It's “Take Our Children to the Park and Leave Them There Day”

So, DU Parents, what'dyado with your kid free time today? :)

Leave Your Children at the Park and Your Paranoia at Bay
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darell-hammond/leave-your-children-at-th_b_583251.html

It's “Take Our Children to the Park and Leave Them There Day”
http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/22/its-take-our-children-to

And the site that started the whole thing:
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/

I hope great fun was had by all!

:hi:

Child of the 60s here, and yes, I would disappear with friends for hours at a time, but this is a much different day and age.

This day and age is a very safe day and age. We have to stop the letting the media use fear to make us believe otherwise.

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2009/05/04/free_range_kids

:hi:

but don't think if my kids were little I would do it.

But, statistically speaking, they would be just as safe as at any time in the childhood of any current parent, no matter how old the parent.

I grew up in the '60s. I was exploring my neighborhood when I was 4, riding my bicycle around the school area at 5, and at 8 I had ridden my bicycle to the next town, 7 miles away.

But in the 40+ years since then...
The town has grown from a small community of a few thousand to 50,000 now. The population of the town was pretty much local then, now it is mostly transient. The two-lane country highway that I took to ride to the next town is now a 4-lane thoroughfare that carries more traffic in a day than the old highway carried in a month. The police report page in the newspaper in the old days might have something about a shoplifting incident, or a DWI, but today it's filled with all sorts of crimes, including reports of missing kids. People in the neighborhoods back then would look after each other's kids, but today neighbors often don't know each other, or even want to know each other. It's just not the same as it was back then, in that town at least.

But crime rates, accident rates etc... for the nation indicate that things are not more dangerous.

They wanted to make a statement, a statement that no president since has had the courage to make--that public schools in our nations capital are good and that the children who go there are worthy. Bravo to Jimmy and Rosalynn for putting their money (and their child) where their mouth is!

You just "think" its different now, with the 24/7 news/fear cycle. Just as many pedophiles existed back then.

Media paranoia has convinced people otherwise, but this is a very safe time to be a child.

Today's children are just as safe disappearing for hours with friends, if their parents let them --mMaybe even safer since so many parents are giving their kids cellphones with GPS trackers.

Is an outdated one -- it's not the person who your kid meets in the park for the first time that's usually the danger.

It's the person who meets the kid in the park, talks to them, gains their trust, learns about them, perhaps even learns about problems in the family or the child's fears/dislikes, and then uses that opportunity. Or the person they meet on the 'Net that does the same thing. You ever read about what happened to Kacie Woody here in my home state? She wouldn't have gone off with some adult she met the first time.... but if the person who killed her had befriended her IRL instead of just online, when he showed up at her house she might have gone willingly, and with their online friendship she had felt comfortable enough to give him enough information to find her.

The abduction of Morgan Nick, also from my home state, was a classic "stranger danger" situation -- and I admire Colleen Nick's efforts to teach parents basic safety lessons and also publicizing the "home DNA kit" strategy so that if a child is ever abducted that they have a good shot of having access to the child's nuclear DNA instead of just working off of mitochondrial DNA for identification (or trying to compare to a parent -- it lessens the probability of getting a conclusive match if there's not a complete DNA profile available from the remains). But the stranger pulling a kid into his truck in a ballpark is a rarer situation than the stranger who befriends the kid in the ballpark and makes them trust them first.

While I realize that part of what they said was just statistics when discussing runaways -- yeah, it's true, half of the kids reported missing that year were classified as runaways, they left willingly -- statements like that bother me on a different level. It's because it seems like they are minimizing the danger to teens who run away from home, or that finding runaway kids is less important than finding kids who were victims of classic non-family abduction.

Runaway and "throwaway" (when the parents kick them out) kids are *extremely* vulnerable. For many years police put these cases on the back burner, sometimes not even taking missing person's reports, or taking the report but not making any effort to catalog the reports or find the kids. Runaways are a hell of a lot more likely to end up in the morgue as John and Jane Does than many people realize, and if police haven't given those cases priority to make sure they get into NCIC or other databases the kids are not likely to be IDed when they show up in the morgue. Forced prostitution, "white slavery", etc, are not urban myths.

