New Low in Parenting Trends: Free Range Kids

[Glass Cowcatcher]

To clarify, I was referring to purposely choosing the child. And while I find the thought of a carjacking with a child completely horrific, the difference to me is that in all the cases I've heard of no harm is done to the child and they're back with their parents quickly. In a stereotypical kidnapping direct harm to the child is the entire point and they don't come home as often (though "stereotypical kidnappings" add up to something like 115 a year, so incredibly rare).

No physical harm, guarantee they have beaucoup emotional harm. All of which, unlike in a "stereotypical" kidnapping, could have been prevented if the parents had acted responsibly.

[cindyluvs24]

Quote:

Readers — Get a load of this. For their senior trip, some students from a Philly high school went to Williamsburg, VA for four days. When eight of them got into trouble for causing plumbing damage in a hotel bathroom, they were sent home, on a train. So can you guess what the problem is, according to the media (and livid parents)?

These “children†(aged 17 and 18, I presume) were on the train “unchaperoned!†For five whole hours! And, of course, “Anything could have happened!†as one mom predictably lamented.

You know what? Something DID happen. They screwed up and got sent home. But being on a train with your friends in your later teen years is NOT an unacceptable risk — because it isn’t a risk at all. It’s no big deal! Treating it like it’s the equivalent of sending a three-year-old on a solo cross-country Greyhound trip MAY be the reason the kids were such jerks at the hotel: They’re used to being treated like babies.

Let’s hear it for the school that is not caving in. Instead, it is pointing out the students signed a contract before the trip that said they could be sent home if they got in trouble. And they did and they were. Without a chaperone. Imagine that. – L.

Um, hello? The kids were sent home because they were misbehaving. The didn't act well in the presence of their chaperones, why exactly do they think that they are going to behave well on the train?

I can't speak for VA but the train system where I live has had several violent incidents, including one where a group of teenagers killed a young man about their age by pushing him off the platform and he was hit by a train, so I do not think letting kids travel alone would be safe.

True, but there's a difference between trashing a hotel room (crime against property) and throwing a kid off of a train (crime against person.) If the kids were on their way home, they were probably mulling over the fact that they got busted and they suck at being rebels without a cause. I think they would have behaved for 5 hours. If not, Amtrak would acquaint them with having the cops meet them at the next stop and being taken into custody. If they had been real delinquents, the school would not have let them go on the trip to begin with. If I had paid the $ for my kid to go on the trip and he screwed it up, he would have detrained well in advance of being picked up by my husband or myself. But then again, I'm from a more unenlightened age.

[Mama Mia]

I can not imagine how kids who are so over-protected that they can't even ride the bus or a train until they are practically adults can possibly be expected to function as adults able to make their own decisions. How does someone go from being supervised 24/7 at 16 to living independently at 20 ? Where is the gradual, normal growth of decision making capability come in ?

And I call bullshit on kids only being safe in previous generations because it was one big Leave it to Beaver world where everyone knew everyone else and watched out for each other. Growing up in the early 70's in a quiet subdivision my parents knew the names of maybe two of the neighbors. I still managed to survive taking care of myself after school when my parents were at work, or playing outside until it was dark, or taking the bus across town to my grandmothers at 8ish ... omg all alone !

People are just terrified of every little thing now because they have 24 hour news and the internet to make them think that there is a predator lurking in ever corner.

Ridiculous.

[BelieveinScience]

I can not imagine how kids who are so over-protected that they can't even ride the bus or a train until they are practically adults can possibly be expected to function as adults able to make their own decisions. How does someone go from being supervised 24/7 at 16 to living independently at 20 ? Where is the gradual, normal growth of decision making capability come in ?

And I call bullshit on kids only being safe in previous generations because it was one big Leave it to Beaver world where everyone knew everyone else and watched out for each other. Growing up in the early 70's in a quiet subdivision my parents knew the names of maybe two of the neighbors. I still managed to survive taking care of myself after school when my parents were at work, or playing outside until it was dark, or taking the bus across town to my grandmothers at 8ish ... omg all alone !

People are just terrified of every little thing now because they have 24 hour news and the internet to make them think that there is a predator lurking in ever corner.

Ridiculous.

