Federal Law Now Says Kids Can Walk To School Alone (fastcoexist.com)

An anonymous reader writes: There's some good news for "free-range" parents and fans of children being allowed to walk places on their own. A recently approved federal education law will allow students to take alternative forms of transportation to and from school with parental permission. Fastcoexist reports: "Relax, parents. Now you can allow your kids to walk, ride a bike, or take a bus to school, without you or your children getting arrested. The recently-signed Every Student Succeeds Act contains a section (858) that protects the rights of kids to walk or go out alone. The act was sponsored by Utah senator Mike Lee, who is a supporter of the Free Range Kids movement, and provides some hope for parents who feel that their kids should be allowed some autonomy to get by own their own." One can only hope that children will be allowed to go to the park on their own soon as well.

Comments

This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[EmeraldBot]

Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.

The law was stupid, there's no doubt about that, but every country in the world has some stupid rules. The reason why most people in the US don't care isn't because they agree with it, but simply that it doesn't affect them - when your school is 30 miles away, you have to take a car or a bus, and so it wouldn't really appear in their daily life.

While the US certainly does some crazy things, and the policy towards children is absolutely ridiculous, every country has one area that is crazy. You should be able to do better than an impulsive xenophobic response, Mr. Anon, and might I point out, I'm also surprised by how well modded up this was - as good as Slashdot's system is, it's obviously not infallible, because this irrational and stupid comment provides absolutely no insight at all. If I said the UK was a nation of lunatics ruled by fear, you'd have my ass for saying that, even though it's just as idiotic a statement as this.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.

It was never outlawed; but if some neurotic busybody called the Podunk PD because they saw a kid outside and decided that they were either about to be abducted by pedo-terrorists or on their way to delinquency, and Podunk PD decided to throw some spurious neglect/endangerment charge at you, it would still ruin your day. That's the real problem. Even if the first judge who sees it tosses the case in disgust, you'll still have a lousy time until then.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is CRAZY! I went alone to kindergarden when I was only 5. (~1km, Germany)

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[MightyYar]

This is not really aimed at kids that old. Unless you live in a very scary place, or a place with no safe place to walk, a kid that age is more autonomous. You can even hire one as a babysitter.

This is meant to counter some overactive local authorities in a few states who have started harassing parents who let their younger kids walk to school (or home from the park). I still walk my 9 year old, partly because of my wife's insistence, and partly because as a girl she really needs to walk with a buddy. That buddy could be her 6 year old brother, but they have enough sibling rivalry that I can't quite leave them alone yet. Next year she'll be taking the bus, so I'd better (and my wife more so) get used to some independence :)

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[shawn2772]

as a girl she really needs to walk with a buddy

Why?

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[hey!]

I think of this situation as being in part like the hygiene hypothesis for the rise in allergies: without the level of exposure to infectious microorganisms that would have been normal throughout most of human evolution, our immune systems go haywire. It is now so safe for children our normal protective instincts go haywire. Back when kids routinely worked in textile mills or as powder monkeys in mines nobody's eyebrows would have been raised by some kid walking a few miles to school. Now that kids are very safe indeed bad things that happen to them walking down a well-traveled street in broad daylight are a relatively greater fraction of the overall risk, even though that risk is very, very small.

Then there's the way that our information filters affect our perceptions of risk. Take school shootings; in the three years since Sandy Hook, 555 children 12 or under have been killed by firearms in the US; but as shocking as that is, you have to put it context; there are roughly 29 million children 14 and under in the US. In comparison about 2600 babies die each year from low birth weight; while in a global context the US infant mortality rate is relatively low, compared to similar wealthy countries it is shockingly high, which suggests that man of these deaths are preventable. Likewise the comparable number of children who die from influenza and pneumonia in that period isn't on the radar screen because it isn't news when a child dies from a commonplace but largely preventable infection. In 2014 there were 32,000 cases of whooping cough in the US leading to 20 deaths, and pertussis is an entirely eradicable disease.

Don't get me wrong; insofar as school shootings are preventable by practical steps we should take those steps; but we ought to prioritize causes of mortality and injury based on hard data, not our information filters.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[DarkOx]

because society places a premium on girls. Boys and men are generally considered to be comparatively disposable. This has deep roots in survival instincts.

A tribe that suffers the loss of to many young women would be unable to propagate itself, efficiently. The harm from that could last generations. The loss of almost all the young males however could be more easily survived. Older males remain fertile longer than females, and one male can easily impregnate large numbers of women. Its pretty simple really.

