Even since I was 10 or so I would often come back to school on my own. Then let myself into our apartment. Eat some lunch, do homework, play until my parents came home in the evening. I was effectively often alone for about 4 or so hours.<p>I wouldn't let my kid do it here in US. Not because I wouldn't trust them or think it is dangerous. But because I am afraid what neighbors, school, CPS would do.<p>My co-worker let his kids play in the cul-de-sac for an hour while they watched from the house. An anonymous neighbor reported them to police, and a sequence of embarrassing calls at work ensued, statements to police, follow up visits from police, etc.<p>And this is not some dangerous part of the city. This is suburbs, as safe as they come.<p>But apparently you are never safe from neighbors with an agenda.<p>And the thing is, there is nothing you can say or do, even if you knew this neighbor. "Well I was worried for the children!". Unless they openly confessed it was because you cut the lawn wrong or they don't like the color of your house, there is nothing you can do to them (well maybe turn evil and report them for other irrational fears -- terrorism "but I was worried about this country's safety, swear heard them talk about buying a lot of fertilizer").<p>The interesting thing is, once those in power act irrationally about something. There will always be people to exploit that element. I heard from my grandparents how neighbors would rat on each other imaginary things during Stalin's times. The results were usually the neighbors family would be taken in the middle the night and sent to Siberia never to be seen again. This is of course, an extreme example but it illustrates, how irrationality can and will be exploited.
I'm most interested in the enshrinement into law of these risk assessments, where if you disagree with the risk assessments you get flagged for CPS or criminal judgement. Even if you 'win', society just imposed a massive, <i>massive</i> cost on you (and your children) for disagreeing about the relative risk of an action.<p>There needs to be some way of walking this back, but I can't think what that might be except literally trying to get a law in place giving parents broad immunity. I can't even really imagine how such a law would be worded without completely gutting CPS and related organizations in other countries.
The same is true for terrorism of course. Terrorism catches our attention because it's morally outrageous, not because it's statistically dangerous to people in Western countries.<p>But if you talk with "regular people", you'll notice that media coverage gives people an unwarranted fear of outlier events: terrorism, mass shootings, plane crashes, etc.<p>In reality, almost everyone in the US should fear the real killers: obesity, cancer, stroke, etc.
> A 2-year-old was found unattended after his parents allegedly left home to play Pokémon Go.<p>> How much risk was there of some harm coming to the child while the parents were gone?<p>As a parent to young children, I would say pretty damn high, actually. Kids do stupid things all the time, and if you aren't there, and they know you aren't there, there is no limit to the stupid things a 2 year old can do. It's a normal part of growing up, but that doesn't make it safe to do it alone in the slightest.<p>That said, I agree with the gist of the article overall.
My wife has been yelled at by strangers for filling up the car with gas, then walking 25 feet from the gas pump to the payment window and paying for the gas... because our kids were in the car 25 feet away.<p>She's had the police and the neighborhood watch called repeatedly because our children were playing in our own yard.<p>It's not a world I recognize and I'm increasingly disturbed by people's strange ideas about children.
Interesting research. Looks like a cognitive bias related to the reverse-Halo Effect ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect</a> ). The mother left for some morally bad reason, so the predicted events receive bad associations (larger risk).<p>Sounds easily exploitable too. Want to advertise something dangerous? Just show people doing it in morally good situations.
This is a strong reason why I don't want to raise children in the U.S. I grew up in a very controlled environment with very controlling, paranoid parents and I am still dealing with the many consequences of that.<p>To think that I would be forced to raise children to be deficient per social rules is unsettling at best, and disturbing when considering that this is happening everywhere in the US.<p>What could the future hold in store? How much more extreme can this get?
I really wish people in the US would prefix these sort of statements with "In the US, we ..." The rest of the world isn't so crazy. Speaking as if what people in the US do is universal makes these sort of things seem as though they're the result of the passage of time, that some other solution just isn't possible, that the outcome was inevitable, and those people affected are somehow victims. When really it's a matter of deliberate choices some people made, in the US. Today's article on ADHD also suffers from the same myopic perspective.