From what I've seen they can't. In college all my friends had to call their parents 24/7 for everything, ask their parents if they approved of such and such event or them taking such and such classes, having parents come and do their laundry for them, having them call to wake them up for classes. I'm one of the very few people who graduated and said I want to move anywhere I can get a job. Where everyone else I came in contact with at school said they wanted to stay within XX miles of their parents. They're babied. I flew on a plane when I was 15/16 by myself and to boot it was my first time flying period. I don't see that as any different than throwing teens on a train to go home.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Teenagers riding on trains in groups, where they are probably known to the train staff an other passengers, is IMO a lot different than a 6-year-old riding alone.

It's Tokyo. Trust me, they don't know all the other passengers, never mind the train staff. They're in crowds so packed they can barely shut the doors.

[theologygeek]

Um, hello? The kids were sent home because they were misbehaving. The didn't act well in the presence of their chaperones, why exactly do they think that they are going to behave well on the train?

I can't speak for VA but the train system where I live has had several violent incidents, including one where a group of teenagers killed a young man about their age by pushing him off the platform and he was hit by a train, so I do not think letting kids travel alone would be safe.

These kids were 17 and 18 years old. They are old enough to travel alone. 17 and 18 year olds live away at college and are on their own. It sounds like their parents didn't teach them how to behave when away from home.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

What I find interesting though is that while so many people apparently think kids can't ride the train alone or do various other ordinary errands and need looking after 24/7, the moment a kid gets in some disagreement at school instantly it has to be an adult police matter (and there are police IN the schools even). It's like this weird double standard.

Product safety though, yeah, can totally get behind that. I do not understand the nostalgia for "Bag O' Glass!" and the like.

[AmyP]

I can not imagine how kids who are so over-protected that they can't even ride the bus or a train until they are practically adults can possibly be expected to function as adults able to make their own decisions. How does someone go from being supervised 24/7 at 16 to living independently at 20 ? Where is the gradual, normal growth of decision making capability come in ?

And I call bullshit on kids only being safe in previous generations because it was one big Leave it to Beaver world where everyone knew everyone else and watched out for each other. Growing up in the early 70's in a quiet subdivision my parents knew the names of maybe two of the neighbors. I still managed to survive taking care of myself after school when my parents were at work, or playing outside until it was dark, or taking the bus across town to my grandmothers at 8ish ... omg all alone !

People are just terrified of every little thing now because they have 24 hour news and the internet to make them think that there is a predator lurking in ever corner.

Ridiculous.

YES! 1000X This! I remember the day that I took deep breath, opened the back door, and released my children. Kids need controlled environments where they can exercise some independence WITHOUT an adult there to tell them what to do. And I would certainly hope that my child would be able to ride a train at 17. I went to college when I was 17. Some of my kids friends cannot walk down the church hallway from one class to another without mom hovering right there to make sure everything is "ok" for the 50 meters between classes. Parents of 9 year olds who have to be right outside the choir room, their kid can't walk up a flight of stairs and meet mom in the lobby. Anything could happen on that flight of stairs surrounded by other kids and parents!!!111!!11!!!

[CanadianHippie]

These kids were 17 and 18 years old. They are old enough to travel alone. 17 and 18 year olds live away at college and are on their own. It sounds like their parents didn't teach them how to behave when away from home.

They aren't capable of behaving as adults when they have supervision, why the hell would you think they could behave alone. Chances are these are kids who's parents never let them age past childhood.

[theologygeek]

People are just terrified of every little thing now because they have 24 hour news and the internet to make them think that there is a predator lurking in ever corner.

Ridiculous.

The damn media is always trying to instill fear and make people a bunch of nervous wrecks.

[AmyP]

From what I've seen they can't. In college all my friends had to call their parents 24/7 for everything, ask their parents if they approved of such and such event or them taking such and such classes, having parents come and do their laundry for them, having them call to wake them up for classes. I'm one of the very few people who graduated and said I want to move anywhere I can get a job. Where everyone else I came in contact with at school said they wanted to stay within XX miles of their parents. They're babied. I flew on a plane when I was 15/16 by myself and to boot it was my first time flying period. I don't see that as any different than throwing teens on a train to go home.

Did you recently graduate? Watching the way kids are raised these days I am not surprised.