Take, for instance, what happened to Tawni Lee Mazzone five days after she ran away from home.

http://www.abc15.com/content/news/investigators/story/Maricopa-Jane-Doe-identified-after-9-years/hRX1lRcYNUumbMD_eDXQEA.cspx



It took nine years to ID her. Runaways are in just as much danger of imminent death as victims of non-family abductions. And it's sad as hell that they are minimized in statistics like these, even if the purpose is to reassure parents that it's not likely that a boogeyman is going to abduct them out of a park at gunpoint.

... develop independence. At this point in the history of fearful parents, they need to know the reality of what they fear, and so those pieces of the puzzle need to be shown, IMO.

... is less likely to have as good of instincts about bad situations as a kid who has had more exposure to the world.

If all parents had to fear was "stranger danger" it'd be a lot easier to protect their kids. Just tell them not to get in cars with strangers, supervise their play at all times, etc. But the reality of what they have to fear is actually a lot worse than just the dirty old man with lollipops. It's the Cub Scout leader. The family friend. The nice man who plays tennis in the park every day after school lets out. The Little League coach. And that's leaving out relatives who are so fond of their nieces and nephews.

Kids aren't the only ones who get fooled into trusting them -- parents do as well. I know this from personal experience.

In 1992, I was 12 and my dad gave me a 1200 baud modem for my birthday. He really had no idea what it did, just knew that it was computer equipment so he thought I'd be able to use it. I started calling local BBSes (Prodigy was expensive, they were free). Most of the people on there were adults -- I was apparently the first "juvie" in our city to start calling them, although more were to come (as it was said once, "many many many more"). Mom was totally clueless. When I was first invited to a BBS party she was a little worried and came with me, but she was reassured when she met the people I was talking to and left me completely unsupervised after that. I had one bad experience when I called a BBS that was apparently an adult one -- I entered my real birthday into the registration, as well as my address and phone number. The SysOp was watching and thought it was someone who was trying to create a duplicate account, so took over the console and directed me straight to a porn section. I disconnected the session, and my phone rang. When I answered, the dude heard my voice and said "You really are 12?" "Yes..." "Don't call here again little girl." Another guy seemed nice and even came over to my house to load some software onto my computer, but I stopped talking to him when he said he wanted to take some pictures of me.

But one guy seemed very nice. He was my sister's age -- 21. I was starting my own BBS and he helped me with getting things set up... I learned how to program batch files for door programs and the Fidonet front door. He treated me like a little sister. His family had money and he bought a 9600 baud modem for the BBS. He came over to my house a lot and was friendly to my mom, always willing to do small chores that were easier for a man to do -- mow the lawn, move furniture, etc, since our family was all female. He would pick me up from school and take me to get my allergy shots, which my mom really appreciated since she had been having to take off work early on those days to do it before. He took me to band practice and came to concerts even when my mother couldn't. He said he had a girlfriend who lived out of state, who had a lot of health problems, and he said his family didn't like her much. When he met my sister he was interested in her, and asked her to be his escort for his dad's office's Christmas party. She went with him, but when he said he was interested in more, she told him she wouldn't date someone who was attached. Two weeks later, he called me in tears. His girlfriend had died. And his parents didn't want to let him go to her funeral -- his car was in their name and they refused to let him drive it there. My mother offered her car to him for the trip -- by this time, Mom saw him like a son.

