11 ms·

How Fact-Free Parenting Policies Rob Kids' Independence

180 points by mjirv 9y ago

esaym 9y ago
>Attorney General, and determined that children under 10 years old could not be unsupervised in or outside the home Good night... glad I live in America.
- kareemm 9y ago
  America's got its own share of issues wrt this topic: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-range-parenting-family-under-investigation-again/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-rang...
  - esaym 9y ago
    And can you imagine how much worse it would be if there actually was a "legal" unsupervised age???
- bambax 9y ago
  I believe America is worse on this matter.
nicklaf 9y ago
Any countries out there where this kind of helicopter parenting isn't endemic in the culture?
- pg314 9y ago
  Any country not in North America? In Belgium, the bus company had to ask parents not to put children under 5 alone on the bus, which happened in a couple of instances (see [1], in Dutch). Presumably they have no problems with kids older than that. [1] http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20141120_01386041 http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20141120_01386041
- nippples 9y ago
  Helicopter parenting is one problem, legal enforcement of helicopter parenting is an entirely different monster.
  - nicklaf 9y ago
    Don't parents sometimes tattle on other parents they deem to be irresponsible, according to their own standards of just what children ought to be able to do by themselves? I seem to remember reading some anecdotes here the last time this topic came up.
    - bumblebeard 9y ago
      It's probably not very common but it has definitely happened: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-son-park/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-so...
    - aidenn0 9y ago
      Not just other parents, people in general. Also in my experience a woman is under much more scrutiny as a parent than a man (e.g. exact same activity -- with dad: "So great to see dad bonding with kid" -- with mom: "I can't believe she would let her kid do that!")
- daxfohl 9y ago
  Per walking / public transit to school, Japan is always the big example where many kids do so on their own. I feel like I've read this is mandatory there, but a quick search finds no backing evidence so maybe not. I'm curious though in Japan whether this is part of a general trend combating helicopter parenting, or if it's just a one-off social norm.
  - valgaze 9y ago
    CBS Dec 2015 on Japan http://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI http://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI Not sure if they're common/representative, but two interesting things the mother demonstrated (2:14): 1. She can track the kid via GPS 2. When asked, she said she would never let her son walk alone to school in the United States
    - new299 9y ago
      It's been common in Japan since before the second world war. My wife, who went to school in Japan, says it's seen as a good thing, to encourage independence. There's a popular TV show, where they follow small kids (maybe 4 or 5?) on their first "trip alone" to do a chore, obviously they're being followed by a camera crew. But the TV show promotes kids taking responsibility for themselves (and it's cute of course). The US is just seen as a much more dangerous country than Japan. I mean, it actually does have a higher crime rate. Sorry, this is all purely anecdotal. But I believe it to be the general case (would as always love to see data).
  - new299 9y ago
    It's not mandatory, but it is common. It's a social norm that has been common practice for many years. It's common both in towns and in the countryside. I would say (but don't have data to show) that there's is a slow trend against it. Possibly because of recent high profile abductions...
  - lawl 9y ago
    In Switzerland kids often walk to Kindergarten (age 4/5 and up) alone. At least I know I did (okay it was only like a 5 minute walk in my case). For school in can't remember anyone ever being brought by their partents. (Probably excluding the first few days of course). So this quote > the Ministry had checked with their lawyers “across the country” and the Attorney General, and determined that children under 10 years old could not be unsupervised in or outside the home, for any amount of time has me really like WTF. Edit: A bit more background now that I'm thinking about it. It's completely normal for kids in Kindergarten to go there alone, the first day each kid gets a reflector thingy(?)[0] they wear to walk there so they can be seen easily while crossing streets. Every morning you see a bunch of little kids toddling to Kindergarten, I've never really thought about this being different anywhere else. [0] https://www.max-der-dachs.ch/files/shopimage/photo/8/vga_leuchtstreifen_5298_original_cropscale_600x500_cropscale_600x500.png https://www.max-der-dachs.ch/files/shopimage/photo/8/vga_leu...
- deusex_ 9y ago
  Europe is a lot more relaxed and kids are given a lot more freedom. When we were kids we just were expected to wait for the other sibling and take a 20min tram ride home together. At 15 I probably started spending nights not at home occasionally (I also never caused any real trouble, so we built trust with my parents). Though there was a difference if you as a Central European visited France for example. The kids were way behind us in being relaxed and confident without parents around.
- apexalpha 9y ago
  My parents put me on a train to the other side of the country to visit an Ajax game when I was 12, lol. Someone we knew picked us up there, but still... Not as bad as described here. Usually my mom would just say: 'home when the lights turn on'. This was pre kids-have-phones era...
geff82 9y ago
While helicopter parenting is a thing here in Germany, too, it is still possible to use your sane judgement as a parent for a lot of things. My daughter is not yet in school (so I am not into a peer group that talks about such stuff), but I see the 7-year-old neighbour kids walking to school without supervision, just as it has been the custom here in my own childhood. I have to admit there are fewer of those on the street (and more accompanied by parents), but kids still have the same freedoms in law that I had. Heck, in anti-gun Germany they are allowed to shoot at shooting clubs beginning 12, doing their first solo flight in (sail)planes at 14 and have their boat driving license at 16. I often critisize our country for its obese body of law, but life of kids is not too much restricted.
- captainmuon 9y ago
  Yes, exactly. In fact, kids are usually taught the way to elementary school in the last year of Kindergarten (for the non-Germans: "Kindergarten" here is approximately pre-school in the US. It is where kids go until they are about 6.) The social expectation is that every kid walks or takes public transportation (unless that is not possible). There are usually no dedicated school buses, but the public buses have extra timeslots. You meet your friends on the way to school, which is an important experience. Everything is safe, especially because it is the social norm. I have the opportunity to live either in the US or Germany, and the increasing craziness and hysteria around how children are treated is the major reason for me to stay with my family in Germany.
  - wink 9y ago
    Interesting, first time I hear that thing about walking to elementary school in Kindergarden. Growing up in Munich (in the 80s) this was definitely not the case, least of all because not all children from the Kindergarden would end up in the same elementary school.
    - captainmuon 9y ago
      Yeah, I guess it is more of a small village thing. They go for walks anyway, and then it makes sense to explore the area around the school. In bigger cities, I've seen kindergarten trips take the S-Bahn. I guess that also counts as a kind of preparation.
xroche 9y ago