Kids are supervised every second of their lives, and then we expect that they will be able to make decisions on their own? When I was 5, my friend and I played at the creek behind her house ALONE. Her mom could see us from the kitchen window, and the water was shallow- these were not rushing rapids with an undertow of any kind- but we were unsupervised. We ran in a pack up and down that creek and all over the neighborhood. We played in the woods. You know what, stuff happened to us. We had to make decisions, we had to use our judgement and decide if something was dangerous or not. We knew that there was no one there to make decisions for us and tell us what to do. We had to remember what we were told and trust our instincts. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

[BelieveinScience]

Did you recently graduate? Watching the way kids are raised these days I am not surprised.

Kids are supervised every second of their lives, and then we expect that they will be able to make decisions on their own? When I was 5, my friend and I played at the creek behind her house ALONE. Her mom could see us from the kitchen window, and the water was shallow- these were not rushing rapids with an undertow of any kind- but we were unsupervised. We ran in a pack up and down that creek and all over the neighborhood. We played in the woods. You know what, stuff happened to us. We had to make decisions, we had to use our judgement and decide if something was dangerous or not. We knew that there was no one there to make decisions for us and tell us what to do. We had to remember what we were told and trust our instincts. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Yep, recent graduate. I ran around my neighborhood with a group of friends all the time, barefoot, even. It was normal! And I remember being in elementary school and playing hide and go seek on fridays/saturdays in the middle of the night! (My childhood was in a different state than the one I went to college in so I don't know if theres ad ifference in parenting philosophies based on the area you grew up in or not)

[AmyP]

They aren't capable of behaving as adults when they have supervision, why the hell would you think they could behave alone. Chances are these are kids who's parents never let them age past childhood.

Yes- sometimes you actually have to allow children to (gasp) make a bad decision, and then suffer the consequences. Otherwise some kids never believe that any of their precious ideas and decisions could ever be wrong.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

They aren't capable of behaving as adults when they have supervision, why the hell would you think they could behave alone. Chances are these are kids who's parents never let them age past childhood.

Exactly. The problem isn't that they are 17 and 18 and on a train (This is Kosher per Amtrak rules, I got curious and checked the site,)it's that they were caught defacing property while they were on a school trip, then sent home with no adult present to make sure that they didn't do it again.

[PennySycamore]

YES! 1000X This! I remember the day that I took deep breath, opened the back door, and released my children. Kids need controlled environments where they can exercise some independence WITHOUT an adult there to tell them what to do. And I would certainly hope that my child would be able to ride a train at 17. I went to college when I was 17. Some of my kids friends cannot walk down the church hallway from one class to another without mom hovering right there to make sure everything is "ok" for the 50 meters between classes. Parents of 9 year olds who have to be right outside the choir room, their kid can't walk up a flight of stairs and meet mom in the lobby. Anything could happen on that flight of stairs surrounded by other kids and parents!!!111!!11!!!

Well said, AmyP and Mrs S2004!

My daughter was just lamenting that her little girl would never get to play in the creek that she and her best friend played in so often. Of course, she doesn't live in our neighborhood anymore, but it was more than just that. That sort of thing just isn't done now. My girls played outside all the time. Kids nowadays don't play outside and the playgrounds are empty.

[Conuly]

No it isn't. What you described is almost always why kids end up dying in the hot car. Mom or dad assumes that it isn't hot enough outside to get dangerous inside, or that they'll only be inside for a few minutes, or that the kid will know when it's "too hot." They don't, and then the kid dies and the parents are usually prosecuted.

Actually, the vast majority of kids who die in cars (and there are only about 50 so cases in the US every year - tragic, but not exactly an epidemic) are children who are forgotten in cars, not children whose parents left them there knowingly.

Nearly all of them are infants and toddlers. Nobody thinks an infant or toddler will know when it's too hot.

Teenagers riding on trains in groups, where they are probably known to the train staff an other passengers, is IMO a lot different than a 6-year-old riding alone.

Well, Lenore's kid was 9, which is legal in NYC (the MTA rules say 8 years old to ride alone). From what I've heard, in Japan the six year olds get themselves to and from school as well, even on the train. And really, as I said at the time, within two years he'd be expected to take the train alone to get to and from school. School bus service stops in the 6th grade here.

What I don't like about this blog is this attitude, the "Just because I did something dangerous/my kid did something dangerous and lived means that it is NEVER dangerous, at all."

