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I'll post this as a top-level comment because I think it's a relevant reply to a number of other comments. In response to, for example, this line from goodJobW

I'll post this as a top-level comment because I think it's a relevant reply to a number of other comments. In response to, for example, this line from goodJobWalrus: > I mean people get arrested for letting their kids go to the park or play in their own backyards, for god's sake. Honest question: what is the objective, per-child risk of that happening? I don't have data for that handy, but I would be shocked if it was anything except exceedingly low, on the order of getting killed in a commercial aircraft crash. My wife and I frequently struggle with the this vague fear of people turning us in to social services, because we've read a number of articles about that happening to families who were raising their kids in a way that was completely normal a couple of decades ago. But even with all of the general societal paranoia we are saddled with, I'm almost certain that we are still statistically safe from such over-reach.

rootusrootus 10y ago
As with everything else I hear on the Internet, I remind myself that it wouldn't be talked about if it were not newsworthy.
- orthecreedence 10y ago
  Ehh, I disagree. Hysteria and FUD can take on lives of their own, living inside the minds of people who let them in even a little. Just because a number of people are upset by something (or believe they should be upset by something) doesn't actually mean it's worth being upset about. The news/media takes these small concerns and blows them out of proportion to sell ad space, which compounds the hysteria. Example: terrorism. It's a nice trigger word in the USA, but how many people are killed by terrorism vs car crashes or unhealthy habits? Yes, terrorism should be reported on, but it's certainly not as important to anyone's everyday life as not eating shit food and texting like an asshole while driving. Kids just don't get kidnapped or molested by strangers enough to be statistically significant. Kids are almost always molested by relatives, in a private setting. Kidnapping by stranger is even more rare. Sure, it can happen. Just like a comet could hit Earth. Should we sit around worrying about it, while our children re doomed to have us constantly looking over their shoulders until they're 18 and have no sense of self-purpose?
goodJobWalrus 10y ago
> general societal paranoia It's more than that, apparently risk assessment is now an issue of moral judgment. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-are-we-so-afraid-leave-children-alone https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-are-we-so-af...
- Diederich 10y ago
  Well said, and thank you for the link. It rings true.
ohitsdom 10y ago
I'm not OK to play the odds if all it takes is one nosy neighbor to get my kids taken away and me arrested. http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/06/14/florida-parents-charged-felony-neglect-after-11-year-old-son-plays-backyard-90-minutes http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/06/14/florida-parents-charge...
- function_seven 10y ago
  You see the irony in this, right? All the parents that don’t let their kids off the leash even for a second use the same reasoning. “It not OK to play the odds if all it takes is one kidnapping to take my kid away for ever” I’d say that OP’s point is the odds are so low, that it is OK to play them.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.html http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.ht... > 99.8% of the children who go missing do come home. > Only about 100 children (a fraction of 1%) are kidnapped each year in the stereotypical stranger abductions you hear about in the news. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > In a Year, Child-Protective Services Checked Up on 3.2 Million Children > 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result. To be fair, one of these has a much higher rate of incident than the other. Personally, I'm more concerned with the quality and accuracy of CPS than I am about child abduction simply because a 10% improvement in CPS would save more lives than a 100% reduction in child abductions. Then again, I feel that way about medical errors vs. terrorism and the value of spending money to save lives. A 10% reduction of medical errors would save more lies than a 100% reduction in terrorism. :/
    - Diederich 10y ago
      Thanks for digging up this data, which is something my long anecdotal comments were lacking.
Spare_account 10y ago