Over-protecting kids is probably not the main point here. Bureaucrats tend to focus on only one goal: not taking any responsibility or risks. Letting kids being independent is a risk for them, even if this is for their own good. And you can carefully explain to them the case, with scientific evidences, but they are not accountable for anything, and won't bother to change their mind. Because there is a second thing bureaucrats hate: admitting they were wrong.
- vacri 9y ago
  The counterpoint is, however, that the 'risk' is real: while most parents wouldn't hold the ministry accountable for minor risks, 'most' is not 'all'. They're doing CYA for a reason, not because they get jollies from it. It's the same reason why politicians say nothing of substance anymore. In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even cost you your job. It's not just a case of 'bureaucracy gone crazy', but also of 'we demand too much of them'. The stereotypical example is that teachers used to just teach, and now they need to be nurses and social workers as well.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    > In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even cost you your job. I think Trump is proving you wrong. But I get your point, the risk is really because a few people are idiots with too much powers to break things. We see the same things with the medical personal: they get very cautious and conservative because they are held accountable when something goes wrong, whether it's their fault or not. But then forbidding idiots to have power would not be very democratic wouldn't it ?
    - austinheap 9y ago
      I was really into the parent comment then yours just grabbed it right by the thoughtful response.
    - 9y ago
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
The point of parenting isn't to avoid getting criticized for being a "bad parent", or to do things that make you look like a "good parent". The point is to provide the necessary conditions for children to learn how to be independent and successful adults. This involves taking reasonable levels of risks, and figuring out what amount of risk-taking is reasonable, and learning how to navigate the world in general.
thedays 9y ago
The "Cover Your Ass" culture which results in mandating helicopter parenting is sadly widespread, and not just in Canada. We need to be ever vigilant to stop petty bureaucrats everywhere from making arbitrary rules and taking away valuable freedoms and discretion. Do what you can at work and in your personal life to maintain freedoms. EDIT: One simple thing we can do is make a donation to the legal fighting fund established by the writer of this article to fight this draconian Canadian regulation. There are links to the legal fund donation page in the linked article.
Animats 9y ago
At least in Menlo Park, CA, I'm seeing more kids walking to school. You can now drive down a road that passes three schools around 3 PM without being caught in a traffic jam of SUVs queued up for kid pickup. I wonder if computer use is helping. I used to see kids struggling under enough backpack for a weekend campout. The backpacks seem to be much smaller now. Maybe more content is on tablets and laptops.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  Computer use is likelier helping through the existence of cell phones. They're essentially electronically supervised, so the physical supervision feels less necessary to observers.
- fergie 9y ago
  Yes, its my impression that the tide is turning, particularly in urban areas that are walkable, and a lot safer than they were 20-30 years ago
fillskills 9y ago
Bureaucrats have little stake in this but see high risk to their careers so they want to play safe. Only way to affect change is to somehow convince them that this is good for their career. Or get lucky enough and find the one person who believes in and cares enough to push the issue through the system.
mnm1 9y ago
I walked the whole city I was born in and took whatever busses and trolleys I wanted (I knew all the routes) when I was 7-9 years old (in the 80's) in a city of 300-400k people. This is simply insane and stupid. It's the reason why I will never have kids in the US or Canada. What kind of shitty culture and society allows this kind of degradation of kids? Is it any wonder they grow up not knowing how to live? It's shameful and disgusting to allow children to be policed in this way. I'd blame it on government/bureaucracy, but it only follows the norms of the shitty culture that enables it.
- plandis 9y ago
  Yes, tell me more about how shitty my culture (and by extension) the people of that culture are. Any other insult you want to lay on a group of 300+ million people that you've so carelessly stereotyped without giving a careful thought about it?
  - walterstucco 9y ago
    He's right
smelendez 9y ago
I think the question the Ministry official asked him about what would happen if the kids start fighting is an important part of the equation. Society has gotten more legalistic. The bus driver or a random adult passenger doesn't have legally defined authority to discipline the author's kids, which means they don't have the authority at all. But basic human decency demands you intervene if you see little kids fighting or doing something dangerous (even if you'd just roll your eyes if it was a couple of drunk guys). This tension propagates through the system until somebody basically rules kids can't ride the bus unsupervised until they're old enough to be unsympathetic.
- new299 9y ago
  What happens if two adults start fighting? What is the difference?
new299 9y ago
I'm sympathetic. But given the article is against "fact-free" parenting. I didn't find the data presented very compelling. Basically you'd need to know how common crime against children traveling unsupervised on buses in a similar scenario. The closest example presented is kids in New York riding the subway, so presenting stats on that would be useful. I'd also like more details on the Japanese example, it's honestly not uncommon to hear news reports of kids being abducted in Japan. I'd personally be interested in the stats, but as a comparison point it doesn't make sense unless you can normalize for the overall lower crime rate that Japan has. If anyone has good data against "Helicopter parenting", I'd be curious to see it.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  From the post: > And the odds of your child being kidnapped by a stranger on the bus? Incredibly long. A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of a stranger abducting a child, in the entire two years prior. I personally found the article very compelling. This kind of mindless fear, in direct contradiction of clear evidence, makes my blood boil.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Every "bet" consideration needs to include possible loss, not only the odds. Losing your child is for many people not that far off from losing their own life, so people tend to react in a very cautious way.
    - imcrs 9y ago
      Not when they decide to drive themselves and their kids on the freeway every workday.
      - oblio 9y ago
        The illusion of control is just as important :)
        9y ago
bizgreen9000 9y ago
I find it incredible that these bureaucrats routinely threaten people with taking away their children. Aren't even the most reasonable people going to get dangerous when faced with that kind of a situation? I don't have kids but I can't even imagine.
- daemin 9y ago
  Yes, but they'll most likely have a Police escort when they come and take your children away. If you want to escalate it further then for sure you will not be getting your children back under your care any time soon.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sneak 9y ago
Those kids are too young to be riding the bus alone.
- crummy 9y ago
  How come?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Stratoscope 9y ago
