Saturday, January 17, 2015

Nanny State Abuse


Attack on “Free Range” Parenting
Parents investigated for neglect after letting kids walk home alone Posted on January 17, 2015 Written by washingtonpost.com
Danielle and Alexan­der Meitiv let their chil­dren, 10 and six, walk home alone from a park a mile away from their house. Now, Mont­gomery County is inves­ti­gat­ing the cou­ple for child neglect. (Jorge Ribas/The Wash­ing­ton Post)
It was a one-mile walk home from a Sil­ver Spring park on Geor­gia Avenue on a Sat­ur­day after­noon. But what the par­ents saw as a moment of inde­pen­dence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daugh­ter, they say author­i­ties viewed much differently.
Danielle and Alexan­der Meitiv say they are being inves­ti­gated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether par­ents are free to make their own choices about rais­ing their children.
“We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they were ready for it,” Danielle said. She said her son and daugh­ter have pre­vi­ously paired up for walks around the block, to a nearby 7-Eleven and to a library about three-quarters of a mile away. “They have proven they are respon­si­ble,” she said. “They’ve devel­oped these skills.”
The Meitivs say they believe in “free-range” par­ent­ing, a move­ment that has been a coun­ter­point to the hyper-vigilance of “heli­copter” par­ent­ing, with the idea that chil­dren learn self-reliance by being allowed to pro­gres­sively test lim­its, make choices and ven­ture out in the world.
“The world is actu­ally even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same free­dom and inde­pen­dence that I had — basi­cally an old-fashioned child­hood,” she said. “I think it’s absolutely crit­i­cal for their devel­op­ment — to learn respon­si­bil­ity, to expe­ri­ence the world, to gain con­fi­dence and competency.”
On Dec. 20, Alexan­der agreed to let the chil­dren, Rafi and Dvora, walk from Wood­side Park to their home, a mile south, in an area the fam­ily says the chil­dren know well. The chil­dren made it about halfway. Police picked up the chil­dren near the Dis­cov­ery build­ing, the fam­ily said, after some­one reported see­ing them.
Police on Wednes­day did not imme­di­ately have infor­ma­tion on the case. But a spokes­woman said that when con­cerns are reported, “we have a respon­si­bil­ity as part of our duty to check on people’s welfare.”
The Meitivs say their son told police that he and his sis­ter were not doing any­thing ille­gal and are allowed to walk. Usu­ally, their mother said, the chil­dren carry a lam­i­nated card with par­ent con­tact infor­ma­tion that says: “I am not lost. I am a free-range kid.” The kids didn’t have the card that day.
Danielle said she and her hus­band give par­ent­ing a lot of thought. “Par­ent­hood is an exer­cise in risk man­age­ment,” she said. “Every day, we decide: Are we going to let our kids play foot­ball? Are we going to let them do a sleep­over? Are we going to let them climb a tree? We’re not say­ing par­ents should aban­don all cau­tion. We’re say­ing par­ents should pay atten­tion to risks that are dan­ger­ous and likely to happen.”
She added: “Abduc­tions are extremely rare. Car acci­dents are not. The num­ber one cause of death for chil­dren of their age is a car accident.”
Danielle is a climate-science con­sul­tant, and Alexan­der is a physi­cist at the National Insti­tutes of Health. Alexan­der said he had a tense time with police on Dec. 20 when offi­cers returned his chil­dren, asked for his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and told him about the dan­gers of the world.
The more last­ing issue has been with Mont­gomery County Child Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices, he said, which showed up a cou­ple of hours after the police left.
Mary Ander­son, a spokes­woman for CPS, said she could not com­ment on cases but that neglect inves­ti­ga­tions typ­i­cally focus on ques­tions of whether there has been a fail­ure to pro­vide proper care and supervision.
In such inves­ti­ga­tions, she said, CPS may look for guid­ance to a state law about leav­ing chil­dren unat­tended, which says chil­dren younger than 8 must be left with a reli­able per­son who is at least 13 years old. The law cov­ers dwellings, enclo­sures and vehicles.
The Meitivs say that on Dec. 20, a CPS worker required Alexan­der to sign a safety plan pledg­ing he would not leave his chil­dren unsu­per­vised until the fol­low­ing Mon­day, when CPS would fol­low up. At first he refused, say­ing he needed to talk to a lawyer, his wife said, but changed his mind when he was told his chil­dren would be removed if he did not comply.
Fol­low­ing the hol­i­days, the fam­ily said, CPS called again, say­ing the agency needed to inquire fur­ther and visit the family’s home. Danielle said she resisted. “It seemed such a huge vio­la­tion of pri­vacy to exam­ine my house because my kids were walk­ing home,” she said.
This week, a CPS social worker showed up at her door, she said. She did not let him in. She said she was stunned to later learn from the prin­ci­pal that her chil­dren were inter­viewed at school.
The fam­ily has a meet­ing set for next week at CPS offices in Rockville. “I think what CPS con­sid­ered neglect, we felt was an essen­tial part of grow­ing up and matur­ing,” Alexan­der said. “We feel we’re being bul­lied into a point of view about child-rearing that we strongly dis­agree with.”

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