Our instincts are what they are. We generally instinctively protect all of our children pretty enthusiastically. Giving into our more base desires to afford our female offspring a little extra safety is probably harmless. We have plenty of other instincts that don't fit the environment most of us live in to focus on fighting.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[ShanghaiBill]

there's just the fact that OVERZEALOUS police are going: child alone = child in danger = get governement involved

The root problem is that crime rates have dramatically declined, yet we have more police than ever before. So we have too many cops with not enough "real" crime to deal with, so they just hassle people instead. People need to understand that more cops leads to more crime, not less, and stop voting for increases in policing, When you get a flyer in the mail saying a politician is endorsed by the police union, you should vote for the other guy.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[blogagog]

"there's no old law that forbids it,"

That's the saddest part. There now has to be a law that 'allows' something.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[shaitand]

I agree this is insane. My parents both worked long hours. I got up, got myself some sort of simple breakfast and went to the bus stop or to school (we moved a few times so it depends on where the school was) on my own essentially all through school.

At the times school was too far and I missed the bus THEN I'd wake my parents.

It wasn't a big deal, perhaps I was advanced for my age but I'd actually been a master of the skill called "walking" for many years prior to starting school.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Statistically, children are far more likely to run into pedophiles in their family or in positions of authority than randomly on the street.

Indeed. Estimates vary, but most studies seem to put the number of stranger abductions as less than 5% of all child abductions. If you restrict it to "stereotypical stranger abduction scenarios" (child transported far away, detained overnight, and either held with intention to keep the child for a long time, ransomed, or killed), then you're talking about a tiny fraction of 1% of all abductions.

While we're invoking stats, it's also helpful to keep in mind that the VAST majority (~90%) of "missing children" are either "unintentionally" missing (miscommunicated plans, lost, whatever) or runaways. Of those who go missing, by far the most likely abduction scenario is a family member or close acquaintance. Even if children are abducted by a stranger, it's often close to home and they remain close to home, and often returned the same day. And though we mostly worry about young kids and pedophiles (i.e., those who prey on pre-pubescent kids), the vast majority of "child abductions" and sexual molestations, etc. are against (post-pubescent) teenagers.

In short, parents need to worry less about their little kid being abducted by a pedophile stranger and issuing an Amber Alert -- and they need to think more about their young teen being attacked by a coach or uncle or teacher or minister or close family friend.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[thejam]

The problem is not the free ride for the kid, but the arrest of the parent afterward.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[MightyYar]

Are women really more likely to be attacked by random people on the street?

No, because they travel in groups. Men are more likely to walk alone, and therefore are more likely to be targets of street crime.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[bitingduck]

And in the United States in the early 1970s I did similar things. Crime was WAY worse then than now. But nobody thought anything of it.

We have become insane.

Yes. I walked to school with a couple other 6 year olds in 1st grade in the 70's. It's lightspeed peer to peer communication that's made us insane. Every bad thing that happens anywhere to anyone gets bumped up to national news so it seems like it's all in your backyard and around every corner.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[edtice1559]

The funding that CPS gets is based on how many kids they put into foster care. Now I'm not saying that every CPS worker is thinking about that all of the time, but it has slowly affected the culture such that everybody has the reaction to put kids into foster care. Once a kid is in foster care, the standards are much lower. No kid would be removed from a foster family for any of these violations. The case worker would address it verbally and leave it out of the report and or decide that they've resolved it with the foster family and no further action is taken. If their funding were inversely proportional to how many kids ended up in foster families we'd see a much more sane approach. Only the most egregious cases should result in a removal of a kid from their home.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Ol Olsoc]

And in the United States in the early 1970s I did similar things. Crime was WAY worse then than now. But nobody thought anything of it. We have become insane.

And how!

Safety culture meets helicopter parents meets attachment parenting meets irrational fear equals this batshit insanity.

And the concept of no child unsupervised needs to die. These people are damaging their children with well meaning but irrational hovering, over supervision, and the fear that the second they aren't watching the child, Jerry Sandusky will show up.

Law and Order : Special Victims Unit is a fictional Television show, not a documentary, folks!

Even back in the 90's, when this helicoptering crap was getting started, my son and his friends played street hockey, in the streets!

Let's wait a minute for all the people to revive from their faint....