Back around 1960, when I was eight and my little sister was six, we went with our dad to a chess tournament at the Mechanics' Institute in San Francisco. [1] Of course if you're six and eight and not really into chess, nothing could be more boring. So we asked Dad if we could do something else. He gave us a few nickels and quarters and said "sure, how about riding the cable cars and go see the town?" So we did! It was the most awesomest thing ever. We rode every cable car we could find, walked around town and saw the sights. The best part was when we found a street with our last name on it! Everyone was nice. The cable car operators saw that we were a couple of kids riding around on our own, so they showed us how the grip and the brakes worked, pointed out interesting things to see, and made sure we knew how to ride safely - even when we were sitting on the outside of the cable car kicking our feet. We forgot to ask for lunch money, so when we got back to the chess club as Dad was finishing his games, he took us out for a bite to eat and we told him all the stories of our adventure. What a great day! [1] https://chessclub.org https://chessclub.org
- gwatch 9y ago
  This won't happen today in San Francisco city, because of decrease in social capital. I live downtown and I will not anyone's kids to wander around like that. First, you'll be lucky if MUNI driver is even remotely friendly, then there are druggies on the street, and so on. Illegal immigration, homelessness fueled by liberal/leftist policies, crime, gangs, drug trade have turned the city into a place quite unrecognizable compared to 1960. Leftism is a cancer, and a road to third world culture, paved by good intentions.
  - isolli 9y ago
    I would say your fears are the real problem here.
  - tanto 9y ago
    Just checked your other comments. You really seem to HATE "leftism". You really should think about the fact that you are calling the political direction of many other people "cancer"
ArchD 9y ago
The way blame gets assigned and risk gets assessed by human society is often quite pathological. In a typical setting, there are options A & B. As an example, let A be the option to allow young kids to ride independently on a bus and B the option to legislate against letting young kids ride independently on a bus. The cost of A seems high to human emotions and the lazy thinker, typically involving rare but high-impact events (something really bad happening to the well-trained kid taking a bus) that get cherry-picked as important to consider. The cost of B seems low to human emotions and the lazy thinker, typically involving diverse continual low-impact events (all kids affected by legislation losing out on chance to learn independence, environmental impact of using a car instead of public transport) that get neglected because of their low emotional appeal and more complicated accounting. (It may be hard to prove that lots of low-impact things add up to a big thing -- there are too many things and causal relationships to point to.) In many cases, the cost of A is actually objectively lower than the cost of B, so A is the better option. In such cases, whereas all options and their consequences should be considered together with their probabilities, in reality, option B is often deemed to be the better choice, and A a bad choice, because the cost of A appeals more strongly to emotional. Consequently, someone who picked A (law-maker or bureaucrat) gets blamed but someone who picked B doesn't get blamed and is harder to blame, including in court. To protect themselves, they pick the inferior option. I think this sort of pathological risk assessment is the root of the cover-your-ass culture that permeates society.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Wash rinse repeat for 90% of not specific laws about behavior in a noncommercial setting...
averagewall 9y ago
What must be the most painful part of this is that he's in a weak position having shared custody. A normal parent could just give the middle finger and they'll never have their kids taken away for a single minor behaviour like that. But someone with tenuous custody has to bend over backwards to look like they're doing it right. It seems he could actually lose his kids quite easily because they have another home ready to go to.
- sametmax 9y ago
  It's amazing an institution as such power, and that they can exercise such power, not based so much on a legal ground as on moral ground. Yeah they mentioned lawyers, but there is no law against what the parent did.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    They can't do anything without going to court. Of course there are laws that govern this.
    - sametmax 9y ago
      About the result yes. But the procedures they engage can have a tremendous impact on one's life, and even more when a court is involved, whether they are right or not. Can you imagine having to kiss some distant bureaucrat bottom, accepting they invade your life, endangering your reputation, making you question your choices, threatening you to loose your kids, making them look at you differently, all that __even before any decision is taken__ ? This is madness.
      - DanBC 9y ago
        He doesn't have to do any of that. He can chose to not engage at all. Again, the state can't do anything without going to court, and when they go to court they have to prove their case, he doesn't have to prove anything.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jakobegger 9y ago
I‘m really glad this parent is fighting the decision; no ministry should be able to interfere with personal freedoms when the stakes are so low, basing their decisions on far fetched court cases that have nothing to do with the situation. As a point of comparison, school kids in Austria typically walk to school or use public transit on their own from first grade (6-7 years old). In the beginning of the school year, older students watch zebra crossings and block traffic when kids need to cross.
Dove 9y ago
I don't mind the idea of the state protecting children. What I mind is it happening without essential protections such as a right to jury trial, a presumption of innocence, and illegal behavior being limited to what is defined by actual laws written by elected representatives. What we have here is the terror of the police state. Anonymous tips, petty bureaucrats making life changing rulings on a whim with no clear laws to establish legal behavior. I would love to see the whole thing challenged as unconstitutional and abolished and folded into the much more functional justice system.
- DanBC 9y ago
  In the OPs situation he can just politely tell the child protection team that he's heard their advice, but that he disagrees, and that he's not going to change his behaviour. The social workers then put all the information together and take it to their lawyers, who'll either say it's not strong enough to go to court, or ask him if he really does want to ignore the advice because they think they have a good case. At that point I assume they go to court, and then the state has to persuade the judge that he's an unfit parent and that removing the children is the only option - that nothing else will do. He doesn't have to prove he's a good parent; the onus is on the state to make their case. The court has to respect his parenting choices, unless those choices are harmful or neglectful or put the children at risk of significant harm. The court also has to take into account the views of the children, and it's likely these children will be happy about the travel arrangements, and will be persuasive to a judge. This (quite old) report includes information on Canadian parents allowing children to engage in risky activity (11 year olds taking cannabis, for example) and Canada ranks 17th, which is pretty poor. http://cwrp.ca/publications/401 http://cwrp.ca/publications/401
  - Confiks 9y ago
    Saying that he could "just" do this in my opinion really simplifies it too much. You must be terribly sure of your case to open yourself up to such a risk. Also, in many countries, child protection services can preemtively declare you an unfit parent and place your children in foster care, pending a decision from a judge, which may well take months.