Here is a bunch of data from the UK Social Services. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/childrens-social-care-statistics https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/childrens-social-c... And if I'm reading this correctly, in hte USA in 2014 there were 3.2 million reports of "child maltreatment" (amongst a population of 74 million under 18s). http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2014.pdf#page=15 http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2014.pdf#pag... http://www.hhs.gov/answers/research/where-can-i-find-social-service-research-statistics/index.html http://www.hhs.gov/answers/research/where-can-i-find-social-...
- Diederich 10y ago
  Thanks for the links! I don't have time to go through them at the moment though. It's almost certain that one of those 3.2 million incidents has our name on it. In 2014, at a time when our son, who has high functional autism, was going down a mental rabbit hole about what foods he would eat. When the list got down to three foods, we told him that it could not go down any further, period. So he asked for one of those foods for dinner, and we served it, and he decided that he didn't want it, that he would only eat one of the other two foods on his 'list'. We refused to accommodate and reminded him that he wasn't allowed to go below three foods. That the food in front of him was on his list, and that he had specifically asked for it. So he would not be served anything different for dinner. So he ate a little bit of it, and went to bed hungry and unhappy. The next day at school, he told a teacher that we were starving him, that we were refusing to feed him. This generated a mandatory CPS incident. We received a call, and my wife went to the school and talked to someone and contextualized the situation. The incident was subsequently closed without prejudice. So, given that rather in-depth bit of "anecdata": of that 3.2 million, based on our direct experience with the reporting requirements schools have to follow, most of them are specious. Of the ones that aren't, I suspect only a tiny fraction are in any way related to 'free range parenting'. In short: I strongly suspect that the danger of inappropriate child services intervention associated with various 'free range parenting' activities is vanishingly small, even though it feels like a constant and potent danger. PS: I'm 110% open and willing to answer any questions about anything mentioned here, including the autism, the 'food list', the seemingly strange behaviour, whatever. I feel that there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the realities of parenting autistic children, and I am more than happy to help with that. Direct e-mail is fine too: diederich@gmail.com
saosebastiao 10y ago
I know this is presumptive but next time you take your kid to a playground, let them play on the playground with you barely in sight. Stay 200+ feet away. Watch your kid play, and then wait for some other parent to intervene in your child's play. That parent will soon be looking around for you. When they can't find someone who has their eyes fixated on your child, they will ask your child where their parents are. That person is the person who will turn you in to CPS. I'm not kidding in the slightest when I say this literally happens at least once every single time I take my kid to the park. My kid is pretty advanced physically and takes parkour classes and gymnastics classes. He's very capable of handling situations that other parents freak out at. And he knows his limits probably better than those parents know their own. But they still act like they need to save my kid from himself, and you wouldn't believe the looks of disgust I get from them when I actually reveal myself. I really do not have to worry about him jumping off the monkey bars, but unfortunately I truly believe I can't let him do it on his own without a significant risk of CPS getting called.
- Diederich 10y ago
  Yup! We approached that iteratively, until our son was properly 'free range.' We noted cases where other adults ask our son where his parents were. He didn't know; we were watching from afar. That happened a couple of times. Beyond a couple of judgmental parents, no action was taken. One parent asked our son for his name, first and last. Our son, per instructions, refused to give his last name. At that point, the parent has a difficult decision to make. Do they call 911? The answer is 'no'. There is no emergency. I want to make it clear that I feel what you are describing. My wife and I have felt it, and we still feel it. But objectively, the risk is very low. Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Our son carried a cheap pre-paid cell phone from a relatively early age too. He had only to open it and push the 'send' button twice and we would be there. So even in the extremely unlikely event of cops showing up, we would be there minutes later. This thing that feels so strongly like a risk really isn't.
  - ghurtado 10y ago
    > Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Sounds like you were using your kid as a prop in a social experiment with the goal to push your own particular agenda through "teaching moments" on strangers. What did you intend to accomplish?