By the time I'd known him for a year, I trusted him implicitly. He had listened to me cry about losing my grandfather, and about learning that my father had AIDS. I'd confided in him about how badly I had been treated in school. The next year he was going to be my math tutor since Mom had decided to homeschool me that fall. During summer break, he started coming by when I was the only person home. And one day he betrayed that trust. Fortunately the phone rang before he could make that betrayal complete, and he knew he had to let me answer it -- it might have been my mom, and she didn't like me to leave the house without telling her where I was going so she would have been extremely worried if I didn't answer. It was just another friend of mine, and he could tell something was wrong but I couldn't bring myself to tell him. I didn't go back into my bedroom after I got off of the phone, but instead went into the living room and sat on the couch. He came in there, sat beside me, and tried to put his arm around me -- and I stiffened up in fear.

He burst into tears. He said he was so sorry, I was just so beautiful, he hated himself, he would go away and leave me alone and never talk to me again if that was what I wanted.... The person I considered my best friend. Of course I didn't want to lose my best friend.

A week later I was scheduled to go out of state for a three week program at Duke University where I would get to take a compressed college course. The distance from the situation was good for me. When I got back, before I saw him again I talked to a female friend who had been one of his close friends but had stopped hanging out with him that winter. I told her just that he tried to kiss me. She reacted a lot more strongly than I had expected, and told me to stay as far away from him as I could -- I asked her why she had reacted so strongly. She told me he raped her that winter after she had to take a dose of Valium for a panic attack, and that was why she had stopped talking to him. She never told me because she thought he would never do anything to me because I was so young. She came over to offer moral support when I told my mother -- I couldn't make myself say anything more than that he'd tried to kiss me. It was enough for Mom to keep him away from me. I also told a few of the other SysOps in the local area, and he was banned from every BBS in our area code.

About a year later I decided to call him. I got his answering machine. It had a weird quirk -- if it was full and you tried to leave a message, it would start playing the messages it had on it back. And one of them was from a girl with the same name as the girlfriend he said died. There was a phone number. I called her. Confirmed that it was the same girl who was supposed to be dead and that they were still engaged. And told her what he'd done to me and my friend, and that he was telling people she was dead. I never heard from him or talked to him again.

-------

Long story, but it's a good example of the way most pedophiles work. It's a hell of a lot scarier to think about just how manipulative and cunning they can be, and how easily a parent can be fooled, than just amorphous danger from J. Random Stranger. Telling your kids not to talk to strangers is a good thing, but if only it was just that easy -- the reality is much worse.

(Edited because I really need to learn to proofread more carefully and not any words out.)

They're not so great for helping to make a valid risk assessment.

PS --

What Happens When Kids Can’t Play --
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/what-happens-when-kids-cant-play/

Stunting Our Kids With “Safety” --
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/stunting-our-kids-with-safety/

Watching TV and Feeling Terrified --
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/watching-tv-and-feeling-terrified/

Neither is having a false sense of security that kids are immune to harm in groups, or in broad daylight, or that it could never happen in their town. Or that only little girls are targeted. Those assumptions make parents feel like they don't have to talk to their kids about what can go wrong and what to do about it. Helicopter parenting also leads to parents not teaching their kids about those things, because the helicopter mom thinks she's going to be there all the time, so there's no need. And when a kid who hasn't been told that just because you know a person's name doesn't mean he's not a stranger gets out into the world, which they will do sooner or later, they're in a hell of a lot more danger than the kid who plays independently on a daily basis who knows that if he sees someone hanging around in the neighborhood and he feels the person doesn't belong there to tell his parents.

Education, not hovering, is the best protection. But if you try to assess risk based solely on how few kids get snatched and don't factor in a kid's age, understanding of the world, and whether or not they have been taught to trust their instincts, that assessment is going to be very off base.

Good grief. Your post does not respond to the content of my post at all.

They keep finding their way home! :rofl:

:hide:

(':shrug:')

:rofl:

they are resilient like that, aren't they?

They're smart too...I finally figured out, they're following the dog home! :rofl:

:hide:

Drop off your obese children at the park and let them walk home.

"First one home gets a PopTart!" :rofl:

... I dunno if I would *advertise* that I was leaving my kid in the park. Might as well call it "Pedophile Dream Day".

Of course, if this was so publicized hopefully there would be at least a few officers patrolling Central Park today.

