him up if the kid was upset, or even with police or child services being called while they figured it out. I have a real problem with the dad being put on probation after it was explained what was going on.