I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child.<p>For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accidentally leaves their kid alone.<p>They are standardizing risk assessment across all environments, but that's statistics not reality. Certainly some peoples moral assessments have gone overboard (it's crazy that kids can't go to the park unattended when they reach a general maturity). But I don't think it's unreal to assess the risk to a child as higher if you also think their parents are amoral and likely bad parents. Those kids ARE probably at higher risk in my opinion, either from their parents not being as cautious at establishing a healthy environment or in not being good enough parents to teach their kids how to behave in a safe manner when left alone.
Are there places in America where things are not this extreme?<p>I am looking for a career in IT, so coming to the Valley might be something I am going to do in my career.<p>But I would want my kids to grow up in a different, more independent way. Like I did in my home country.<p>(If I was in America now and thinking about getting children, this article would be a 100% reason to go back to my home country, it totally gave me the creeps.)
Children must be allowed to do dangerous things. Doing dangerous things does not guarantee injury. Children, despite our observations otherwise, do not have a death wish. They have a strong self-preservation instinct and purposefully risky behavior is usually due to ignorance because they don't understand how the world works yet. A child wants to touch the candle flame because they don't know it's hot, not because they want to get burned.<p>Doing dangerous things is risky though. A child is NOT guaranteed to get hurt everytime but if you allow them to explore the work and engage in risky behavior they will get hurt eventually. It is my goal as a parent to let them do dangerous things from an early age even when it scares me.<p>At one that means letting them walk without a walker anad without being there to catch them all the time. At two-four it means letting them climb the stairs on their own and letting them swing and go down the slide without hand holding. At 5+ it means letting them build a fire, swim in the creek, shoot a bow and arrow and climb trees. By giving them freedom (and responsibility - but that's another topic) early they learn what their limits are and, I hope, learn to judge for themselves what is safe for them. This may be different for each of my kids and is almost certainly different than what I believe is safe and or appropriate. Of course I am there to veto really misinformed decisions (we are going to build a diving board into this 2 feet pool in the brook!) and to provide direction and guidance.<p>Putting this into practice has resulted in one broken arm, three staples and numerous small home-treatable cuts and bruises.
I don't always like where this philosophy puts me as a father. I many times say yes and then quietly follow from a distance out of my own fear for their safety.<p>But because I know what a struggle it is to decide how to raise my children, even if the ultimate decision is that I am not raising them so much as watching them develop and prodding them occasionally, I try very hard not to judge parents who have made different decisions and different trade-offs.<p>The article doesn't go into much detail about why people judge parents so harshly but mostly focuses on changing social norms. I understand though. I have to actively remind myself NOT to judge parents who make different decisions than I do and I'm only aware of that because I have made decisions that are different than most of my peers and acquaintances.
Bodies like CPS have to justify their existence and increase in budgets. If my job is to go to office everyday and find parents to arrest the best way is to lower the bar for "putting kids in danger".<p>It is okay to send your kids to play soccer or the hand-football americans play where they can possibly receive life threatening injuries but it is not okay to let them walk back home from school because all it takes a evil guy with a van and candies to kidnap that kid.
Are perceived risks lower in smaller countries?<p>The article mentions Norway, which has a population of 5M. Even if the rate of child abduction is the same as the USA, there will be far fewer scary stories.<p>1) How many foreign cases does the Norwegian media report?<p>2) Are Norwegians worried about them? I'd think "oh, America" and move on, but I'd guess that if I lived in Idaho and the case was in Michigan I wouldn't be so dismissive.
I agree with this, but I still have a hell of a time letting my kids outside unsupervised, not because of abduction or crime fears, but because of cars. At least in the States, people don't give a crap about anything while they are driving. Excessive speeding is the norm on all city streets, marked crosswalks are a mild suggestion, and unmarked crosswalks do not exist. If 50% of the land outside of my house were literal minefields I'm not sure it would be less dangerous. I don't think anyone was abducted in my city last year, but 10 pedestrians died. A teenager was just mowed down in a crosswalk over the weekend. That scares the shit out of me.