I'm sure there are a lot more nosy neighbors than pedophiles in this world -- or at least, that's what I hope.

:eyes:

Do you expect a bunch of children to attack an adult, to physically prevent a kidnapper from stealing the kid? Not all that likely in my opinion. Other than scream or try to get an adult's attention, the only thing they could do to help would be to watch closely, so they could give a description of the perp to their parents and the cops. There is safety in numbers, but that's because most criminals don't like witnesses -- not because of any perceived ability for a kid's friends to stop an abduction in progress.

As the article you posted pointed out, most pedophiles don't kidnap kids they've never met before. It would also take a pretty dumb pedophile to attempt a classical abduction on a day where it's been publicized that kids will be alone, because hopefully kids would be cautious and police would be patrolling heavily. But a smart one could easily use such a day to figure out which kid they wanted to target, and possibly even gain their trust more on that day than another -- a kid might think "Well, if that guy wanted to kidnap me he would have, since he knew my parents weren't going to be here today.... he must just be a nice guy!" and have a false sense of security because nothing happened that day.

While a group of kids might not let their friend walk away with a person they just met for the first time without pitching a fit, they would be a lot more likely to not be worried if it was someone they'd talked to for several weeks or months. They wouldn't consider that person a stranger, even if they knew next to nothing about the person besides the name he gave and the fact he walks his dog in the park every day or has a neat collection of remote controlled toys.

That is one of the funniest posts I've read in some time. I don't think you've actually read anything written by Skenazy. If you had, you'd know how ridiculous that post is. Kidnappers are not going to go into a big group and just grab a kid, while all the other kids cower in fear. Do you remember anything about childhood? WOW!

Seriously, when you have to go extremes like your post goes to, what is the point of your fear?

Meanwhile, back in the real world:

http://gothamist.com/2010/05/23/free_range_kid_visits_central_park.php

Do you honestly believe that in the rare case of classic non-family abduction that the presence of other kids would actually stop that person? That just making sure they have a buddy is a magic bullet? Do you really think that two eight year olds could fight a grown man? What about three?

The parents of Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch would disagree with you. So would the parents of Jimmy Williams, Thomas Rios, and Leah Johnson. And the parents of http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/392dmsau.html">Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont, Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon, Michaela Garecht, Jeremiah Huger, Jenna Robbins, Adji Desir, and Jesus De La Cruz, among others.

Natalie Florez's parents were lucky -- they got their daughter back, but they would still disagree with you. Regina Armstrong's parents weren't so lucky. And death is not the worst thing that can happen -- Jaycee Dugard is a prime example. In that case, not only were her classmates at the bus stop witnesses, but her own stepfather saw it happen too and couldn't stop it.

That is the real world, buddy. And you think this shit is FUNNY? If you honestly think that, you are one sick fucking bastard.

Yes, classic non-family abduction is rare. Yes, most criminals avoid trying to leave witnesses. But criminals don't always pay attention to logic and reason -- especially the very few predators that are out there. A bunch of kids aren't going to stop an adult. No, it doesn't happen all the time. But you cannot deny that it *does* happen. The solution isn't to keep your kids locked in your house all the time, or put Child Tracker on them (and even that episode of South Park was called "Child Abduction is Not Funny", so your amusement is not even shared by the authors of that episode!), or overprotect them in other ways. The solution is to teach them to trust their instincts if they feel trouble is approaching, to be watchful, to not trust adults they meet even if they seem nice at first -- even if they know their names -- unless the parents say it's okay for them to hang out with that person..... that will help a lot more than locking your kids up in your house.

But goddamnit, this shit is not FUNNY. I hope to God if you have reproduced that your children never run into that rare person, so you never have to learn just how unfunny it is.

We all know there are dangers. No activity is ever 100 percent safe. However, one must actually do a true risk assessment. Your post makes it very clear that you have not done a true risk assessment here. If you had, you would be advocating that no one ever put a child in a vehicle, among other things.