I've been commenting there a long time. The general attitude of the people there is usually more along the lines of "A simple understanding of the risk shows that it's not that risky in my situation and with my kid, so I'm going to do it."

The fact is, people do things every day that are riskier than letting your kid play outside without you sitting there, or letting them go to school with a friend instead of with you. For one thing, they get into cars and drive around. That is THE leading cause of death among all Americans, especially children. But people don't think of it as particularly dangerous because they're used to it.

If you don't think bad things happen, please take a minute one day to see how many registered sex offenders are in your city.

I've done that.

Fun fact: The list looks big and scary until you study it in detail and realize that most of them didn't do one thing to a child. They might be a risk to me or my teenage neighbor (and at least the NY lists are reasonably managed and only include actual rapists, which is not the case in all areas!), but the local schoolkids are perfectly safe.

Funner fact: Local police departments are slow to remove people from the list if they move out of town. Apparently it's just easier to leave them on there, inaccurate though it is. After all, it's better that people are scared. (I've actually seen a cop say this.)

Um, hello? The kids were sent home because they were misbehaving. The didn't act well in the presence of their chaperones, why exactly do they think that they are going to behave well on the train?

They weren't children. At 17 and 18 years old, if they'd chosen to walk off and take the train without getting permission at all, there's not much the school could've done about it. Maybe chased down the 17 year olds, but the 18 year olds could've skipped town and joined the army and nobody could've stopped them. You're basically arguing that people who are adults need constant supervision.

I do not want my kids to go around eating food, without permission because 1. they make an ungodly mess! 2. i want them to learn healthy eating habits, stick to a general meal schedule, and not satisfy food cravings at a whim and 3. we have a budget! Nothing about lack of independence here.

If your ten year old is not allowed to eat food without permission I would say, in fact, that you are inhibiting his or her independence. We're not talking toddlers here. If a typically developing ten year old can't eat a slice of banana bread without "making an ungodly mess", there is definitely something wrong.

you cannot beat around the bush: no matter how rare abductions actually are, supervising young children laxly makes it more likely that they are going to be abducted.

The numbers could outright triple or quadruple and they still would be vanishingly rare. As it is, a child born today literally is 2x as likely to be struck by lightning than to ever be abducted by a stranger. And most stranger abductions do not happen to young children but to teens and pre-teens.

Yeah it's a fat lot of good those survival skills are going to do the kids if they can't find the phone to call 911.

YOUR phone is off in that scenario. Their phone is theoretically still functional. Five year old children call 911 every year because Mom or Dad got into a car crash or had a heart attack or is otherwise incapacitated.

"But previous generations did it!" is not a very strong argument.

How about "the rest of the world is okay with this"? The way many Americans supervise kids is not the norm. (Especially not when you're arguing that 18 year olds can't take a train home!)

Kids nowadays don't play outside and the playgrounds are empty.

Move to a mildly impoverished neighborhood. When people don't have money for video games or outside classes, their kids play outside. The playgrounds generally suck, though.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

Actually, the vast majority of kids who die in cars (and there are only about 50 so cases in the US every year - tragic, but not exactly an epidemic) are children who are forgotten in cars, not children whose parents left them there knowingly.

Nearly all of them are infants and toddlers. Nobody thinks an infant or toddler will know when it's too hot.

I do not buy the "forgot the child in the car" excuse for one second. The parent put them there. They will see the car seat every time they look in the rear view mirror. They will probably hear the kid talking and breathing. I think "Forgetting" The child is covering the ass for the kind of thinking I described in the OP then left them there, and the child died. Whatever the parent was thinking they are still directly, and solely, responsible for the child dying.

Teenagers riding on trains in groups, where they are probably known to the train staff an other passengers, is IMO a lot different than a 6-year-old riding alone.

Well, Lenore's kid was 9, which is legal in NYC (the MTA rules say 8 years old to ride alone). From what I've heard, in Japan the six year olds get themselves to and from school as well, even on the train. And really, as I said at the time, within two years he'd be expected to take the train alone to get to and from school. School bus service stops in the 6th grade here.