Ladders to help children get up to neck-breaking heights when climbing trees (in Denmark):<p><a href="http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2016/08/23/ladders-to-help-children-get-up-to-neck-breaking-heights-when-climbing-trees/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2016/08/23/ladders-to-help-ch...</a>
It's the result of a bizarre American Protestant religious tenet that gradually evolved into existence over the 20th century, namely: People deserve health and happiness in life in inverse relationship to their degree of cynicism; Children are born in a perfect state, without cynicism, therefore <i>any effort by a cynical (by definition) adult that could protect a child from anything that could possibly affect their health or happiness is mandatory.</i> The most important thing a child needs to learn is to control themselves and to be optimistic, which will immunize them to the effects of adult cynicism, <i>not</i> how to handle themselves independently in the world, and especially not math.<p>It's a complete inversion of the previous straightforward pre-20c mindset, which was: adults take longer to make, are stronger, and they know more stuff, so they're more important. Also, religiously, that babies are born fundamentally broken, and need to gain understanding of the world before they have any chance to fix themselves. Dead babies go to Hell, or at best an endless purgatory.<p>IMO 80% of the character of its current expression comes from spoiled Baby Boomers having a combination of condescension and hate towards their parents. They were perfect, ruined by the world, and endangered by their parents cynical reasoning about why we should be in Vietnam and hate communism (something about sharing being evil and assuming the worst about everybody.)
The worst part of parenting is dealing with other parents. Yuppie millennial parents are the worst. I thought I grew up with overprotective Asian parents but they let me wander all around the town at 7-8, stuff that's apparently get them arrested in the Dame suburbs today.
I'm surprised they made no mention of <a href="http://www.freerangekids.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.freerangekids.com/</a> or (owner/blogger) Lenore Skenazy, both of which typically come up in such discussions.
I have my own theory. I think parents have gone so far in the r/K selection[1] toward the K direction that people have gone completely overboard in protecting children.<p>It would be very interesting to compare with cultures where having lots of kids is still the norm.<p>[1]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory</a>
If anyone else is interested in how Debra Harrell and her daughter's story turned out, here is a recent FB update from a person who helped crowdfund $47k to support them during the legal problems. Thankfully the charges were dropped with seemingly no media coverage whatsoever. Unfortunately, it sounds like the young girl is now experiencing anxiety issues from the trauma of being taken by Child Protective Services.<p><a href="https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=532307546952426&id=274254686091048" rel="nofollow">https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=532307546952426&id...</a>
The research actually looks kind of cool, but this headline and the whole framing of the issue sounds like it was written by an alien. Uh, <i>why</i>?<p>We judge <i>everything</i> on the basis of perception, not reality. That's just... how this works.<p>And this is far from the most worrying thing Americans have a dramatically detatched perception of danger about, right now. If you want to really address this issue, and a few others besides, I'd stop worrying about how people relate to kids or parents and start worrying about how they relate to <i>reality</i>.
I didn't read the entire article and I do not have kids but to me the world seems more hostile than when I was a kid but I guess that's expected.<p>People seem much more opportunistic and are proud of it when I point out it's not a compliment to be called such a thing.<p>Overall maturity seems really low I mean these days people act immature compared to when I was a kid. I don't think I'd see adults in their 20, 30 or 40s chasing Pokemons in the 1970s.<p>These days people swear every second word around kids, seniors, just in public gatherings as if it's nothing I'm sure I'll be mocked for thinking that's wrong. Then again breasts are censored on TV but not when I was a kid. Although contrasting that every now TV show didn't have "this show may have words or situations that may offend someone" warnings after commercial break.<p>Then you have the "everyone is a winner" or "you can do anything" drilled into kids in school I think that stunts maturity. If kids are going to be left alone they need to know sometimes they can screw up big time and it's their fault.
Wish people (especially scientist) would just stick to the facts. In the McDonald's case people were not "angry at this woman for not being a full-time mom". They were angry that the child was left alone. No one has a problem with a mom working and a care giver watching a child. And of course we have to throw in a dig at evil McDonalds for not having childcare services.
Parenting is a 24/7 job. Parents make thousands of decisions balancing many ideal and pragmatic factors. Seeing one parenting decision is not sufficient for assessing their entire parental lifestyle. Putting aside the specifics of this topic, it is curious how many people are quick to condemn a parent the moment they make a single decision not up to the observer's standards.