That is the real world. You are choosing to live in a world filled with fear, but it is not the real world.

PS:

Since you're into anecdotes, here's a good one: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/stranger-danger-wise-words-from-a-pediatric-intensive-care-unit-nurse/

AND: Why "worst-case thinking" gets it wrong -- http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/why-worst-case-thinking-gets-it-wrong/

Child abuse drops sharply in U.S. -- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35205114/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/

The 5 Most Popular Safety Laws (That Don't Work) -- http://www.cracked.com/article_17216_p2.html

Dealing with the “What If?” Folks -- http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/dealing-with-the-what-if-folks/

Not Every Country Bubblewraps Its Kids -- http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/not-every-country-treats-its-kids-like-babies/

The Risk of Avoiding All Risk -- http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/the-risk-of-avoiding-all-risk/

We approach others’ children at our peril -- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6797723.ece

Speaking of Paranoia… -- http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/speaking-of-paranoia/

And an interview that covers much of this: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8903/

Nor that I wouldn't let my kids play unsupervised. What I said was that I would not advertise the fact I was leaving my kids alone. Why make it easy for the few creeps that are out there? I've never had my house broken into, and crime is very rare in my city. I don't always lock my door. But I don't put a sign on my door saying "I have lots of valuables, and the door is open!" and leave the house unlocked.

Teaching kids how to handle life and dangerous situations is a hell of a lot more effective than trying to keep your kid wrapped in cotton wool. No matter how hard one might try, there's going to be a time when Mommie can't come to the rescue -- and that kid is very unlikely to be prepared to deal with it. But ignoring the danger and not talking to your kids about how to keep themselves safe is just as idiotic as thinking you can keep your precious little snowflake safe from harm forever and ever by being a helicopter parent.

You are the one who came up with the asinine notion that, in the unlikely event that someone tried to snatch a kid while they were playing with friends, that their playmates would be able to physically fight off an attacker. I haven't argued when you say that classic non-family abduction is rare -- it is. But you were the one who postulated what would happen if an actual attempt was made, and those "anecdotes" you dismiss prove your assumption wrong.

But hey, at least you aren't laughing anymore.

You brought up that fear as a reason to argue against going to the park. Further, no one needs to fight off an attacker, though your stance that everyone would stand and watch a kid being forcibly taken away is quite bizarre. What one needs to do is stop pretending that such an incident is likely to happen, much less that it happens commonly enough to outweigh the benefits of the event. That is, unless you are going to also argue against driving automobiles, etc... I guess you can't quite get that, but...

Kids need to learn to play and function without frightened hovering parents on top of them.

And frankly we are not to far away from each other in thinking now that you have explained your POV in more detail. You need to focus on the problem being announcing a day and not that letting kids out alone is asking to get them abducted, which is how your posts originally were coming across.

(Oh, and the ignore function on here works rather oddly, I couldn't even see your message and I didn't choose hide threads. First time I've ever used it, so was confusing for a minute there -- I guess I'll just have to do it without the help of the function.)

Not sure if you'd looked at many of my other posts, but I thought I very clearly said that education, not sheltering, was the way to prevent tragedies like the ones I mentioned -- if you even can avoid them. Sometimes things happen despite the best of efforts. And considering I put pretty shiny asterisks around "advertise"... I'll use bold next time.

The "It could never happen to me" attitude is one that bothers me a great deal. It leads to people deciding to not even take sensible precautions. "Oh, I'm a great driver, I'll never have a wreck, so why should I wear a seatbelt?" "He said he's been tested, and there's no way I'd be attracted to someone with HIV, so why should I wear a condom?" "I have a son, not a daughter, so why should I scare them by telling them that there are people in this world who are attracted to children? They only go after little girls." "We live in such a small town, it could never happen here, so why should I make my kids understand that knowing a person's name doesn't make them not a stranger?" "Surely they went over this in school with them, so why should I have to do it too?"