Okay, everyone back? If anyone needs a Xanax take a couple. We discretely kept an eye on them, but let them alone. Squabbles? Check. Silliness? Check. Learning how to get along with others to resolve issues? Check. Learning that there were some statements that were not to be ignored? (CAR!) Check.

What was impressive to watch was how kids figured all this stuff out. Nothing turned into "Lord of the Flies". These children were leaning valuable social skills, getting exercise, and having fun.

The reason this part of the law was enabled is because safety culture has entered the stage of failing. Protecting children by taking away normal loving parents is not protecting them, its doing grave damage to them in the name safety.

Because we now have to protect ourselves from safety culture.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[jedidiah]

Yup. This is the same kind of insane hysterical liberal that mistakes a jack on the hood of a jeep for an "assault rifle" and threatens to call the police. It's the same sort of punitive, vindictive use of 911, the police, or child protective services.

These people love to brag about how they will call CPS over someone in a store scolding an unruly child.

Take SWATing and add some sanctimonious political posturing.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[AthanasiusKircher]

The boy, Lucan, decided to walk to school on his own, two miles away, and was about halfway there when a business owner spotted him and called the cops.

This is something often not pointed out -- yes, police sometimes choose to intervene in such cases on their own. But very frequently they only take these actions because some neighborhood busybody calls the cops -- who then feel they need to take action.

I remember reading about this story back when it happened, and the business owner may have had a legitimate concern about how busy the streets were on the kid's route.

But the important thing is to compare the reaction to that situation a few decades ago. Fifty years ago if a local business owner noticed something like that, he'd go out and ask the kid where he was going. And then he'd offer to call the parent if he thought it was dangerous. And if the parent didn't answer, he might call the local policeman and ask if they could drive the kid, who would just do so without making a big deal. Or the business owner might even offer to close up his shop for five minutes and drive the kid the rest of the way to school himself.

These days if a business owner did the latter, the kid would likely start screaming "pedophile! offered me a ride in his car!" and the business owner would have ended up in jail along with the mom. Heck, somebody else might even think it suspicious if he went outside to ask the kid whether the kid was all right -- "unknown man approaching a child," some other passersby might think... and then THEY would call the cops on the man.

So, he did the only thing an adult male can do in the U.S. when he sees an unaccompanied child and is concerned -- he called the police without even approaching the kid and asking the kid about the situation. Instead of a reasonable community reaction to help a kid get to school, hysteria causes everyone to act in unreasonable ways.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[james_shoemaker]

I doubt many cases actually happen in Podunktown USA, only larger cities have the resources to waste on this sort of idiocy. I know this because I live in Podunktown and most kids are on the free range plan here. If you would call the police on a kid playing in the park alone they would say, "So what's the issue? Is he/she valdalizing park equipment or beating up on other kids?"

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[LaurenCates]

The fear strangely grips adults also.

We put up a couch for free on Craiglist this past weekend. Which, if you've ever offered something for free on the internet, you know it descends into drama very quickly, and the bigger the item, the more drama you end up with.

The woman who responded asked if my husband (who put up the post) if he was male or female. Upon finding out he was male (as if she couldn't have found out by looking at the name next to the email, which is an unambiguously male name), she replied "okay, so what are you going to do to make me feel safe if I come over?"

Were it me answering, I'd ask who the fuck she was to accuse my husband of being a bad person before she ever spoke to him...and despite the fact that she was offered a couch for free! If you're ever in doubt, stop replying to people on Craigslist, and don't be a dick to someone who's more than likely to be doing you a solid.

There's a little reassurance in the fact that she recanted that statement after he replied with "stop wasting my time, I'm offering the couch to the next on the list", because hubby's smart enough not to give into emotional blackmail. But that's not an exchange that shouldn't even have happened.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Ol Olsoc]

there's just the fact that OVERZEALOUS police are going: child alone = child in danger = get governement involved

The root problem is that crime rates have dramatically declined, yet we have more police than ever before. So we have too many cops with not enough "real" crime to deal with, so they just hassle people instead.

I can't argue your premise, but a lot of these cases are because some alarmed person who probably watched too many episodes of Law and Order - Special Victims Unit has called 911 because there is an unattended child out in dangerville.

Just last year, we had an Amber alert about a boy in our neighborhood. School left out, he was a walker, Television, radio, police out, our cell phones, everyone in a panic.

five minutes later it was a Emily Latella "never mind". The child was talking with a friend, they were walking slowly, and took a couple minutes longer to get home.

