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This is a "John Stossel" commentary on an incident where a mother had been arrested and charged with "Willful Abandonment of a Child," a crime according to the story carrying up to a ten year prison sentence.
Once upon a time, back when I was a child ( ), when you weren't in school, or at home eating, studying, sleeping, you were OUT playing.
Seldom by yourself unless you were a "new kid." But usually in groups.
Moreover, the group (herd) dynamic protected you. If someone walked up that you didn't know, the group would react.
In my experience we'd either tell the person to go away, threaten to (or actually) throw rocks, or all run away and yell.
But being approached by a stranger was rare. People just didn't come up to bunches of kids they didn't know. Kid's aren't stupid (at least it seemed so back then). We didn't want to talk to strangers unless they were new kids around our own ages.
If I recall correctly, after the Reagan era "Stranger Danger" push, it was found that the overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse issues turned out to be family and trusted adult causes. Rarely strangers at all.
Somehow, thanks to the relatively rare cases of actual child abduction which got so much notoriety, suddenly it became important to stifle kids in protective cocoons.
I appreciate being concerned about children's safety. But being forced to stifle them out of an unrealistic fear of a stranger stealing them, or coddling them out of fear that you yourself will face punishment for child abandonment and/or disciplining them "too harshly?" I think it's become a major problem affecting mental health and social growth.
It seems to me that as this trend became the norm it formed the roots of our hypersensitive, over-emotional, entitled youth of today.
What is your opinion? Is it such a concern that we have to threaten parent's with JAIL if they dare let their kids BE kids? How should we deal with this issue?
EDIT: Here's comedian Russell Peters joking about child discipline:
Once upon a time, back when I was a child ( ), when you weren't in school, or at home eating, studying, sleeping, you were OUT playing.
Seldom by yourself unless you were a "new kid." But usually in groups.
Moreover, the group (herd) dynamic protected you. If someone walked up that you didn't know, the group would react.
In my experience we'd either tell the person to go away, threaten to (or actually) throw rocks, or all run away and yell.
But being approached by a stranger was rare. People just didn't come up to bunches of kids they didn't know. Kid's aren't stupid (at least it seemed so back then). We didn't want to talk to strangers unless they were new kids around our own ages.
If I recall correctly, after the Reagan era "Stranger Danger" push, it was found that the overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse issues turned out to be family and trusted adult causes. Rarely strangers at all.
Somehow, thanks to the relatively rare cases of actual child abduction which got so much notoriety, suddenly it became important to stifle kids in protective cocoons.
I appreciate being concerned about children's safety. But being forced to stifle them out of an unrealistic fear of a stranger stealing them, or coddling them out of fear that you yourself will face punishment for child abandonment and/or disciplining them "too harshly?" I think it's become a major problem affecting mental health and social growth.
It seems to me that as this trend became the norm it formed the roots of our hypersensitive, over-emotional, entitled youth of today.
What is your opinion? Is it such a concern that we have to threaten parent's with JAIL if they dare let their kids BE kids? How should we deal with this issue?
EDIT: Here's comedian Russell Peters joking about child discipline:
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