Notice I'm not suggesting that people never get into cars, but that they wear seatbelts and put their kids in carseats or booster seats. Not that sex is bad, but that you should wear a condom if you choose to have sex. There are usually about only 60 deaths from lightning every year, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't tell your kids to get out of the pool if there's a thunderstorm. And if you think your kid is too young for you to have a calm discussion with them about personal safety, emphasizing that it's not likely they'll run into the kind of people that hurt kids but that not every adult can be trusted, then they're too young to drop off at the park and leave there.

It's not just abduction that is a threat -- while less than 120 children were victims of classic non-family abductions in 2000, data extrapolated from 18 states records of sexual abuse reports suggest that over 200,000 children were victims of sexual abuse in 1993. The only way to prevent kids from being victimized is to educate them. Because it's usually not a "stranger" that is the one who hurts a kid, and not even the most extreme helicopter parent can be there 24x7. If I actually thought overprotecting kids worked to keep them safe, I'd advocate it. It doesn't.

But it pisses me off to no end to see tragedies minimized by calling them "anecdotes", or laughed at. And that's why I went off. I've talked to too many parents of missing children for me to ever see them as numbers or statistics. And I've seen too many post-mortem photographs of dead kids to ever see it as funny.

I think your posts are ridiculous. We always played in groups for hours outside and unsupervised. We managed to fight off the occasional roaming predator when he tried to attack our herd. We used Star Trek phasers. Or sometimes we mounted up on our trusty Schwinn banana seat war horses and simply rode the vermin down.

Today's parents are the most cowardly, ignorant, scared of their own shadow, bunch of Americans this country has ever seen. Home of the brave indeed. Home of the moronically scared shitless of their own shadows most likely.

And I might add that we played outside, dusk to dawn by ourselves in a little neighborhood in between the South Side of Chicago and Gary Indiana.

And went door to door selling Girl Scout cookies, played outside unsupervised, etc.

I was responding to a person's idiotic suggestion that in the event of an attempted abduction somehow the presence of other kids would magically save the day. You obviously think the scenario is just as ridiculous as I do. But you completely missed the fact that I wasn't saying such an event would be common, but instead was trying to figure out just how in the hell he expected other kids to do anything about the situation that poster postulated if it were to happen. Maybe he thought they had those phasers too? Or that when kids talk about RPGs they mean rocket propelled grenades instead of role playing games?

Maybe it's because of my volunteer work that I feel so strongly about missing persons -- I volunteer for the Doe Network. I've spent long hours researching cases for the site to profile, looking at hundreds of missing persons reports to try to give names back to kids like "Delta Dawn", "Baby Hope", "Little Jane Doe" and many others that haven't gotten nearly as much press as those cases, as well as voting on potential matches others have submitted.

Over a hundred families have closure now because of the Doe Network and can finally bury their loved ones with their rightful name on the headstone. The organization has been so successful and helpful to law enforcement that the federal government finally created a similar website where police and medical examiners can post information into a searchable database that is more useful than NCIC is for missing persons cases, and can also be accessed by the public. When you've seen post-mortem photographs of kids that were murdered, or spoken to many parents who are desperately trying to find out what happened to their kids, you don't think of that child as a number or a statistic. Or an "anecdote".

When I sensibly noted that no kidnapper is going to go into a group of kids and fight them off, and take one of them, which is the fear you offered up, you decided to try and spin it away. Why can't you just admit when you are wrong?

"No kidnapper is going to go into a group of kids and fight them off, and take one of them."

http://www.kveo.com/news/family-speaks-out-about-lesley-perezs-kidnapping



From other articles on the case, the man was in the area for several days scouting the neighborhood. Because the kids witnessed the incident, they were able to give a good description of the kidnapper and the vehicle, and the little girl was found alive. I wouldn't exactly call it "found safe", but she was alive and is back with her family now.