[mama_bear]

I think that the argument that we shouldn't allow kids to do X, Y or Z because it puts them at more risk of a crime is often carried too far. That a trade-off exists between raising children so that they will become independent adults and protecting them from possibilities of crime occurring. And other trade-offs as well-I find myself weighing whether having my daughter walk to and from school which is helpful in reducing her weight and thus health risks is worth having her walk in an area I'm not crazy about. The possibility of DS being exposed to a sex predator versus him gaining self-confidence from riding his bike. And then which is really more dangerous-having my kids walk down and play at the park together without me or wait in a car for a few minutes at the grocery store versus having them on soccer teams, in scouts or at a church when there have been cases of emotional, physical and sexual abuse in all of those instances? I think that each parent has to weigh the trade-offs that are important in their situation.

[dawbs]

I do not buy the "forgot the child in the car" excuse for one second. The parent put them there. They will see the car seat every time they look in the rear view mirror. They will probably hear the kid talking and breathing. I think "Forgetting" The child is covering the ass for the kind of thinking I described in the OP then left them there, and the child died. Whatever the parent was thinking they are still directly, and solely, responsible for the child dying.

*snip*

Educate yourself.

Because the more people who stupidly believe that it's not possible to forget a child in the car, the more people will believe it can't happen to them/feel it's a moral failure to take steps to prevent it (because, of course, only 'bad parents' would consider it possible to 'forget' the kid, eveyrone who says that is lying :shifty: )...which leads to more kids dying.

I don't necessarily agrree w/ the rest of what you wrote, but this is the one that I'm going to soapbox about and say people need to read stuff like this before they spout off ignorance;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 9030602446

[Sprocket]

I do not buy the "forgot the child in the car" excuse for one second. The parent put them there. They will see the car seat every time they look in the rear view mirror. They will probably hear the kid talking and breathing. I think "Forgetting" The child is covering the ass for the kind of thinking I described in the OP then left them there, and the child died. Whatever the parent was thinking they are still directly, and solely, responsible for the child dying.

Sorry, I have to disagree. There's a reason why parents are told to put their purse/briefcase/something of importance in the backseat when your child is in the car. I can't imagine forgetting my child is in the backseat, but it happens to parents with increasing regularity. Our lives are frantic but fogetting a sleeping baby in the backseat may sound foreign, but it happens. A quick google search of 'forgotten baby in car' pulled up 35,700,000 hits. I was trying to remember a story I had head about a dad forgetting to drop off his kid at daycare because it wasn't part of his normal routine -- in searching for it, I came up with a story and checked it against snopes. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/carbaby.asp The 7th name down was the story that I had read. It's called Forgotten Baby Syndrome, I believe.

Edited for clarity and to acknowledge cross-post.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

@ Sprocket and Dawbs-- I should have said, "I do not buy the "forgot the kid" as an [excuse] for leaving him in the car and letting him die."

Obviously it happens. Obviously these parents 'forget' the child is there, in the most literal sense, but that does not excuse that they let their child die. It's no different than the lady who's baby died in the tub while she was on Facebook. Leaving them in the car to die, no matter what went through the parent's mind or how the routine was different or how good of a parent they were before, is criminally negligent. Their responsibility was to ensure the child's safety, and they failed.

[Katiebug]

The reason why parents who do this are villified is that children die when they are left inside of cars: temperatures inside, even with the windows cracked, can get 15 or more degress hotter. What feels like moderately hot inside quickly gets to be life-threatening temperatures. It happens a couple of times each summer around where I live. Every one of these deaths is preventable.

What I don't like about this blog is this attitude, the "Just because I did something dangerous/my kid did something dangerous and lived means that it is NEVER dangerous, at all."

That's not the attitude of the blog at all, which you'd realize if you actually read it. Virtually all children who die in cars due to hyperthermia are infants and toddlers who die because a caregiver forgets they're in the car for an extended period of time. There's a huge difference between a babysitter forgetting a toddler in a hot car and a parent leaving an 8 year old in a locked and air-conditioned car for 5 minutes to run into a store to grab a gallon of milk. And yet people - including you - start clutching pearls if a parent dares to admit to the latter!

I personally wouldn't take my parenting to the extent of Lenore Skenazy but hers is a refreshing viewpoint in a world overrun with paranoid helicopter parents who have no sense of real risks. It makes no sense for hovering mommies to panic and think every single male in the world is out to molest/abduct/murder their child, only to load a 2 year old into a backless booster seat in the car. This sort of obsession over protecting children from absolutely ANYTHING is not only misguided and obsessive but leads to issues for both parents and kids (including adult children who've never had to do anything for themselves).