cabalamat 9y ago
Relevant: http://www.freerangekids.com/ http://www.freerangekids.com/
imartin2k 9y ago
Wow. I took the bus alone to school from 6-7 years on, back in East Berlin.
d--b 9y ago
Also people don't realize this anymore, but when you're a single parent and have FIVE kids, you HAVE to teach your kids independence, cause you can't be behind each and every one of them all the time! When one of them gets sick (which is just about every other week), you're pretty pleased that the others can get to school by themselves.
Ntrails 9y ago
This article is depressing as hell. I used to walk to school at the age of what, 8? There was one really quite busy road I had to cross on my own, the rest was residential. But learning to cross the road is something that was dogmatically addressed from a very young age. "Stop. Look. Listen." I remember learning about that aged 5ish? My parents knew I could cross the road, they'd taught me, the schools had taught me. It was tested in the crucible of parental observation and then I was trusted to continue. Of course someone could come along and kidnap me as I blithely wandered along the pavement. But frankly if we're going to spend our lives obsessing about extreme tail risks then we've already lost.
- majewsky 9y ago
  When I went to school (20 years ago in Germany), policemen visited each 1st grade class to teach them about traffic safety.
- roceasta 9y ago
  But frankly if we're going to spend our lives obsessing about extreme tail risks then we've already lost Yes. And the tail risks are asymmetrical here. Bureaucrats take on responsibility for thousands or hundreds-of-thousands of children in their district. They look bad however few of these kids are harmed or killed. So what might be a perfectly acceptable risk for an individual family is not acceptable to the local government. The more they interfere and assume responsibility for children the more additional responsibilities their offices will be loaded with when things go wrong. Which will cause further problems, et cetera, because although parents love and provide for their children, institutions don't know how to (and can't afford to).
- fmueller 9y ago
  I walked to kindergarden at the age of 5. But that was in Switzeland.
Evgeny 9y ago
I wanted to make a small donation but I am not comfortable entering my credit card information on a website I know nothing about. This is the first time when I wanted to make a donation, and there was no PayPal option to do it.
pharrington 9y ago
I smell a confidence trick. Nowhere in his article does Crook mention any specific names of government workers he interacted with, specific dates when he met with caseworkers, or specific actions or enforcements the government would take regarding his case. In an article full of links to specific stats and empathy inducing images of his children, he does not show a single government correspondence. I hope my assumption is just misguided cynicism, and that there actually is a concrete reason to give this man money.
- pharrington 9y ago
  from https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-man-ordered-to-stop-letting-his-children-take-city-bus-to-school/article36180815/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&reqid=ab593daa-153f-4fb3-9a01-e6142ab95e76 https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vanco... "In a June 23 letter that Mr. Crook provided to The Globe and Mail, the ministry said it looked into concerns that "you were pulling the children's ears and allowing them to take transit unsupervised." Asked about the ear-pulling, Mr. Crook said it was treated as an afterthought in the investigation and follow-up, and that the main focus was the bus trips. The letter says there are no child-protection concerns and that the children are safe in their father's care."
daemin 9y ago
A more sinister way of looking at this is that the government wants to raise children to be more dependent on an authority figure. So that when they grow up to become adults they will more naturally defer to authority and the state will have an easier time controlling the population and instituting draconian measures. This goes hand in hand with another commenter where no-one wants to take the responsibility for being wrong and always defers to an "authority figure". Because nobody got blamed for buying IBM.
CodeWriter23 9y ago
I had to stop reading when the father of FIVE starts talking about sustainability. He might have some credibility in my eyes if he had a vasectomy after 2 kids. And even more if he snipped them at 1.
Xoros 9y ago
A friend of mine is father of 7. When they had their fifth kid, children protection started to show their faces on a regular base. Because, you know, having that much children, you are probably a bad parent. Of course, it's not a bad thing that they ensure that there is, in fact, no obvious problem home. It's important to watch for the children, they are the future of your country. But in his case, a wealthy entrepreneur, his wife is a nurse, with the biggest house I've ever been in, and one of the happiest family I know, they still visits every couple of months, seamingly looking for a reason to piss them off. It looks like (and it's just my opinion) they can't accept different form of life standards.
- extra88 9y ago
  I'm skeptical that this is the whole story, CPS departments don't have the staff to monitor every Duggar-wannabe. But if there was an incident that put you on their radar (even if it was actually nothing), I could see it taking a long time for them to take you off their list.
  - Xoros 9y ago
    Well I don't really know. Maybe 5 kids is a trigger here in France. But on a semi related subject, my wife and I decided to not put our kids in school this year and do home schooling. To be well prepared, we asked people already doing it, joined Facebook groups of homeschooling parents nearby, etc... The most frequent advice we had is to watch out when government will send someone to check out if everything is ok, as it's badly accepted in France to do homeschool. And they're known to try to corner you to get the kids back to school. And a lot of parents think you're doing bad for your kids making this choice, so may be there is jealousy/angry involved. But again, it's in France not Canada or US so it might be different.
    - extra88 9y ago
      It would have been helpful to mention you were describing a situation in France, it makes a big difference which country you're in and most people here don't have experience there. I have heard that homeschooling is not as accepted in France as it is in the U.S., it seems like there quite a few individual liberties Americans assume that are not protected in France.
cromulent 9y ago
In Finland each child gets a yellow cap when they start school around age 7. They are expected to be making their own way to school, and this cap makes it easier for other road and public transport users to spot them and assist them if necessary.
program_whiz 9y ago
Once there are numerous children riding unaccompanied on the bus, the stats may change. Obviously in the current environment (where no children are riding the bus), the number of incidents are small (his stats are from school busses). What happens when people realize that dozens of children are riding public buses all the time without a parent in sight? The current climate of "over-protecting" kids may be the cause of the lower rates of child-related crimes. Check out some graphs of the kidnap rates falling. Maybe the "woefully ignorant" public policy makers actually have the right answer? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/?utm_term=.3a60649a53b4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/there...
Xoros 9y ago
It's seems pretty tough in Norge too. The local Children Protection Service seems powerful. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BBWXhrN4AM4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BBWXhrN4AM4

