DC: The law takes sides, and that’s even true when it comes to parenting styles. In the latest New Jersey Law Journal, two family law attorneys explain how.
“The laws governing family court actions can endorse or discourage a specific parenting style, which can be a factor in how parents are legally permitted to raise their children,” write Sandra C. Fava and Katherine A. Nunziata.
They go on to point out that New Jersey’s law on child neglect, for example “leaves free-range parents susceptible to attacks on their parental fitness if the free rein afforded to their children is interpreted as a dereliction of the parents’ duty to attend to the child’s well-being.”
The article is titled “Helicopter vs. Free Range: Endorsement of Parenting Style in the Law,” and it’s an important discussion of an escalating clash of cultures.
In the name of protecting children, overly-cautious state policies are denying the next generation from tasting the freedom most of us adults enjoyed. Science is beginning to confirm what we already knew to be true: Freedom in the formative years teaches resilience, resourcefulness, and grit.
Even if parents are inclined to give their children the sort of childhood they loved, an overprotective culture of parenting and proscriptive state policies stand in the way. more
It is no surprise that the State favors parenting that stifles initiative, resourcefulness, and self-reliance. The State wants subjects that are obedient and rely upon govt as much as possible.
Those that make the rules and guidelines for parenting are a pack of new age idiots.
Sometimes kids need a slap on the rear end to get them to behave and thats a big no no now days.
Get rid of the school board and bring back the paddle board.
Years ago the crazies where in a psych hospital or in prison and the police had a free hand to keep it that way. Now the crazies are free and the police would be in prison for taking care of business.
It’s actually the parents whom shoud be taking care for their kids these days. I’m 67 but when I was 7 years old, our parents thought nothing of us roaming all over our neighborhoods. Today is obviously different with all the pervs driving and running around our streets. But the goddamn government should f&#*k off.
Helicoptering parenting has reached ridiculous levels. I live in a small town, and virtually no kids walk or bicycle to school – some of them are driven less than a quarter mile to school. Bike racks at the elementary school I used to attend are largely gone, and the couple that remain are empty. In the summer, kids are either driven to the community swimming pool or they don’t go – it used to be that the grassy area around the pool was packed with bikes.
We supposedly had dangerous characters when I was growing up = I don’t recall any though – and we were taught to avoid them. Crime in America is down, and the United States is statistically perhaps the safest country in the world; it is without a doubt safer than it was in the 1970s. Furthermore, the hot beds of crime are predominately in urban areas; rural areas and smaller communities can be extremely safe. In the Los Angeles metropolitan area, with about 8 million people or so, there are amber alerts to warn of child abductions; they are relatively rare even with this huge of a population, and much of the time it is a divorced parent taking a child from the custodial parent.
I think the preponderance of national cable news is responsible for much of this. Crime that happened a thousand miles away didn’t often make the news; now a home robbery gone wrong in Atlanta is broadcast to homes all over the nation, leading people to believe crime is out of control. But check the FBI statistics, and you will find the reality is far different; not just a couple of percentage points, but vastly decreased over the last 40 years.
Why the frap do these want-a-be gestapo types nail parents for letting kids ride to the park but it’s OK for them to let Johnny “explore his (sorry..Xe) sexuality”?
The biggest impediment I see to allowing your kids freedom to wander around the neighborhood is the number of homeless lunatics the government allows to camp everywhere. We need vigilante squads to encourage these dregs to camp elsewhere.
My brothers and I grew up as free range kids back in the 60’s and early 70’s. We were pretty much allowed to roam around the neighborhood by my parents as long as they knew where we were or going. And my dad would whistle real loud at dusk to let us and our dog know it was time to come in for the night especially during the Summer. We also snuck out late at night with some of our friends in the Summer going over the bluff down to Hangman (Latah) Creek to catch frogs and snakes and other small critters and bring them home. My brother lost a 6 ft. bull snake in an upstairs cubby hole and we never saw it again until they found a snake that had been run over out in the street by our house. I don’t know if my folks ever caught on or else they knew we were just being kids having fun. Back then if the cops would’ve caught us out late at night they just would have brought us home. And legend has it 2 of my brothers, a neighbor friend and a neighbor girl walked over the bluff buck naked one night when they were in their early teens, nothing happened except they went skinny dipping down on the creek in the middle of a hot summer night. Try and do that now and you’d be busted for life.