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Free Range Parenting Law in Utah.

Ranb

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Ranb
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https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/con...ing-now-legal-utah-heres-means-203114763.html
There have been stories in the media about parents charged with child abuse or losing custody of their kids for allowing them to be alone at home or walking alone to/from school or a park. Utah is passed a bill that clarifies some things.
As outlined in the bill, the following situations would not qualify as neglect: traveling to and from school or recreational facilities by walking, running, or biking, playing outside, or sitting in a car unattended, provided the child is at least 9 years old and in reasonably safe conditions.
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When I grew up in rural Minnesota in the 70's, I along with my brother and sister were alone at home at times while our parents worked. We frequently were out of the house/yard (but nearby) unsupervised at ages ten and up. I kept a tighter rain on my own kids in the 90's when they were young, but we were in Pearl City Hawaii then.

Ranb
 
As a kid I rode my bike all over Lackland Air Force Base. I walked to school and the playground by myself. I don't see any problem with this law.

...with the sole exception of "sitting in a car unattended", because that's stupid, it's how children bake to death and society is denied the debt owed it by the parent(s) responsible because the death of the kid they didn't care enough about to keep alive is allegedly "punishment enough".
 
Checkmite said:
...with the sole exception of "sitting in a car unattended", because that's stupid....
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Well the article did quote the law as saying "reasonably safe conditions", something that sitting in a car with the window rolled up in warm weather is not.
 
Checkmite said:
As a kid I rode my bike all over Lackland Air Force Base. I walked to school and the playground by myself. I don't see any problem with this law.

...with the sole exception of "sitting in a car unattended", because that's stupid, it's how children bake to death and society is denied the debt owed it by the parent(s) responsible because the death of the kid they didn't care enough about to keep alive is allegedly "punishment enough".
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9 year old certainly should know how to get out of a car at need. Growing up in the late 40's and early to mid 50's I certainly knew how to. and how to roll down the window.
 
I wouldn't exclude sitting in a car unattended here, given that the law specifies nine years old or older and under reasonably safe conditions. If you can't teach your kid how to open a car door or window, or alternatively how to lock a door, then something else is wrong.

I spend a lot of time unattended in cars as a kid. It was no big deal. I knew how to get out. I knew I wasn't supposed to. Sometimes I got ticked off that a parent was gone longer than expected. No harm came.

About the only problem I see here is that cars all have power windows nowadays and it's unsafe to leave the keys in. It was a bit easier back when anyone could crank a window down.
 
bruto said:
I wouldn't exclude sitting in a car unattended here, given that the law specifies nine years old or older and under reasonably safe conditions. If you can't teach your kid how to open a car door or window, or alternatively how to lock a door, then something else is wrong.
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I suspect it's not about them being trapped inside, but rather, being unsupervised in a public place.

A friend of mine is a VPD officer, and he mentioned to me last year that kids going missing is pretty common from "I went into the bar and left the kid in the car, when I came out at 3am he was gone! How could this have happened!"
 
If my childhood was viewed through the present day POV, my parents would have faced charges of neglect, child endangerment and serious violations of child labor laws.

I did not suffer a bit.
 
blutoski said:
A friend of mine is a VPD officer, and he mentioned to me last year that kids going missing is pretty common from "I went into the bar and left the kid in the car, when I came out at 3am he was gone! How could this have happened!"
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I'm sure you trust your friend, but I'm surprised those cases don't make the news? Wouldn't they issue amber alerts for the kids?
 
kellyb said:
I'm sure you trust your friend, but I'm surprised those cases don't make the news? Wouldn't they issue amber alerts for the kids?
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If we are talking about kids going missing for a few hours rather than never being seen again then I expect it is very common.
 
angrysoba said:
If we are talking about kids going missing for a few hours rather than never being seen again then I expect it is very common.
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Where would the kids wander to from a bar in the middle of the night for a few hours? Surely the parent would get arrested and it would make the news at least some of the time?
 
kellyb said:
I'm sure you trust your friend, but I'm surprised those cases don't make the news? Wouldn't they issue amber alerts for the kids?
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Amber alerts are abduction alerts. They go out with a description not only of the kid but of the suspected kidnapper, and of the kidnapper's vehicle if that information is known.

A kid that's simply missing isn't known to have been abducted, so there wouldn't be an Amber alert.
 
kellyb said:
Where would the kids wander to from a bar in the middle of the night for a few hours? Surely the parent would get arrested and it would make the news at least some of the time?
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I don't know. It depends where, I would say.

Here in Japan, a friend of mine's three year old walked out the front door and walked to the railway station, about a kilometre away. He walked through the ticket gates, and got on a train. A junior high school girl, noticing that something was odd about an unaccompanied very young child wearing no shoes, took him off the train and told the station staff. He ended up at the police station.

My friend and his wife managed to get him back a couple of hours later after searching the neighbourhood and asking the local police. It was slightly complicated by the fact that their three-year old looks five or six rather than three and has autism and wasn't able to tell anyone who he was.

This wasn't at three in the morning, but I expect there will be some morons who take their kid to the bar as well.
 
angrysoba said:
I don't know. It depends where, I would say.

Here in Japan, a friend of mine's three year old walked out the front door and walked to the railway station, about a kilometre away. He walked through the ticket gates, and got on a train. A junior high school girl, noticing that something was odd about an unaccompanied very young child wearing no shoes, took him off the train and told the station staff. He ended up at the police station.

My friend and his wife managed to get him back a couple of hours later after searching the neighbourhood and asking the local police. It was slightly complicated by the fact that their three-year old looks five or six rather than three and has autism and wasn't able to tell anyone who he was.

This wasn't at three in the morning, but I expect there will be some morons who take their kid to the bar as well.
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A 3 yo escaping from home actually is very common. That's not a jail-worthy event.

But a kid escaping from a car at a bar in the middle of the night and being lost long enough to where the cops were called? My local news stations would love that one when they heard about it, and I'm pretty sure the parent would get a neglect charge slapped on them, and for good reason.
 
Ranb said:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/con...ing-now-legal-utah-heres-means-203114763.html
There have been stories in the media about parents charged with child abuse or losing custody of their kids for allowing them to be alone at home or walking alone to/from school or a park. Utah is passed a bill that clarifies some things.


When I grew up in rural Minnesota in the 70's, I along with my brother and sister were alone at home at times while our parents worked. We frequently were out of the house/yard (but nearby) unsupervised at ages ten and up. I kept a tighter rain on my own kids in the 90's when they were young, but we were in Pearl City Hawaii then.

Ranb
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure "free-range parenting" is the norm in most developed western countries. Americans are just incredibly frightened and anxious about everything. I mean here kids walk, bike or take the buss to school pretty much when they start going there. It's not uncommon to see children go to the store, a couple of kilometers away, by themselves either.
 
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