'Free-Range' Mom Being Investigated by Child Services For Letting Her Children Walk to School

[big_dog]

A mother under investigation for letting her two young children walk a mile home from the park by themselves has spoken out to publicly defend 'free-range parenting'. Danielle Meitiv appeared on the Today show Monday morning with her children Rafi, 10, and Dvora, six. Just before Christmas, the two children were walking about a mile home from a park near their Maryland home when police officers stopped them and asked why they were alone.

The officers escorted the Meitiv children home, launching a Child Protective Services investigation into Danielle and her husband Alexander's competence as parents. But Mrs Meitiv doesn't think she they did anything wrong in giving her children a little independence. The Meitivs describe themselves as 'free-range parents' who encourage their two children to take journeys without supervision in order to build confidence and teach them about the outside world.

Usually they have the kids carry around a card that reads 'I'm not lost. I'm a free range kid' but they left them behind that day when they went to the park that was a bit further away from their house. Someone saw the two kids walking alone and called 911, and about three police officers stopped the children as they were about halfway home. While Mrs Meitiv says her children assured the officers that they knew where they were going, the police escorted them home to talk to her husband, Alexander Meitiv.

Mrs Meitiv wasn't home at the time, but says the officers were aggressive to her husband, and that her son called her crying, fearing that he would be arrested. When Child Protective Services later showed up at the house, she says they threatened her husband if he didn't sign a form, promising to supervise his children at all times until a follow up appointment. 'He said I don't want to sign this without talking to a lawyer or talking to my wife. And she said if you don't sign this we're going to take the children right now and she called the police,' she said.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2916878/We-just-doing-parents-did-Mother-investigated-letting-10-year-old-son-6-year-old-daughter-walk-home-defends-herself.html#ixzz3PJSCHxyj

[Dawson Leery]

1. Take them to court.

They only way to deal with these worthless low level bureaucrats is to sue them. Otherwise they do not listen.

[big_dog]

3. i would have called for the name of their police watch desk supervisor immediately

this sounds totally out of control, don't the po-po's there have real crimes to solve?

[Mass]

2. Another case of nosy neigbour calling the cops.

Generally how this happens.

Someone saw the two kids walking alone and called 911, and about three police officers stopped the children as they were about halfway home.

Frankly, this type of behavior (if there was no other complaint on the parents) seems completely overreaching.

[Ms. Toad]

4. home from the park

not to school.

Not a lot of difference - except that (1) your headline made me wonder if this was a dfifferent investigation going on than the one that had been repeatedly reported on and (2) there is a slight difference between walking to school at a time when tons of other kids are making the same trek (and being singled out for scrutiny) and being the only kids out walking in an area where potentially they are the only kids.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. I was walking to kindergarten. It was somewhere around a mile. Then again it was the 50s.

Parenting is way over protective. Besides how the fuck are kids supposed to learn secret kid stuff if they are constantly surrounded by parents?

[FLPanhandle]

6. When young my friends and I loaded our bikes with camping gear and took off for the weekend

I guess my parents should have been jailed.

Crazy world when authorities won't let children walk to a park alone.

[Ron Obvious]

7. "Free Range" is what we used to call a normal childhood.

I worry about how stunted kids today will be in their development when they're not able to explore the world on their own terms and chose their own friends they met outside ('playdates' - yuck!)

I also worry that these kids will have very little appreciation of the natural world.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

8. Busy looking for the like or thimbsup

Buttons. You nailed it

sP