Ohio CPS Wants to Snatch Kid Away from Family that Has Taught Her Self-Sufficiency

[jbauer]

you would be reported so damn fast.

I'm scared to put my kids in the car and return the cart will they sit in the car for 30 seconds.

 

[Barrex]

Honestly, six is too young to be wandering around alone. Although it is absolutely ridiculous that the police think they have a right to kidnap a child for a sub par parenting choice. The state has a role to play in regulating actual neglect and abuse but this isn't it.

6 years old seems a little young to me to be given free range on the town. My oldest is 4.5 and there's not a snowballs chance I'd trust her to walk down the city streets here.

?Wierd. I knew kids who were driving tractors at that age...

 

[mad cow]

Things have sure changed since the '50s.My Mom would run me out of the house if the weather was nice and I wasn't sick when I was six.
Not that she had to very often but 'Go play outside' was common enough for me to remember it,and 'outside' had no geographical boundaries.

 

[satchelmcqueen]

the younger folks would think 6 is to young. i do not. i suppose it all depends on where you live and how safe the parent thinks the neighborhood is. wait!!!! just like it supposed to be!

 

[DamianTV]

So why do we see children younger than the age of six playing unsupervised in the middle of streets in lower income neighborhoods and nothing ever happens to them? Oh, maybe it was because they are not being taught self-sufficiency, just to run-amuk.

Im sure if I were a child today, I would have been arrested for diving into swimming pools, and tazered for either riding a bike or skateboarding without a full suit of body armor.

 

[angelatc]

Couldn't this have just as easily turned out: "...he discovered when she failed to return that a homicidal pedophile had taken her."

The rest of the story sounds like he's being harassed by the CPS flat-out; I'm not arguing there.. But the first contact - not even the buddy system? Anything?

The odds of being snatched by a stranger are miniscule. It's the media that makes people believe that there are pedophiles on every corner. WHen I was 6, I walked to and from school alone every day, and rode my bike to the convenience store when I wanted to.

These people have done nothing wrong, and 6 is not too young to be out and about unsupervised. Well, it guess it is now that America has been pussified.

 

[angelatc]

Makes me thankful that my kids are growing up in the country. I remember waking up at 7:00 am and packing a backpack with peanut butter crackers, a canteen of water, a first aid kid, and my favorite walking stick. My parents didn't care as long as we were back by sunset.

I would agree that six is too young for city dwellers, but that's just my personal view. Nothing to get the cops involved over...

I have a friend that grew up on a cattle ranch out west. By age 8, he was in charge of riding the whole perimeter of the ranch to ensure that the fences were intact. IF they weren't, he fixed them. This required an overnight stay, buy the way.

 

[presence]

My neighbour is so deep in CPS bullshit right now. Over their 12 y/o throwing a fit when dad wouldn't let her were short shorts to school.

Over the nanny state.

 

[Carson]

I think the kids are doing fine.

Perhaps we do need to do something about the adults that are messing with them.

Wouldn't it be funny that an agency to prevent such things turned out to be a problem? Maybe civilization has come full circle?

 

[jclay2]

Land of the free home of the brave!! MERIKA FU** YEAH!

 

[MelissaWV]

Many six-year-olds are easily taught the basics, and the rest is all instinct. I wouldn't trust my niece to wander the neighborhood or go to the store alone, but she's 11. She also forgets how socks work sometimes. My nephew is going to be a wanders-around kind of kid. He's 4 and honestly other than his notion that cars are supposed to stop for him he's ready to go.

I'm not that ancient. I grew up running around the woods and tracking animals and probably would have walked to school if it weren't so damned hot in Florida. Going to a friend's house down the street was no biggie. You had common sense. You knew a neighbor or two (in response to the "what if their parents dropped dead") in case of emergency. In fact, that was my first stop when something seemed wrong. If someone had tried to touch me or kidnap me, they would have had to do it out in public or, when I was in the woods, they would have had to catch me. The odds of meeting a predatory human being in the woods who's willing to run after a tree-climbing hooligan are pretty slim.