180 points by mjirv 9y ago

>Attorney General, and determined that children under 10 years old could not be unsupervised in or outside the home Good night... glad I live in America.

kareemm 9y ago
America's got its own share of issues wrt this topic: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-range-parenting-family-under-investigation-again/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-rang...
- esaym 9y ago
  And can you imagine how much worse it would be if there actually was a "legal" unsupervised age???
bambax 9y ago
I believe America is worse on this matter.

nicklaf 9y ago

Any countries out there where this kind of helicopter parenting isn't endemic in the culture?

pg314 9y ago
Any country not in North America? In Belgium, the bus company had to ask parents not to put children under 5 alone on the bus, which happened in a couple of instances (see [1], in Dutch). Presumably they have no problems with kids older than that. [1] http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20141120_01386041 http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20141120_01386041
nippples 9y ago
Helicopter parenting is one problem, legal enforcement of helicopter parenting is an entirely different monster.
- nicklaf 9y ago
  Don't parents sometimes tattle on other parents they deem to be irresponsible, according to their own standards of just what children ought to be able to do by themselves? I seem to remember reading some anecdotes here the last time this topic came up.
  - bumblebeard 9y ago
    It's probably not very common but it has definitely happened: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-son-park/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/living/florida-mom-arrested-so...
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    Not just other parents, people in general. Also in my experience a woman is under much more scrutiny as a parent than a man (e.g. exact same activity -- with dad: "So great to see dad bonding with kid" -- with mom: "I can't believe she would let her kid do that!")
daxfohl 9y ago
Per walking / public transit to school, Japan is always the big example where many kids do so on their own. I feel like I've read this is mandatory there, but a quick search finds no backing evidence so maybe not. I'm curious though in Japan whether this is part of a general trend combating helicopter parenting, or if it's just a one-off social norm.
- valgaze 9y ago
  CBS Dec 2015 on Japan http://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI http://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI Not sure if they're common/representative, but two interesting things the mother demonstrated (2:14): 1. She can track the kid via GPS 2. When asked, she said she would never let her son walk alone to school in the United States
  - new299 9y ago
    It's been common in Japan since before the second world war. My wife, who went to school in Japan, says it's seen as a good thing, to encourage independence. There's a popular TV show, where they follow small kids (maybe 4 or 5?) on their first "trip alone" to do a chore, obviously they're being followed by a camera crew. But the TV show promotes kids taking responsibility for themselves (and it's cute of course). The US is just seen as a much more dangerous country than Japan. I mean, it actually does have a higher crime rate. Sorry, this is all purely anecdotal. But I believe it to be the general case (would as always love to see data).
- new299 9y ago
  It's not mandatory, but it is common. It's a social norm that has been common practice for many years. It's common both in towns and in the countryside. I would say (but don't have data to show) that there's is a slow trend against it. Possibly because of recent high profile abductions...
- lawl 9y ago
  In Switzerland kids often walk to Kindergarten (age 4/5 and up) alone. At least I know I did (okay it was only like a 5 minute walk in my case). For school in can't remember anyone ever being brought by their partents. (Probably excluding the first few days of course). So this quote > the Ministry had checked with their lawyers “across the country” and the Attorney General, and determined that children under 10 years old could not be unsupervised in or outside the home, for any amount of time has me really like WTF. Edit: A bit more background now that I'm thinking about it. It's completely normal for kids in Kindergarten to go there alone, the first day each kid gets a reflector thingy(?)[0] they wear to walk there so they can be seen easily while crossing streets. Every morning you see a bunch of little kids toddling to Kindergarten, I've never really thought about this being different anywhere else. [0] https://www.max-der-dachs.ch/files/shopimage/photo/8/vga_leuchtstreifen_5298_original_cropscale_600x500_cropscale_600x500.png https://www.max-der-dachs.ch/files/shopimage/photo/8/vga_leu...
deusex_ 9y ago
Europe is a lot more relaxed and kids are given a lot more freedom. When we were kids we just were expected to wait for the other sibling and take a 20min tram ride home together. At 15 I probably started spending nights not at home occasionally (I also never caused any real trouble, so we built trust with my parents). Though there was a difference if you as a Central European visited France for example. The kids were way behind us in being relaxed and confident without parents around.
apexalpha 9y ago
My parents put me on a train to the other side of the country to visit an Ajax game when I was 12, lol. Someone we knew picked us up there, but still... Not as bad as described here. Usually my mom would just say: 'home when the lights turn on'. This was pre kids-have-phones era...

geff82 9y ago

While helicopter parenting is a thing here in Germany, too, it is still possible to use your sane judgement as a parent for a lot of things. My daughter is not yet in school (so I am not into a peer group that talks about such stuff), but I see the 7-year-old neighbour kids walking to school without supervision, just as it has been the custom here in my own childhood. I have to admit there are fewer of those on the street (and more accompanied by parents), but kids still have the same freedoms in law that I had. Heck, in anti-gun Germany they are allowed to shoot at shooting clubs beginning 12, doing their first solo flight in (sail)planes at 14 and have their boat driving license at 16. I often critisize our country for its obese body of law, but life of kids is not too much restricted.

captainmuon 9y ago
Yes, exactly. In fact, kids are usually taught the way to elementary school in the last year of Kindergarten (for the non-Germans: "Kindergarten" here is approximately pre-school in the US. It is where kids go until they are about 6.) The social expectation is that every kid walks or takes public transportation (unless that is not possible). There are usually no dedicated school buses, but the public buses have extra timeslots. You meet your friends on the way to school, which is an important experience. Everything is safe, especially because it is the social norm. I have the opportunity to live either in the US or Germany, and the increasing craziness and hysteria around how children are treated is the major reason for me to stay with my family in Germany.
- wink 9y ago
  Interesting, first time I hear that thing about walking to elementary school in Kindergarden. Growing up in Munich (in the 80s) this was definitely not the case, least of all because not all children from the Kindergarden would end up in the same elementary school.
  - captainmuon 9y ago
    Yeah, I guess it is more of a small village thing. They go for walks anyway, and then it makes sense to explore the area around the school. In bigger cities, I've seen kindergarten trips take the S-Bahn. I guess that also counts as a kind of preparation.

