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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: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday January 16 2015, @07:09PM
As a result, my mom let me run loose outside throughout the neighborhood and walk to school alone starting in kindergarten. Thus, the friendly older boy down the street (he was 13, I was 7) was not thought of as a danger by me and thus he was able to groom me with pornography and eventually rape me.
You were allowed to run around unsupervised, like the kids in the story, and it resulted in you being sexually assaulted.
That isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of "Free Range" parenting.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday January 16 2015, @07:54PM
it wasn't done by some mysterious stranger offering candy out of th back of a van, however, it was done by somebody he was close to, which means the failure is completely on the parents, not for allowing him to explore the world on his own, but for refusing to teach him about sexual stuff, what's appropriate and inappropriate, and what would be considered a violation, literally and metaphorically. that kind of shit, along with countless teenage pregnancies, occur because we live in a nation of prudes who refuse to teach their children how to stay safe especially with respect to sexual things, not because parents allow their children some freedom.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mendax on Friday January 16 2015, @09:05PM
And what's the alternative? Keep the child inside all the time away from friends? Home schooling? Utter foolishness, my friend.
My parents were correct in letting me outside unsupervised. They were incorrect in telling me about inappropriate touching, but that was not their fault. In those days, adults simply didn't talk about such things to their children. Furthermore, sexual abuse of children, while illegal, was not considered to be as serious a crime then as it is now, partially because it wasn't clear exactly what kind of damage it did to the child. We now know (and I know from personal experience) that the damage done is devastating and ruinous.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.