rootusrootus 10y ago

As with everything else I hear on the Internet, I remind myself that it wouldn't be talked about if it were not newsworthy.

orthecreedence 10y ago
Ehh, I disagree. Hysteria and FUD can take on lives of their own, living inside the minds of people who let them in even a little. Just because a number of people are upset by something (or believe they should be upset by something) doesn't actually mean it's worth being upset about. The news/media takes these small concerns and blows them out of proportion to sell ad space, which compounds the hysteria. Example: terrorism. It's a nice trigger word in the USA, but how many people are killed by terrorism vs car crashes or unhealthy habits? Yes, terrorism should be reported on, but it's certainly not as important to anyone's everyday life as not eating shit food and texting like an asshole while driving. Kids just don't get kidnapped or molested by strangers enough to be statistically significant. Kids are almost always molested by relatives, in a private setting. Kidnapping by stranger is even more rare. Sure, it can happen. Just like a comet could hit Earth. Should we sit around worrying about it, while our children re doomed to have us constantly looking over their shoulders until they're 18 and have no sense of self-purpose?

goodJobWalrus 10y ago

> general societal paranoia It's more than that, apparently risk assessment is now an issue of moral judgment. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-are-we-so-afraid-leave-children-alone https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-are-we-so-af...

Diederich 10y ago
Well said, and thank you for the link. It rings true.

ohitsdom 10y ago

I'm not OK to play the odds if all it takes is one nosy neighbor to get my kids taken away and me arrested. http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/06/14/florida-parents-charged-felony-neglect-after-11-year-old-son-plays-backyard-90-minutes http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/06/14/florida-parents-charge...

function_seven 10y ago
You see the irony in this, right? All the parents that don’t let their kids off the leash even for a second use the same reasoning. “It not OK to play the odds if all it takes is one kidnapping to take my kid away for ever” I’d say that OP’s point is the odds are so low, that it is OK to play them.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.html http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.ht... > 99.8% of the children who go missing do come home. > Only about 100 children (a fraction of 1%) are kidnapped each year in the stereotypical stranger abductions you hear about in the news. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > In a Year, Child-Protective Services Checked Up on 3.2 Million Children > 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result. To be fair, one of these has a much higher rate of incident than the other. Personally, I'm more concerned with the quality and accuracy of CPS than I am about child abduction simply because a 10% improvement in CPS would save more lives than a 100% reduction in child abductions. Then again, I feel that way about medical errors vs. terrorism and the value of spending money to save lives. A 10% reduction of medical errors would save more lies than a 100% reduction in terrorism. :/
  - Diederich 10y ago
    Thanks for digging up this data, which is something my long anecdotal comments were lacking.

Spare_account 10y ago

Here is a bunch of data from the UK Social Services. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/childrens-social-care-statistics https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/childrens-social-c... And if I'm reading this correctly, in hte USA in 2014 there were 3.2 million reports of "child maltreatment" (amongst a population of 74 million under 18s). http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2014.pdf#page=15 http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2014.pdf#pag... http://www.hhs.gov/answers/research/where-can-i-find-social-service-research-statistics/index.html http://www.hhs.gov/answers/research/where-can-i-find-social-...

Diederich 10y ago
Thanks for the links! I don't have time to go through them at the moment though. It's almost certain that one of those 3.2 million incidents has our name on it. In 2014, at a time when our son, who has high functional autism, was going down a mental rabbit hole about what foods he would eat. When the list got down to three foods, we told him that it could not go down any further, period. So he asked for one of those foods for dinner, and we served it, and he decided that he didn't want it, that he would only eat one of the other two foods on his 'list'. We refused to accommodate and reminded him that he wasn't allowed to go below three foods. That the food in front of him was on his list, and that he had specifically asked for it. So he would not be served anything different for dinner. So he ate a little bit of it, and went to bed hungry and unhappy. The next day at school, he told a teacher that we were starving him, that we were refusing to feed him. This generated a mandatory CPS incident. We received a call, and my wife went to the school and talked to someone and contextualized the situation. The incident was subsequently closed without prejudice. So, given that rather in-depth bit of "anecdata": of that 3.2 million, based on our direct experience with the reporting requirements schools have to follow, most of them are specious. Of the ones that aren't, I suspect only a tiny fraction are in any way related to 'free range parenting'. In short: I strongly suspect that the danger of inappropriate child services intervention associated with various 'free range parenting' activities is vanishingly small, even though it feels like a constant and potent danger. PS: I'm 110% open and willing to answer any questions about anything mentioned here, including the autism, the 'food list', the seemingly strange behaviour, whatever. I feel that there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the realities of parenting autistic children, and I am more than happy to help with that. Direct e-mail is fine too: diederich@gmail.com

saosebastiao 10y ago

I know this is presumptive but next time you take your kid to a playground, let them play on the playground with you barely in sight. Stay 200+ feet away. Watch your kid play, and then wait for some other parent to intervene in your child's play. That parent will soon be looking around for you. When they can't find someone who has their eyes fixated on your child, they will ask your child where their parents are. That person is the person who will turn you in to CPS. I'm not kidding in the slightest when I say this literally happens at least once every single time I take my kid to the park. My kid is pretty advanced physically and takes parkour classes and gymnastics classes. He's very capable of handling situations that other parents freak out at. And he knows his limits probably better than those parents know their own. But they still act like they need to save my kid from himself, and you wouldn't believe the looks of disgust I get from them when I actually reveal myself. I really do not have to worry about him jumping off the monkey bars, but unfortunately I truly believe I can't let him do it on his own without a significant risk of CPS getting called.

Diederich 10y ago
Yup! We approached that iteratively, until our son was properly 'free range.' We noted cases where other adults ask our son where his parents were. He didn't know; we were watching from afar. That happened a couple of times. Beyond a couple of judgmental parents, no action was taken. One parent asked our son for his name, first and last. Our son, per instructions, refused to give his last name. At that point, the parent has a difficult decision to make. Do they call 911? The answer is 'no'. There is no emergency. I want to make it clear that I feel what you are describing. My wife and I have felt it, and we still feel it. But objectively, the risk is very low. Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Our son carried a cheap pre-paid cell phone from a relatively early age too. He had only to open it and push the 'send' button twice and we would be there. So even in the extremely unlikely event of cops showing up, we would be there minutes later. This thing that feels so strongly like a risk really isn't.
- ghurtado 10y ago
  > Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Sounds like you were using your kid as a prop in a social experiment with the goal to push your own particular agenda through "teaching moments" on strangers. What did you intend to accomplish?