First one, not treated as a crime. But there is a record, so that sucks.
Second one, leaving your 9 year old at a park all day while you are not there. I can see why that is a problem.
The third one is maybe where the is controversy. It would be nice if a 6 year old could play on the street by themselves. I think there is some discretion here and it depends what your street and suburb is like to some extent.
The last one is tragic and totally unfair to the family. Looks like another nail in the coffin for people without a lot of money in the US (who can't call a babysitter on short notice) and who use common sense. Then they get a criminal record, lose their jobs etc, can't get a new one etc. F'd.
You're right, it's not illegal, but there's been a MASSIVE chilling effect on outside play. Of my daughter's friend group, she has by far the most freedom. She's got free reign over our neighborhood which has two parks, a school, a couple lakes, and even a small wooded area kids can venture off into. But none of her friends are allowed to play outside. One friend of hers, 12 years old, is not allowed to ride her bike in her own driveway without a parent outside with her. Another friend of hers, 13, has never been allowed to spend the night at a friend's house. All of these other parents think I'm the crazy one for letting my kid play outside. She usually chooses not to, because it's hardly any fun to play alone.
I know, anecdata and all that, but it's really crazy out there.
Because after 7pm the streets are swarming with velociraptors and hoardes of drooling pedophiles and her little friend's parents don't have the latest in automated turret technology yet.
I encourage you to google it. People get arrested all around the country for letting their kids play in the park across the street, ride their bike around the block, sit in the car alone at the bank, etc.
The fact that "a handful of people" in "several places" over "the last 20 years" becomes "People get arrested all around the country" like it's an epidemic or something is one of many negative, and one of the worst, things about the internet.
That and the fact that "oh and then the charges were dropped and in some cases local laws changed" is inevitably (I think purposefully) left out.
Reason.com went on a year-long bender of self-promotion and half-truthing about 3 years ago when three women were arrested in three states, claiming that "jack-booted big gubmint was comin to take yer kerdz" and plastered people's pictures and stories on fundraising materials and tried to get people to buy their "free range kids" books, as though three incidents in a country of 300 million was an epidemic.
Of course, the most confusing thing about all of this is that a Venn diagram of "people who think that the government is rounding up mothers all over the country" and "people who immediately, vocally, and vociferously criticize the government for NOT protecting the welfare of children" is a perfect circle.
This seems true, and also I think there's some nuance lost in the stats as well.
My personal experience as a parent is that my kids don't get nearly the amount of independence that I did at their age. A reasonable part of this is that I am afraid that my kids will get taken away. My preference is towards the free(r)-range style of parenting, so the ex-post stats don't convey the full effect that the small sample size of reported "big gubmint takeaways" has.
Probably depends on the area and other factors... in my area it was totally normal for kids to walk some half a mile to a mile home in middle school just over a decade ago and I don't think it's changed. I think even elementary school was normal with possibly a smaller distance (not sure how far kids went, but a couple blocks was fine).
Twenty five years ago in my area, a mile to half a mile was routine for elementary school students. By middle school, I would come home to an empty house and go pick up my brother who was in kindergarten. Nowadays, my daughter is in elementary school and I see parents drive their cars up to the bus stop and hover until the bus comes.
The majority of me thinks that parents today need to relax because the chance of your kid being kidnapped or whatever are about the lowest they've ever been. And then another part of me wonders if that's BECAUSE today's parents are paranoid.
Huge exaggeration. Also, free-range parenting is a thing, but even in relatively "helicopter-y" families, the ability to send kids off somewhere w/ a phone to reconnect makes it easy to let kids of a certain age explore and exercise some freedom.
> In December, the couple was accused of neglect for allowing the children to walk around their suburban Washington neighborhood together unaccompanied by an adult. In one instance, Rafi and Dvora were walking from a playground two blocks from home; in another, the park was about a mile away.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/manitoba-cfs-will-not-erase-fi...
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arreste...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/protective-services-called-on-m...
https://reason.com/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-...