Parents in trouble again for letting kids walk alone

[flowers]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Maryland parents accused of child neglect for letting their kids roam around their neighborhood had to retrieve them from the county's Children's Protective Services after police removed the youngsters from a park.

At about 4:55 p.m. ET Sunday, Montgomery County police received a call to check on the welfare of Danielle and Sasha Meitiv's children — Rafi, 10, and Dvora, 6 — at a park here. Officers found the children unattended and brought them to the agency as part of protocol, they said.

Montgomery County police and county Children's Protective Services are jointly investigating the Meitivs of Silver Spring for allowing their children to walk repeatedly around the neighborhood alone. The parents say they know where their children are

[musiclady]

This is INSANE.

Why don't we just put children in government cages away from their parents so they can't do anything to hurt themselves?

My husband and I would be in jail for what we allowed our kids to do just 20 short years ago.

But because we let them 'roam,' they are all adventurers doing great things with their lives.

I repeat......... this government overreach is insane!

[Fishrrman]

Back in the late 1950's, Weston (Connecticut) was still a small town, not yet completely changed into a wealthy bedroom community.

I was around 7 or 8, as I remember.
I used to walk from our house on state route 53 two miles down to Georgetown, which still had two general stores back then, a large wire mill and a small railroad yard.

Just a kid of around 8 walking down the highway.

They were doing road work in the other direction, and in Georgetown I used to watch them unload bluestone from hopper cars delivered by the railroad into Mack Thermodyne dump trucks (those machines would be museum pieces today).

Walking back home, the dump truck drivers would stop and ask me if I wanted a ride home -- what a treat for an 8-year-old kid! I'd climb up into the cab and they'd let me off in front of my house, then go on their way.

Nobody ever bothered me, no one ever complained or called the cops.

Times have changed.
Take me back to the 1950's...
Take me back and leave me there!

[alicewonders]

We were grade school age in the 60's and we would hop on our bikes and take off to the neighborhood store where we could buy candy and popsicles.  Then we would head to the grade school playground (when school was out) and eat candy and play on the swings and monkey-bars, bicycle up and down the hills by the woods and have a big old time.  Never had any trouble at all, and it got us out of our mother's hair for awhile.  No one thought anything of it. 

How different it is now.  (Oh - and none of us were fat!)

[Right_in_Virginia]

Wow.  Who gave them the authority to do this?  (And how do we take it back?)

[raml]

When I was a child in the fifties I use to bicycle to the park to swim every day starting at 6 I was taking swimming lessons my parents paid for and a neighbor friend went with me. We also went to the same park which also had a swing set area and also hiking paths with lots of trees and a creek that went through it and we played there almost everyday after swimming. This was a small town in Ohio and I knew at least one person in every neighborhood we went by to the park so if we were hurt or scared we could go there and they would contact our parents but the park was at least a mile from home as was school and there we had to come home for lunch too since we were less than one block under a mile so we couldn't take the bus or stay for lunch.

This was different times more moral times and yes there was little to no crime around my home town then. I was able to let my kids pretty much have run of the neighborhood we brought them up in we lived on a lake in Oakland county in Michigan. As my kids got older was when I noticed I was more concerned for my kids and kept a closer watch on them things seem to be going downhill as far as safety for children. We can't compare our childhoods with what today's children live with it is more dangerous and not not because we hear about it but because there are more people many more than when we were growing up and that means more trouble.

[rangerrebew]

Free-Range Children Kidnapped by CPS to Prevent Potential Kidnapping


  April 13th, 2015
 

Remember the Maryland parents who were found guilty of neglect for allowing their children, 10 and 7, to walk around the neighborhood together but unaccompanied by an adult?

Yesterday those kids were just taken by CPS because they were playing at the park by themselves.

WUSA-9 reports how the children were seized:


The Maryland parents accused of child neglect for letting their children roam freely are headed to Child Protective Services after their children were removed from a park Sunday by police.

Montgomery County Police and Child Protective services are in a joint investigation of Danielle and Sasha Meitiv for possible child neglect for allowing their children to walk freely.

At approximately 4:55 p.m., Montgomery County Police received a call to check on the welfare of the Meitiv children at a Silver Spring park. Police say officers found the children unattended.

As part of protocol, police say they called Child Protective Services and were told to bring the children to the agency.

The children, ages six and 10, were taken to Child Protective Services after being removed from the park.

So Child Protective Services is kidnapping children from their parents to protect them from potential kidnappers who may strike if the children are left unattended?

The Meitiv children are in perfectly good health. There are no signs of physical or mental abuse by the parents. In fact there seems to be nothing but love. However, the authorities and busy-body neighbors appear to have a problem with their free-range parenting style.

Have people already forgotten their own youth? Do they perceive today to be a more dangerous time? Why? Violent crime rates have been plummeting.

Clearly these parents have not neglected their children. However, kidnapping these children from a playground and breaking up this family over their free-range philosophy seems to be obvious abuse.
- See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/free-range-children-kidnapped-by-cps-to-prevent-potential-kidnapping_042015#sthash.YyX2VPvY.dpuf

[jmyrlefuller]

I'm a lot younger than you guys are, but even in 1990s small-town America they never had a problem with me going about town.

[ABX]

I'm a lot younger than you guys are, but even in 1990s small-town America they never had a problem with me going about town.

Ditto, in Jr. High around 87-88, I remember riding my bike all over the town we lived in of about 30K. I would easily bike 10 miles from home exploring town. I often went camping by myself and rarely had supervision.

[aligncare]

Grew up in 60s Bensonhurst Brooklyn.

My god how I treasure those times running out of the house early on a summer morning to ride and run and explore with friends until hunger told me to get home. Then at dinner, inhaling pasta, Three Stooges and orange soda and running out again to play in the street in front until mom shouted from the window.

[DCPatriot]

In the Summer, I wold leave home at about 9AM and would return just after the street lights came on. 

....since I was 8 years old.

[musiclady]

How many of us only had the instruction "be home by supper"........ or then after supper, "be home before dark."

The times when I got in the most trouble as a kid were when I was too deep in the woods nearby to hear the bell my Mom would ring to get me home, was late, and then argued with my Dad when he yelled at me for being late.

Sounds like most of us were 'free range' kids...

Which is probably why we're able to think for ourselves now.

[alicewonders]

How many of us only had the instruction "be home by supper"........ or then after supper, "be home before dark."

The times when I got in the most trouble as a kid were when I was too deep in the woods nearby to hear the bell my Mom would ring to get me home, was late, and then argued with my Dad when he yelled at me for being late.

Sounds like most of us were 'free range' kids...

Which is probably why we're able to think for ourselves now.

Excellent observation musiclady!  Er...mlady!

 

[musiclady]

Excellent observation musiclady!  Er...mlady!

 

hehe.........