My son just started walking this year as we live next door to the middle school while his elementary was several miles away.
He loves being able to have the independence.
And if you look at the statistics, kidnappings & child abductions are the same now as they were 30 years ago. We just have 24 hour news & helicopter parenting nowadays.
But, I don’t blame parents for feeling insecure seeing what the media does to us.
true
Yep. Same with the climate and natural disasters although the MSM got us all to think things are so much worse than they ever were before in history.
I suspect that most parents have had no abductions in their neighborhoods ever but think their child will be the first.
The inevitable result of Big Brother on people's psyche's.
I totally agree with you.
If there actually was more crime today, it would mean that humans had genetically changed. Crime statistics come and go, depending about whether people are actually convicted of crimes.
I spent most of my young years walking to school. There were bullies, and I even had a knife brandished on me. There were no doubt sex predators just like there are today. But, do we really need to go to the extreme of not letting kids outside without supervision?
My elementary school had hundreds of bicycles, my kids have zero. And yes, the last bus stop is about 2 blocks away, within a hundred yards of school. Disgusts me, especially when I see that 30-40% of the kids are grossly obese.
Something is really messed up. But hey, at least the schools are actually pretty good, and my kids have very intense education starting at 1st grade.
This issue is about cable news scaring people to death, along with laws too lax for evil people living in our communities.
Add in the custody disputes that trigger nation-wide Amber alerts and you have a great recipe for paranoia.
I agree with everything in your post. Kids were abducted and murdered even when I was a kid (back in the dark ages). The difference was, you only heard about the stuff locally, because there was no internet and only the nightly news. I understand about parents being concerned for their kids, but are we scaring them to death?
Teach them how to deal with strangers (stay away from them, don’t talk to them), have them walk in groups and on routes that are not out of the way.
You cannot protect your child from every danger. Better to teach them how to stay as safe as possible. And for younger kids I would recommend walking with them until you feel confident that they can do it without you.