There is no such thing as "perceived but unreal risk". A risk is some sort of estimate that harm will occur: a likelihood. No risk is real; it is always perceived. There is only the question of how rationally founded is that estimate. Some risks can be established via measurement. If the statistics give some risk as 0.1%, but you perceive it subjectively as 30%, then there is a degree to which your perception of risk is unrealistically inflated. Neither the 0.1% nor the 30% are 'real' though; both are just a tool for guessing about the future.<p>We judge people when their behavior hints at a risk estimate which differs from ours. Anyone who estimates a risk lower than you do is reckless; anyone who estimates it higher is a wimp.<p>Sometimes, estimates of risk are just culturally enshrined B.S., not founded in anything. If you don't protect yourself from a certain risk in a certain culturally endorsed, widely practiced manner, then you're an ignorant or crazy cultural outsider. Likewise if you go too far in protecting yourself from something.
The survey completely overlooks a very important possibility:<p>The participants know their own ignorance of the <i>exact</i> circumstances of each situation, and so they use their judgement of the parent's character to fill in the gaps.<p>For example, when the parent leaves for an "immoral" reason, it reflects badly on their character, so the participant would have less reason to believe that they've thought about the child's safety.<p>On the other hand, when a parent whom the participant has judged to be of good character leaves the child, they assume that the parent them-self has thought through the safety implications and has judged it to be safe. Since the parent would have more information than the participant, the participant is trusting their judgement, and is able to determine that the situation is safer.<p>In essence, the stories told to the participants actually do have different amounts of information in about the child's safety.
When I saw this title, the thing that jumped onto my head was child car seats. Beyond infant seats, child seats don't provide any significant benefit over sitting in the back with a seatbelt. The difference between those two is an often-perceived, but infinitesimal, risk.<p>On the other hand, we don't judge parents for driving their kids all over the place, or living far away from things so that they're forced to drive many miles with their kids. But that's a highly risky behavior.<p>If you live in a place that's walkable for your kids, you've probably sheltered them from far more danger than child predators ever pose.
Here's a snapshot of what things are like in Berlin, Germany.<p>I dropped my 7 year old off at a new day camp (in the centre of the city) last week. They asked me if she was allowed to leave on her own at the end of the day.<p>Here are the rules for kids riding on the subway system:<p>"Children under four years of age may only use public transport if they are accompanied by a person who is at least six years of age."<p>That said, you don't see a lot of little kids travelling alone but it seems that the discretion is with the parents.
Divorced parents would have to answer to their formers spouse, their former spouse's attorney, a child's rep, the Court, etc. for any serious mishap. Its not worth the knee jerk tragic outcomes the Courts can produce. Therefore, a divorced parent is best served playing it ultra conservative and ignoring this article.
The minds and endocrine systems of children that at raised in safe and sterile environments, under the constant, close attention of guardians, are necessarily unprepared for the randomn inputs available in nature and society.<p>Children that grow up this way will be better suited for a virtual life, where the number of variables is controlled.
Because info spreads more quickly now-a-days and even if 99% of people think it's okay to leave a kid unattended in a given situation, the 1% that care are more likely to see these situations and make a big stink out of them.
People seem to confuse rates and percentages with figures. There may be less on average, but more in reality.
Not having so many kids on the streets may also cause the crimes to be less.
Children wear less clothes than they used to and there seems to be more pedophiles, if those little kids were left alone, more may be taken advantage of.
The risk is real. Children don't know how to react when confronted with maybe a drunk driver or someone that offered them candy, so letting children on their own leaves real risk. However, whether it should be criminalized for a rather small risk is debatable.
What's the difference between perceived and real? Someone preceiving it thinks it's plenty real. I've never been in a traffic accident - is the need for seat belts and air bags real?
If you ever see a kid alone outside the best course of action is to call cops.<p>1. If you try talking to kid while the kid is alone you might be charged as a sex offender, attempt to kidnap and what not.
2. If you dont try to help and if something happens to the kid may be later you might face some charges or come under suspicion.<p>This is absolutely nothing to with what you feel and think. The risks for not calling cops are simply very high.