At six, keep to areas where you can be seen and heard, and don't get distracted. If it's night, keep near the better-lit areas of the sidewalk/street. Don't flash your money around. Don't buy things that will melt/spoil on the way home. Memorize someone's phone number (someone who will actually answer) and keep a copy somewhere on your person.

Most of these precautions, like I said, would be common sense and have little to do with human predators. People get lost, or they miss a tree root or uneven sidewalk and twist an ankle in the dark, or they go off chasing a kitten and lose track of time. If you train your child to always be afraid, they won't be able to function properly. If you teach them to simply be prepared, you're doing them a lifelong service.

 

[proudclod229]

By the time my future children reach age 5 they will be taught on how to spot threats and how to eliminate threats, because a threatening type of situation could arise any time...even if you were to leave your kid out front playing with the dog for five minutes or something like that.

I can agree that there's nothing wrong with asking the girl if she was okay..but taking her to the police station and calling cps to take her from her family is more than overkill. I can't even think of the word to describe it. Despicable?--that's a good one.

It reminds me of how my little brother was "warned" not to ride his bike on the sidewalk..........the cop took him to the police station toe hold him there until my mother would pick him up. We live in a small quiet town, and few, if any, people walk the sidewalk on a thursday night.

My Mom freaked out on her.

 

[Professor8000]

From ages 3 to 4 I was roaming the neighborhood with my brother who is 2 and 1/2 years older than me. By 5 years old we had moved to a more rural neighborhood and we all got bikes to ride around. At 5 years old I would ride my bike a few miles and if I got lost, I'd just knock on someone's door and call home because my mom made sure we memorized our phone number at a very young age.

 

[kcchiefs6465]

Many six-year-olds are easily taught the basics, and the rest is all instinct. I wouldn't trust my niece to wander the neighborhood or go to the store alone, but she's 11. She also forgets how socks work sometimes. My nephew is going to be a wanders-around kind of kid. He's 4 and honestly other than his notion that cars are supposed to stop for him he's ready to go.

I'm not that ancient. I grew up running around the woods and tracking animals and probably would have walked to school if it weren't so damned hot in Florida. Going to a friend's house down the street was no biggie. You had common sense. You knew a neighbor or two (in response to the "what if their parents dropped dead") in case of emergency. In fact, that was my first stop when something seemed wrong. If someone had tried to touch me or kidnap me, they would have had to do it out in public or, when I was in the woods, they would have had to catch me. The odds of meeting a predatory human being in the woods who's willing to run after a tree-climbing hooligan are pretty slim.

At six, keep to areas where you can be seen and heard, and don't get distracted. If it's night, keep near the better-lit areas of the sidewalk/street. Don't flash your money around. Don't buy things that will melt/spoil on the way home. Memorize someone's phone number (someone who will actually answer) and keep a copy somewhere on your person.

Most of these precautions, like I said, would be common sense and have little to do with human predators. People get lost, or they miss a tree root or uneven sidewalk and twist an ankle in the dark, or they go off chasing a kitten and lose track of time. If you train your child to always be afraid, they won't be able to function properly. If you teach them to simply be prepared, you're doing them a lifelong service.

All of the six year olds here should be sure to keep that in mind.

I agree with your post 100%. We ran around as kids but there was usually a group of us. When there wasn't and our parents couldn't find us, we got a whoopin or our nose to the corner or whatever. Me, when I become a parent, will not be letting my 6 year daughter run around by herself depending on the neighborhood. If it was a close knit neighborhood and people knew eachother and watched out for eachother's kids, yes. I'm hoping she has an older brother before all that though.

 

[Carson]

My brother showed me how to smoke when I was about 4 or 5 so I could stand out front by the curb waiting for Mom to come home.

He knew the neighbor lady across the street would see me an freak out. He thought things like that were pretty funny.

Hey and look how I turned out.

 

[KingRobbStark]

I used to walk to school, and the store (and anywhere I want) by the age of 7.

 

[2young2vote]

Wow you guys were adventurers. I played out in the woods by my grandparents house but that was it. Thats why I want land/woods before I have kids - so they can have fun but not be surrounded by a bunch of people.