It's hard for me as a parent of a toddler to foresee a time when we don't have to supervise our kid constantly. The thought of her being 16 and driving a car scares me, and we have another 14 years before that will happen! But it's going to happen, and in general about all we can do is make sure we've raised her to have common sense and to know when to ask for help when she's in a potentially-hazardous situation. Of course I won't let a 3 year old run around outside unattended, but I also won't keep a 13 year old from walking down the block to a friend's house, either.

[Conuly]

I do not buy the "forgot the child in the car" excuse for one second. The parent put them there. They will see the car seat every time they look in the rear view mirror. They will probably hear the kid talking and breathing. I think "Forgetting" The child is covering the ass for the kind of thinking I described in the OP then left them there, and the child died. Whatever the parent was thinking they are still directly, and solely, responsible for the child dying.

Wrong. If you can forget your phone, you can forget your kid. If you can forget your wallet, you can forget your kid. If you can forget an extremely large and bulky bag of apples (sheesh...!) in the bookstore, you can forget your kid.

Especially if you're tired and there's been a change of routine, as is often the case. So if usually Mom takes the kid to daycare, but everybody was up late last night because of the new baby having colic and today Dad is taking the kid but the kid fell asleep in the backseat early on, it's not that hard for Dad to go on autopilot and automatically drive to work. I've done this walking to the store! I go out my house, start heading out in my normal direction and then halfway there remember I was supposed to go someplace else today and I need to backtrack.

I know of a woman who did just the opposite of forgetting her kid in the car - she normally dropped the younger kid off at daycare after the older one went to school, but one day she reversed it and when she dropped Older Kid off, taking two minutes to make sure he got in the door all right, and didn't see the toddler in the car she panicked and called the police. Two hours later they found him safe and sound at daycare...!

People get into routines and when they deviate from routines, mistakes happen. It's no coincidence that this sort of death went up (somewhat) after laws requiring children to ride in the backseat went into effect. Lots of people have stories about forgetting the kid in the car, in the high chair, at Grandma's. In nearly all these cases they remembered 5 minutes later and the kid was fine, so they put it out of their minds.

I will take my lumps on misreading 9 as 6, but 9 still seems young to me.

Well, you live in Texas. Your kid will be driving a car at 16. Our kids won't be driving a car until 18, if ever. (NYC law.) I think putting a teenager behind the wheel of a multi-ton killing machine is a lot crazier than letting a pre-teen take a train with a zillion witnesses.

Do you remember the thread where the troll claimed car seats were all a financial scam? It's not that people are blind to the danger. It is that for most people there is no viable alternative.

Gosh, we had one troll. Actually, we've had several, and just between you and me? I think LRH is nuts.

Unless you're going to claim that the internet fora of your pet causes are all agreement and kumbaya, I don't see the point.

Or do you just mean "Sure, cars are dangerous, but when we run a risk/benefit analysis we decide that being able to go places, even places where we don't need to go like the playground or amusement park or the movies or Grandma's house, offsets the huge risk of dying in a car accident?" Because if that's the case I think we have commonality! Letting your child walk to the store to pick up eggs carries a small risk of her getting hurt or abducted, but I think the benefit of having eggs and also of her learning to be a little more self-sufficient outweighs that. Letting your child take the train carries a small risk of him getting lost or hurt, but I think the advantage of learning to navigate and handle small disruptions while gaining self-confidence outweighs that small risk. Remember - her kid was statistically safer "alone" on the train than your kid is strapped in a car seat. Even if you don't forget him!

Her kids are 10, mine are less than half that age. What irked me was the idea that her kid having the courtesy to ask for seconds equates her being stunted by too many rules.

Like you said, your kids are less than half that age. If you're aiming for self-sufficiency, you're looking for them to think more and ask less. And let me assure you, by the time they're 10, even the best of us is tired of answering what are, frankly, often stupid questions. "Can I have some water?" Gee, kid, you know where both the cups and the sink are. CAN you have some water? Or are you just going to lie on the ground with your mouth open until the rain obliges you?