xroche 9y ago

Over-protecting kids is probably not the main point here. Bureaucrats tend to focus on only one goal: not taking any responsibility or risks. Letting kids being independent is a risk for them, even if this is for their own good. And you can carefully explain to them the case, with scientific evidences, but they are not accountable for anything, and won't bother to change their mind. Because there is a second thing bureaucrats hate: admitting they were wrong.

vacri 9y ago
The counterpoint is, however, that the 'risk' is real: while most parents wouldn't hold the ministry accountable for minor risks, 'most' is not 'all'. They're doing CYA for a reason, not because they get jollies from it. It's the same reason why politicians say nothing of substance anymore. In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even cost you your job. It's not just a case of 'bureaucracy gone crazy', but also of 'we demand too much of them'. The stereotypical example is that teachers used to just teach, and now they need to be nurses and social workers as well.
- sametmax 9y ago
  > In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even cost you your job. I think Trump is proving you wrong. But I get your point, the risk is really because a few people are idiots with too much powers to break things. We see the same things with the medical personal: they get very cautious and conservative because they are held accountable when something goes wrong, whether it's their fault or not. But then forbidding idiots to have power would not be very democratic wouldn't it ?
  - austinheap 9y ago
    I was really into the parent comment then yours just grabbed it right by the thoughtful response.
  - 9y ago

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

The point of parenting isn't to avoid getting criticized for being a "bad parent", or to do things that make you look like a "good parent". The point is to provide the necessary conditions for children to learn how to be independent and successful adults. This involves taking reasonable levels of risks, and figuring out what amount of risk-taking is reasonable, and learning how to navigate the world in general.

thedays 9y ago

The "Cover Your Ass" culture which results in mandating helicopter parenting is sadly widespread, and not just in Canada. We need to be ever vigilant to stop petty bureaucrats everywhere from making arbitrary rules and taking away valuable freedoms and discretion. Do what you can at work and in your personal life to maintain freedoms. EDIT: One simple thing we can do is make a donation to the legal fighting fund established by the writer of this article to fight this draconian Canadian regulation. There are links to the legal fund donation page in the linked article.

Animats 9y ago

At least in Menlo Park, CA, I'm seeing more kids walking to school. You can now drive down a road that passes three schools around 3 PM without being caught in a traffic jam of SUVs queued up for kid pickup. I wonder if computer use is helping. I used to see kids struggling under enough backpack for a weekend campout. The backpacks seem to be much smaller now. Maybe more content is on tablets and laptops.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Computer use is likelier helping through the existence of cell phones. They're essentially electronically supervised, so the physical supervision feels less necessary to observers.
fergie 9y ago
Yes, its my impression that the tide is turning, particularly in urban areas that are walkable, and a lot safer than they were 20-30 years ago

fillskills 9y ago

Bureaucrats have little stake in this but see high risk to their careers so they want to play safe. Only way to affect change is to somehow convince them that this is good for their career. Or get lucky enough and find the one person who believes in and cares enough to push the issue through the system.

mnm1 9y ago

I walked the whole city I was born in and took whatever busses and trolleys I wanted (I knew all the routes) when I was 7-9 years old (in the 80's) in a city of 300-400k people. This is simply insane and stupid. It's the reason why I will never have kids in the US or Canada. What kind of shitty culture and society allows this kind of degradation of kids? Is it any wonder they grow up not knowing how to live? It's shameful and disgusting to allow children to be policed in this way. I'd blame it on government/bureaucracy, but it only follows the norms of the shitty culture that enables it.

plandis 9y ago
Yes, tell me more about how shitty my culture (and by extension) the people of that culture are. Any other insult you want to lay on a group of 300+ million people that you've so carelessly stereotyped without giving a careful thought about it?
- walterstucco 9y ago
  He's right

smelendez 9y ago

I think the question the Ministry official asked him about what would happen if the kids start fighting is an important part of the equation. Society has gotten more legalistic. The bus driver or a random adult passenger doesn't have legally defined authority to discipline the author's kids, which means they don't have the authority at all. But basic human decency demands you intervene if you see little kids fighting or doing something dangerous (even if you'd just roll your eyes if it was a couple of drunk guys). This tension propagates through the system until somebody basically rules kids can't ride the bus unsupervised until they're old enough to be unsympathetic.

new299 9y ago
What happens if two adults start fighting? What is the difference?

new299 9y ago

I'm sympathetic. But given the article is against "fact-free" parenting. I didn't find the data presented very compelling. Basically you'd need to know how common crime against children traveling unsupervised on buses in a similar scenario. The closest example presented is kids in New York riding the subway, so presenting stats on that would be useful. I'd also like more details on the Japanese example, it's honestly not uncommon to hear news reports of kids being abducted in Japan. I'd personally be interested in the stats, but as a comparison point it doesn't make sense unless you can normalize for the overall lower crime rate that Japan has. If anyone has good data against "Helicopter parenting", I'd be curious to see it.

dwaltrip 9y ago
From the post: > And the odds of your child being kidnapped by a stranger on the bus? Incredibly long. A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of a stranger abducting a child, in the entire two years prior. I personally found the article very compelling. This kind of mindless fear, in direct contradiction of clear evidence, makes my blood boil.
- oblio 9y ago
  Every "bet" consideration needs to include possible loss, not only the odds. Losing your child is for many people not that far off from losing their own life, so people tend to react in a very cautious way.
  - imcrs 9y ago
    Not when they decide to drive themselves and their kids on the freeway every workday.
    - oblio 9y ago
      The illusion of control is just as important :)
      - 9y ago

bizgreen9000 9y ago

I find it incredible that these bureaucrats routinely threaten people with taking away their children. Aren't even the most reasonable people going to get dangerous when faced with that kind of a situation? I don't have kids but I can't even imagine.

daemin 9y ago
Yes, but they'll most likely have a Police escort when they come and take your children away. If you want to escalate it further then for sure you will not be getting your children back under your care any time soon.

deleted 9y ago

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sneak 9y ago

Those kids are too young to be riding the bus alone.

