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The WaPo reports that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv in Montgomery County Maryland say they are being investigated for neglect after letting their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter make a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. “We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they were ready for it,” says Danielle. The Meitivs say they believe in “free-range” parenting, a movement that has been a counterpoint to the hyper-vigilance of “helicopter” parenting, with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world. “The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood,” says Danielle. “I think it’s absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency.”
On December. 20, Alexander agreed to let the children walk from Woodside Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the family says the children know well. Police picked up the children near the Discovery building, the family said, after someone reported seeing them. Alexander said he had a tense time with police when officers returned his children, asked for his identification and told him about the dangers of the world. The more lasting issue has been with Montgomery County Child Protective Services which showed up a couple of hours later. Although Child Protective Services could not address this specific case they did point to Maryland law, which defines child neglect as failure to provide proper care and supervision of a child. “I think what CPS considered neglect, we felt was an essential part of growing up and maturing,” says Alexander. “We feel we’re being bullied into a point of view about child-rearing that we strongly disagree with.”
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 16 2015, @07:08PM
I agree with this "flamebait" post. It should be "insightful". The man told it like it is.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16 2015, @07:32PM
I disagree with the 'liberal' bit. I know dyed in the wool republicans who act in the exact same way as well as dyed in the wool democrats.
You need to trust your children. They will get hurt sometimes. You can not protect them all the time. But you can teach them how to at least give up a fight about it. If you do everything for them they will never learn. They are going to break things. They are going to get it wrong many times. Some people think children are stupid as a box of bricks. Some are. But they are just people who have not learned any better yet. There is a big difference between stupid and does not know.
The core issue is our school system has been kowtowed into handing it back to the parents. The parents have acted accordingly that they can not trust other adults around their children, as the school is not going to do anything, and in some cases will try to take your children away. This has been done as the schools are terribly afraid of being sued into non existence for any error. Then a very small group have taken advantage of this to bully the schools into treating their special snowflakes more special than the other ones. You also have school admins who are afraid to do anything so legit abuses by other students get swept under the rug just to make things 'go away'. You then also have child crusaders who are protecting the children. At the expense of all the children. The parents are also afraid to show any sort of discipline to their children outside of the home for fear of 'having the cops called'. There are cases where they should step in. But now they just create blanket rules and if they catch a few innocent people in the mix so be it. You are automatically guilty until proven innocent.
These people do this because they are afraid of being sued into non existence and poverty just because they were seen as 'doing nothing' or 'missed something'. You see the same thing in our medical system. Our justice system is being used to bully our fellow Americans into being politically correct do nothings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16 2015, @08:39PM
> I agree with this "flamebait" post. It should be "insightful". The man told it like it is.
I'm afraid that says way more about your than it does about "it."