I never said anything about other kids until you suggested that they would actually be protection in the unlikely event of an abduction. I did say that a bunch of unsupervised kids would be a pedophile's dream -- and if you are going to argue with that, you might need to have your head examined. I've said on this thread enough times that I would think you would have gotten it through your thick skull that I'm not advocating helicopter parenting. But denying the fact there are sickos in this world is idiocy. I'm advocating teaching your kids about the dangers that are out there. And that's another thing that I think you'd be crazy to argue against.

So you found yourself an anecdote (one where a four-year-old was taken, interestingly enough) to "prove" your fears. (You do realize that such anecdotes being pushed by media on a daily basis has made people think such incidents are the norm, and has led to the cowering indoors of the current generation of parents and kids, and now has spawned people who have chosen to look at the actual risks to fight back.) Of course, you are continuing to ignore the reality that nothing is totally safe. I suppose you think someone is going to drive a pick-up truck into a playground and do what this guy did? Nice. Again, if this is your reason for opposing such an activity as going to the playground without parents, why aren't you raging against anyone driving an automobile with children in it.

Further:

From your post 9: "... I dunno if I would *advertise* that I was leaving my kid in the park. Might as well call it "Pedophile Dream Day"."

And your post 31: "Do you expect a bunch of children to attack an adult, to physically prevent a kidnapper from stealing the kid? Not all that likely in my opinion. Other than scream or try to get an adult's attention, the only thing they could do to help would be to watch closely, so they could give a description of the perp to their parents and the cops. There is safety in numbers, but that's because most criminals don't like witnesses -- not because of any perceived ability for a kid's friends to stop an abduction in progress."

And your post 34 makes your fear-based opinion even more clear.

Knock. Knock. Is anyone home?

The real world is not totally safe. It is also not the scary place you pretend it to be.

(Meanwhile, you completely ignore the reality that you charged with bringing up something that you brought up as your fear for being against this event.)

Asshat.

Ignored.

In other words, you don't get risk assessment at all.

Got it.

Oh, and I like being ignored by people frustrated that I don't let them get away with putting words in my mouth, among other matters.

so the kids can play while you're drinking.

Once they start pushing 10, yes, some unsupervised play is appropriate under certain circumstances.

OTOH, only an asshole would leave a 5 year old at the park by themselves.

... can be in danger if they don't know certain safety precautions to take.

Like that the "stranger with candy" is a lot less likely to pull them into a van that day than the "nice man" (or woman) who meets them and tries to gain their trust, who commiserates with them about some "unfair" punishment or another, etc. That even an adult they "know" isn't a person they should necessarily trust -- that it doesn't matter if you've seen them at the park or know where they live and have talked to them on a daily basis for a year, unless your parents have said they can pick you up from school or give you a ride home that you shouldn't get in that car.

I had at least 3 years of unsupervised play under my belt. Of course, it was a small town in a different time.

The risks are quite low at this time in history.

I had three years in a big city by that age...

Isn't that nice?

isn't next to a Catholic Church, is it
:hide:

Watch out for cars, unleashed dogs and roaming priests, kids.

They are a bit young right now. But independence and not being a helicopter parent would be good for them.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Memories+free+range/3060707/story.html

The author brings up Richard Louv's book "Last Child In The Woods," which is a must read for any parent, IMO.

I know I've noted several recs on this thread, and now there are zero.

Amazing to see that level of fear at DU.

When I was young we played in the neighborhood or as far as we could walk to daily. We would roam the woods, go to parks or pools or playgrounds. We never had adults hovering over us, except in the pools. My own boys have grown up unleashed and are pretty capable. They also do chores, cook, laundry, yardwork, etc. Chores also seem like a thing of the past in most families. Kids now grow up with very few basic skills.

...and I have the various stitches & mended bones to prove it.

:P

Our kids are suffering from an epidemic of obesity in part due to the fact that they stay indoors. I drive through my childhood stomping grounds and the streets are quiet. No kids out in the streets, in the park, on the playground. It's really, really sad.

Not to mention the fact that active play helps kids with ADHD and other such disorders, not to mention getting outside and playing is beneficial for every child, stimulates imagination, provides exercise, social skills, etc. etc.