crummy 9y ago
How come?
deleted 9y ago
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Stratoscope 9y ago

Back around 1960, when I was eight and my little sister was six, we went with our dad to a chess tournament at the Mechanics' Institute in San Francisco. [1] Of course if you're six and eight and not really into chess, nothing could be more boring. So we asked Dad if we could do something else. He gave us a few nickels and quarters and said "sure, how about riding the cable cars and go see the town?" So we did! It was the most awesomest thing ever. We rode every cable car we could find, walked around town and saw the sights. The best part was when we found a street with our last name on it! Everyone was nice. The cable car operators saw that we were a couple of kids riding around on our own, so they showed us how the grip and the brakes worked, pointed out interesting things to see, and made sure we knew how to ride safely - even when we were sitting on the outside of the cable car kicking our feet. We forgot to ask for lunch money, so when we got back to the chess club as Dad was finishing his games, he took us out for a bite to eat and we told him all the stories of our adventure. What a great day! [1] https://chessclub.org https://chessclub.org

gwatch 9y ago
This won't happen today in San Francisco city, because of decrease in social capital. I live downtown and I will not anyone's kids to wander around like that. First, you'll be lucky if MUNI driver is even remotely friendly, then there are druggies on the street, and so on. Illegal immigration, homelessness fueled by liberal/leftist policies, crime, gangs, drug trade have turned the city into a place quite unrecognizable compared to 1960. Leftism is a cancer, and a road to third world culture, paved by good intentions.
- isolli 9y ago
  I would say your fears are the real problem here.
- tanto 9y ago
  Just checked your other comments. You really seem to HATE "leftism". You really should think about the fact that you are calling the political direction of many other people "cancer"

ArchD 9y ago

The way blame gets assigned and risk gets assessed by human society is often quite pathological. In a typical setting, there are options A & B. As an example, let A be the option to allow young kids to ride independently on a bus and B the option to legislate against letting young kids ride independently on a bus. The cost of A seems high to human emotions and the lazy thinker, typically involving rare but high-impact events (something really bad happening to the well-trained kid taking a bus) that get cherry-picked as important to consider. The cost of B seems low to human emotions and the lazy thinker, typically involving diverse continual low-impact events (all kids affected by legislation losing out on chance to learn independence, environmental impact of using a car instead of public transport) that get neglected because of their low emotional appeal and more complicated accounting. (It may be hard to prove that lots of low-impact things add up to a big thing -- there are too many things and causal relationships to point to.) In many cases, the cost of A is actually objectively lower than the cost of B, so A is the better option. In such cases, whereas all options and their consequences should be considered together with their probabilities, in reality, option B is often deemed to be the better choice, and A a bad choice, because the cost of A appeals more strongly to emotional. Consequently, someone who picked A (law-maker or bureaucrat) gets blamed but someone who picked B doesn't get blamed and is harder to blame, including in court. To protect themselves, they pick the inferior option. I think this sort of pathological risk assessment is the root of the cover-your-ass culture that permeates society.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Wash rinse repeat for 90% of not specific laws about behavior in a noncommercial setting...

averagewall 9y ago

What must be the most painful part of this is that he's in a weak position having shared custody. A normal parent could just give the middle finger and they'll never have their kids taken away for a single minor behaviour like that. But someone with tenuous custody has to bend over backwards to look like they're doing it right. It seems he could actually lose his kids quite easily because they have another home ready to go to.

sametmax 9y ago
It's amazing an institution as such power, and that they can exercise such power, not based so much on a legal ground as on moral ground. Yeah they mentioned lawyers, but there is no law against what the parent did.
- DanBC 9y ago
  They can't do anything without going to court. Of course there are laws that govern this.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    About the result yes. But the procedures they engage can have a tremendous impact on one's life, and even more when a court is involved, whether they are right or not. Can you imagine having to kiss some distant bureaucrat bottom, accepting they invade your life, endangering your reputation, making you question your choices, threatening you to loose your kids, making them look at you differently, all that __even before any decision is taken__ ? This is madness.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      He doesn't have to do any of that. He can chose to not engage at all. Again, the state can't do anything without going to court, and when they go to court they have to prove their case, he doesn't have to prove anything.
deleted 9y ago
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jakobegger 9y ago

I‘m really glad this parent is fighting the decision; no ministry should be able to interfere with personal freedoms when the stakes are so low, basing their decisions on far fetched court cases that have nothing to do with the situation. As a point of comparison, school kids in Austria typically walk to school or use public transit on their own from first grade (6-7 years old). In the beginning of the school year, older students watch zebra crossings and block traffic when kids need to cross.

Dove 9y ago

I don't mind the idea of the state protecting children. What I mind is it happening without essential protections such as a right to jury trial, a presumption of innocence, and illegal behavior being limited to what is defined by actual laws written by elected representatives. What we have here is the terror of the police state. Anonymous tips, petty bureaucrats making life changing rulings on a whim with no clear laws to establish legal behavior. I would love to see the whole thing challenged as unconstitutional and abolished and folded into the much more functional justice system.

DanBC 9y ago
In the OPs situation he can just politely tell the child protection team that he's heard their advice, but that he disagrees, and that he's not going to change his behaviour. The social workers then put all the information together and take it to their lawyers, who'll either say it's not strong enough to go to court, or ask him if he really does want to ignore the advice because they think they have a good case. At that point I assume they go to court, and then the state has to persuade the judge that he's an unfit parent and that removing the children is the only option - that nothing else will do. He doesn't have to prove he's a good parent; the onus is on the state to make their case. The court has to respect his parenting choices, unless those choices are harmful or neglectful or put the children at risk of significant harm. The court also has to take into account the views of the children, and it's likely these children will be happy about the travel arrangements, and will be persuasive to a judge. This (quite old) report includes information on Canadian parents allowing children to engage in risky activity (11 year olds taking cannabis, for example) and Canada ranks 17th, which is pretty poor. http://cwrp.ca/publications/401 http://cwrp.ca/publications/401
- Confiks 9y ago
  Saying that he could "just" do this in my opinion really simplifies it too much. You must be terribly sure of your case to open yourself up to such a risk. Also, in many countries, child protection services can preemtively declare you an unfit parent and place your children in foster care, pending a decision from a judge, which may well take months.

cabalamat 9y ago

Relevant: http://www.freerangekids.com/ http://www.freerangekids.com/

imartin2k 9y ago

Wow. I took the bus alone to school from 6-7 years on, back in East Berlin.

d--b 9y ago

Also people don't realize this anymore, but when you're a single parent and have FIVE kids, you HAVE to teach your kids independence, cause you can't be behind each and every one of them all the time! When one of them gets sick (which is just about every other week), you're pretty pleased that the others can get to school by themselves.