1. Abductions are not the only problem that can befall unsupervised kids.

2. Why allow the chances for the kid being a victim of any crime to increase?

1. No, but problems can befall supervised kids and adults as well. They need some practice and experience handling problems BEFORE we throw them out into the world. You obviously don't give a 3 year old the same freedom you give an 8 year old, nor a 5 year old the same freedom you give a 17 year old.

2. Interesting question. Let's get back to cars. Unless you're willing to tell me that you NEVER take your child in the car to ANY place that they don't absolutely HAVE to be, I will decline to answer this question.

You give me a good reason for needlessly increasing the chance of your child dying in a car accident (while you incidentally make the streets less safe for pedestrians, less safe for children to play outside, and less safe for asthmatics) and I'll see if that same reason applies to letting a child play outside, walk with a friend to school, or stay home for a short time while I make a trip to the store.

Of course, when children are victims of a crime it's almost always at the hands of their parents and caregivers. And somehow, I don't think supervising them more closely solves that little problem. Indeed, I think that no matter how much you love somebody, being constantly chained to their side is likely to increase stress and frustration, and thus increase chances for conflict and/or violence.

Limiting your child's contact with the outside world (because that IS the effect of them having to be with you while you cook dinner and clean house and pay the bills instead of being able to go out with friends) also limits the chance of being able to tell somebody if they're being abused. Indeed I can think of a few horrific incest cases where afterwards the neighbors all clucked that they knew something was wrong because the kid never played outside with the other local children.

Her phone. She talked about having the phone off and hidden, and did not mention having a land line.

She talked about her daughter calling her on the phone. I can only assume this means there was a second phone.

Playground in my neighborhood is well used.

I'm glad to hear that. Our neighborhood is terrible for playgrounds. Lots of multi-generational households, plenty of families that are now raising their children in the same home they grew up in (or, barring that, next door or across the street from the home they grew up in), no fewer than 5 elementary schools within 10 minutes walking distance of each other (and several more close by) and basically NO playgrounds. Pisses me off no end.

Edit:

Leaving them in the car to die, no matter what went through the parent's mind or how the routine was different or how good of a parent they were before, is criminally negligent. Their responsibility was to ensure the child's safety, and they failed.

Maybe. Is EVERY accidental death ultimately the result of criminal negligence? I worry that blaming and shaming parents just encourages fewer parents to think that it might happen to them and to look into ways to ensure it does NOT happen to them.

I personally wouldn't take my parenting to the extent of Lenore Skenazy but hers is a refreshing viewpoint in a world overrun with paranoid helicopter parents who have no sense of real risks. It makes no sense for hovering mommies to panic and think every single male in the world is out to molest/abduct/murder their child, only to load a 2 year old into a backless booster seat in the car. This sort of obsession over protecting children from absolutely ANYTHING is not only misguided and obsessive but leads to issues for both parents and kids (including adult children who've never had to do anything for themselves).

Well... I think sometimes she says deliberately extreme things for more hits. Which isn't a bad thing, per se, but it can be frustrating when you direct somebody to her blog on that day when she said something over the top! But other than the acerbic nature of the comments most of the commenters are reasonable. And we ALL chewed her out over carseats!

[Sprocket]

@ Sprocket and Dawbs-- I should have said, "I do not buy the "forgot the kid" as an [excuse] for leaving him in the car and letting him die."

Obviously it happens. Obviously these parents 'forget' the child is there, in the most literal sense, but that does not excuse that they let their child die. It's no different than the lady who's baby died in the tub while she was on Facebook. Leaving them in the car to die, no matter what went through the parent's mind or how the routine was different or how good of a parent they were before, is criminally negligent. Their responsibility was to ensure the child's safety, and they failed.

In order for there to be a crime, doesn't there have to be intent? Accidents happen.

[theologygeek]

They aren't capable of behaving as adults when they have supervision, why the hell would you think they could behave alone. Chances are these are kids who's parents never let them age past childhood.

Was the "you" generic, or were you asking me? If you were asking me why I thought they could behave alone, I don't think they could. Hence why I said that it sounded like their parents didn't teach them how to behave... Chronologically, 17 and 18 year olds are old enough to take the train unsupervised. I was disagreeing with the OP who said she did not think letting kids travel alone would be safe.