Somewhere along the line during the past thirty years, parents bought into all the fearmongering hype that strangers are just waiting to pounce on their little kiddies, yet statistics show that a child is far more likely to be abused, hurt, killed, by somebody they know and trust than by any stranger.

Parents, open the door, kick the kiddos outside, and let them stay there for a few hours. Oh, and take away their little cell phones. That way they have to figure out things on their own.

You never know when there might actually BE one of those rare emergencies and the ability to call for help would make the difference. But I have no beef with instructing the kid NOT to call anyone for ANYTHING other than a fire, accident, threat, or other serious emergency. If you're a good parent with good discipline skills, your instruction to that effect should be all your child needs.

But then again, my son isn't allowed to use his cell phone (a prepaid $30 Net10 phone) for anything BUT emergencies, ever, so this seems natural to me.

:hi:

But then again, a lot of kids would simply use the cell to talk all day somewhere under a tree or such.

Besides, when I was a kid we didn't have cells, and if an emergency happened we were either on our own, or knock on the door of a house in the neighborhood. Other kids were in the same boat and it all worked well:shrug:

Like the availability of cell phones for emergency situations, especially since the public pay phones that used to be everywhere are now pretty much gone. I don't think the problem is with parents who get cheap cells (with no internet or chat or other fancy features) for their kids to use in an emergency. The problem is with people who get smartphones for their 8-year-olds, refuse to enforce any serious limitations on using it for non-emergencies, and then sit around complaining that their kids "never go out and play". Well DUH, lol.

I got pooh-pooh'ed at here a few years ago because I stated that I let my then-six-year-old son walk to and from the school bus stop without me accompanying him. We lived in a rural mobile home park, he was walking with other kids, and there were plenty of parents of preschoolers who were sitting at the bus stop the whole time, so it's not like he was standing there alone. Still, to some people who read that, you'd have thought that I tossed him out of the car into the middle of traffic with a sign around his neck saying, "KIDNAP ME PLEASE!" I mean, REALLY. Why the hell are we all so freaking paranoid these days?

He's now 9, and he walks to his friends' houses to go play in the afternoons. They live a couple of blocks over from us. He also walks by himself to go play on the playground at the Unitarian Church down the street. I don't worry, because he has his cell if someone tries to lure him close to their car or if some other emergency happens. He's not allowed to use it for any other purpose, period. I occasionally call HIM if I need to ask him something or if I want to tell him to come home earlier or later, but he never calls me--or anyone else. I locked his phone down so that he can't change any settings or delete his call history without entering a PIN code, and I check his phone every week just to be sure he hasn't used it without permission. No problem at all so far, and he's had it for two years. :)

just make they are at least eight... and have a way to call home if they should need, or rather want to do it.

:-)

Time to get over the paranoia.

That said there is a small caveat, unfortunately there are a few places in this country that this is not a good idea... but it wasn't back in the sixties either.

My kids started wandering off unsupervervised at 7 or 8, as did all of the other kids in all of the other homes around me. It's just not something I worry about. In suburban and rural areas, it's as normal today as it was 40 years ago (my oldest is now 16, and my youngest 6, so my experiences are current).

Those differences are often highlighted when my children become friends with the children of commuter parents who work and grew up in the SF Bay Area, and moved to the Valley for cheaper housing and a slower lifestyle. Many of the people from larger urban areas are simply horrified by the thought that a parent would let an eight, nine, or ten year old vanish for hours at a time without any real idea where they were (we'd know, vaguely, that they were "at a friends house", or "at the park".) For people who have always lived here and grew up here, it's a normal thing. For people who moved in from larger urban areas, it's neglectful parenting.

I turned out OK. My kids seem to be doing fine.

They park their kids in front of the television and leave them there.

They may not be physically molested but their brains are turning to mush. But no judge would ever take their kids away for that.

Ignore the hype. Ignore the hysteria.