Ntrails 9y ago

This article is depressing as hell. I used to walk to school at the age of what, 8? There was one really quite busy road I had to cross on my own, the rest was residential. But learning to cross the road is something that was dogmatically addressed from a very young age. "Stop. Look. Listen." I remember learning about that aged 5ish? My parents knew I could cross the road, they'd taught me, the schools had taught me. It was tested in the crucible of parental observation and then I was trusted to continue. Of course someone could come along and kidnap me as I blithely wandered along the pavement. But frankly if we're going to spend our lives obsessing about extreme tail risks then we've already lost.

majewsky 9y ago
When I went to school (20 years ago in Germany), policemen visited each 1st grade class to teach them about traffic safety.
roceasta 9y ago
But frankly if we're going to spend our lives obsessing about extreme tail risks then we've already lost Yes. And the tail risks are asymmetrical here. Bureaucrats take on responsibility for thousands or hundreds-of-thousands of children in their district. They look bad however few of these kids are harmed or killed. So what might be a perfectly acceptable risk for an individual family is not acceptable to the local government. The more they interfere and assume responsibility for children the more additional responsibilities their offices will be loaded with when things go wrong. Which will cause further problems, et cetera, because although parents love and provide for their children, institutions don't know how to (and can't afford to).
fmueller 9y ago
I walked to kindergarden at the age of 5. But that was in Switzeland.

Evgeny 9y ago

I wanted to make a small donation but I am not comfortable entering my credit card information on a website I know nothing about. This is the first time when I wanted to make a donation, and there was no PayPal option to do it.

pharrington 9y ago

I smell a confidence trick. Nowhere in his article does Crook mention any specific names of government workers he interacted with, specific dates when he met with caseworkers, or specific actions or enforcements the government would take regarding his case. In an article full of links to specific stats and empathy inducing images of his children, he does not show a single government correspondence. I hope my assumption is just misguided cynicism, and that there actually is a concrete reason to give this man money.

pharrington 9y ago
from https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-man-ordered-to-stop-letting-his-children-take-city-bus-to-school/article36180815/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&reqid=ab593daa-153f-4fb3-9a01-e6142ab95e76 https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vanco... "In a June 23 letter that Mr. Crook provided to The Globe and Mail, the ministry said it looked into concerns that "you were pulling the children's ears and allowing them to take transit unsupervised." Asked about the ear-pulling, Mr. Crook said it was treated as an afterthought in the investigation and follow-up, and that the main focus was the bus trips. The letter says there are no child-protection concerns and that the children are safe in their father's care."

daemin 9y ago

A more sinister way of looking at this is that the government wants to raise children to be more dependent on an authority figure. So that when they grow up to become adults they will more naturally defer to authority and the state will have an easier time controlling the population and instituting draconian measures. This goes hand in hand with another commenter where no-one wants to take the responsibility for being wrong and always defers to an "authority figure". Because nobody got blamed for buying IBM.

CodeWriter23 9y ago

I had to stop reading when the father of FIVE starts talking about sustainability. He might have some credibility in my eyes if he had a vasectomy after 2 kids. And even more if he snipped them at 1.

Xoros 9y ago

A friend of mine is father of 7. When they had their fifth kid, children protection started to show their faces on a regular base. Because, you know, having that much children, you are probably a bad parent. Of course, it's not a bad thing that they ensure that there is, in fact, no obvious problem home. It's important to watch for the children, they are the future of your country. But in his case, a wealthy entrepreneur, his wife is a nurse, with the biggest house I've ever been in, and one of the happiest family I know, they still visits every couple of months, seamingly looking for a reason to piss them off. It looks like (and it's just my opinion) they can't accept different form of life standards.

extra88 9y ago
I'm skeptical that this is the whole story, CPS departments don't have the staff to monitor every Duggar-wannabe. But if there was an incident that put you on their radar (even if it was actually nothing), I could see it taking a long time for them to take you off their list.
- Xoros 9y ago
  Well I don't really know. Maybe 5 kids is a trigger here in France. But on a semi related subject, my wife and I decided to not put our kids in school this year and do home schooling. To be well prepared, we asked people already doing it, joined Facebook groups of homeschooling parents nearby, etc... The most frequent advice we had is to watch out when government will send someone to check out if everything is ok, as it's badly accepted in France to do homeschool. And they're known to try to corner you to get the kids back to school. And a lot of parents think you're doing bad for your kids making this choice, so may be there is jealousy/angry involved. But again, it's in France not Canada or US so it might be different.
  - extra88 9y ago
    It would have been helpful to mention you were describing a situation in France, it makes a big difference which country you're in and most people here don't have experience there. I have heard that homeschooling is not as accepted in France as it is in the U.S., it seems like there quite a few individual liberties Americans assume that are not protected in France.

cromulent 9y ago

In Finland each child gets a yellow cap when they start school around age 7. They are expected to be making their own way to school, and this cap makes it easier for other road and public transport users to spot them and assist them if necessary.

program_whiz 9y ago

Once there are numerous children riding unaccompanied on the bus, the stats may change. Obviously in the current environment (where no children are riding the bus), the number of incidents are small (his stats are from school busses). What happens when people realize that dozens of children are riding public buses all the time without a parent in sight? The current climate of "over-protecting" kids may be the cause of the lower rates of child-related crimes. Check out some graphs of the kidnap rates falling. Maybe the "woefully ignorant" public policy makers actually have the right answer? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/?utm_term=.3a60649a53b4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/there...

Xoros 9y ago

It's seems pretty tough in Norge too. The local Children Protection Service seems powerful. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BBWXhrN4AM4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BBWXhrN4AM4