Two months ago in the village where I grew up, there was another police activation. Some older gentleman had just picked up his first smartphone and asked some 10 year old girls a question about how to operate it. He was detained and then released because he was just some old dude who was trying to figure out how his phone worked.

Until we get a hold on safety culture, any male who has any interaction with children he doesn't know is an idiot. That old dude was from a different time, and must realize that in safety culture America, he is a pre-pedophile. He fit the profile, White - upper middle aged, and male, so that means he is one. And it's funny in a terribly unfunny way. Abused children are often distrusting of others, fearful and nervous. They've had some bad things happen to them.

So in making certain they don't get abused, we're making them distrusting of others, fearful and nervous. We have become the abusers of children. We are doing bad things to them in the name of protecting them.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Dixie_Flatline]

Additionally, I greatly suspect that he had no idea that anyone would be arrested for this. His intent wasn't to get someone thrown in jail, he just wanted a kid to make it to school without incident. So now he's left with a conundrum the next time something like this happens: does he call the police and possibly get a parent tossed in jail for no goddamn reason, or does he ignore the event (which is probably fine, but clearly he's got concerns) and potentially leave the child in a situation that he thinks is inherently unsafe.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[F.Ultra]

She has probably seen some direct to tv movie where this was the plot (i.e lure single women to your home with a free ) and since it was on TV it must be real... I'm just curios why she called at all if she was afraid that that might be the case with your couch. I mean if your husband (because no female could ever be the assailant) was planning to do something ugly then he could have invented any assuring answer to the "what are you going to make me feel safe" question, which makes the question completely moot. It's like the pig asking the wolf to promise not to eat him if he opens the door.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[dpidcoe]

1. Walk the kid to school.

And get charged with attempted kidnapping? No way.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

" So we have too many cops with not enough "real" crime to deal with, so they just hassle people instead. "

No, there is plenty of 'real' crime.
The issue is that 'real' crime is hard to deal with and it is much easier to just hassle people.
See the thousands and thousands of untested rape kits in the US.
See what happens when someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff and you ask them to take an obvious finger print and run it. (Hint, they laugh at you and tell you they will fill out a form for your insurance)
See how many cops there are in high crime areas outside of large cities. (Hint, the cops are in the nice neighborhoods by the nice houses, no cop to be found in the trailer parks with more people per square mile.)

What we need is a major shift in priorities. Murder, Rape, and Theft need to be the #1 things on the list. Auto tickets, drugs, and civil infractions should be a minor part of policing. Problem today is that they are probably 75% of police actions.

Land of the free

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys need special permission from the government to be allowed to walk rather than buy a car and pay money to the oil industry? Tell me more about how the rest of the world has no freedom.

Surprised by this

[mattsday]

In most countries it's very common for children to walk to school in the mornings, especially when they get to 10/11 years old.

I understand the US is less pedestrian friendly as a general rule (outside of larger cities) but walking/cycling to school was one of my fondest memories, not to mention both healthy and social!

What is the motivation for having this banned in the first place?

Re:Surprised by this

[Anonymous Coward]

the motivation is the moral panic about stranger danger

while statistics say the actual risk of abduction has gone down, public perception says it has gone up
you can thank mass media for that

The nanny state is ridiculous

[AaronW]

When I was in kindergarten I walked to school every day, it was only around 3 blocks away. Going to the park alone was also normal. The sad thing is that it is a lot safer today than it was back then. I consider myself quite liberal, but I detest the whole nanny state. I've also read numerous articles about parents who are arrested for leaving young children in the car, in the shade with the windows open while running into the grocery store.

Hell, reading this article reminded me about how my mother would go into a local supermarket to do some quick shopping while I watched my younger sister in the car. Today my mother would have been arrested.

As a kid I ran around all over the place without my parents hovering over me every second. I got out and got exercise and explored, something many parents won't allow today. That was before the days of the Internet or before cell phones or bike helmets. The only difference I would have with my own kids is to make them wear a bicycle helmet when riding (due to experience with how it saved the life of a relative several times) and possibly a cell phone.

Kids need to be kids and also to learn responsibility, not be coddled like crazy.

Unconstitutional

[markdavis]

Please show me where in the Constitution the federal government is given the power to address such things such as education or children walking to school. I seem to remember that if it isn't listed there, those powers ARE RESERVED BY THE STATES.