If it were just the 9 year old, it wouldn't bother me at all . The inclusion of the 3 year old gave me the goosebumps. 3 year olds are too unpredictable and get dumb ideas that they act upon instantaneously :-)

I don't think she should have been arrested, though!

I get shivers too when people try to think and act for themselves.

Perfect example of HRC's "It takes a village." thought process.

YOU don't know well enough what it takes to do ANYTHING so WE are here to HELP you.

To be fair though it's also the thought process behind all organizations and both political parties.

Wow. Just wow.

I walked to kindergarten when I was 5. A half mile, no less. My mom took me the first day or two - its been a while, ok? but the next 178 school days I walked myself.

In first grade, I went to a different school, so the distance went up to a whole mile. In the sun, the rain, even on occasion snow.

And on the way home, it was always uphill.

At 9, you know how to cross a street. If you don't, you're probably developmentally disabled. Correct me if I'm wrong parents -- I know you will.

You must have heard me swearing as I was driving the required 20 mph through a "school zone" yesterday. It was a high school, so any student who might dart into the street was Darwin-worthy — and it was 4:30 in the afternoon. Not a soul in sight.

I hate to be one of those "in my day" people, but for Chrissake, I was riding my three-speed several miles at age 9 — crossing busy streets and everything. How ever did I survive?

First, may I just say that there are plenty of adults that I wouldn't send a 3 year old out with. Regardless, arresting parents for something that is obviously "a judgement call" and not illegal is frightening to say the least. Personally, I wouldn't send a 3 year old out with a 9 year old. However, for some families, and in certain cultures this is perfectly acceptable. Sometimes it is just necessary. Not a crime.

What Jennifer said.

Trouble is, 3-year-olds' hands can get sweaty and slippery pretty fast, so if they feel like dashing into traffic, even an adult wouldn't necessarily be able to stop that from happening. Not every parent uses harnesses - and plenty of other parents frown on them.

When I was helping care for a 3-year-old, even though the mother was walking with me, I still felt the need to hold the kid by the upper ARM. (This was a pretty contrary kid who was kicking, flopping and screaming during the 10-minute walk to the playground, one time, because he hated walking and wanted to take a taxi instead. I had to drag him on the sidewalk until he couldn't stand the pain; his mother was relieved I'd taken over.) Another time, even though it was also an outing to go have fun, he kept demanding to go home and watch TV, so he might have run off, given the chance.

And I'm pretty sure that one not-so-minor reason we don't let 5-year-olds walk to school these days or cross more than one street to get to other places is that drivers of SUVs could easily not see someone that short. The same just MIGHT be true for 9-year-olds - but I've never driven an SUV, so I don't know.

Trouble is, 3-year-olds' hands can get sweaty and slippery pretty fast, so if they feel like dashing into traffic, even an adult wouldn't necessarily be able to stop that from happening.
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And, I would add, that's likely one reason we see kids that age and older strapped down in strollers. I do think kids over 5, however, should have been forced to learn better self-discipline than that - not to mention, once they start school and have to sit still for so much of the day, they need all the exercise they can get!

Amy, you just don't understand the danger.

The conspiracy is all around us.

For instance, buying a plush toy with a heart on the tag alerts pedophiles that the child is ready for sex slavery.

It must bet true because it was on the TV news in Florida.

" I get shivers too when people try to think and act for themselves."

I imagined my own grandson out with a 9 year old. Wouldn't work. Feel free to do whatever you want with your own 3 year old.

It really depends on the 9 and 3 year old, but yeah, I think 3 might be a little young.

Still, that's the mom's call to make. She knows those kids better than some dude in a cop uniform.

Ay-yi-yiiii. I was ready to be outraged for this mom, but 9 is too young to be in charge of a 3-year-old. Crossing a street? Are we talking a neighborhood street, or a trafficked highway? If its the latter, I'm defending arresting her. Not by a little, but by a long shot this was bad judgement.

"My "job" as a kid was to come back home for dinner before dark."

Yea, we kids were always told to be home when the street lights came on.

Of course, using kid logic, that meant we were always going by the one that either came on later or was burnt out!

Ay-yi-yiiii. I was ready to be outraged for this mom, but 9 is too young to be in charge of a 3-year-old. Crossing a street? Are we talking a neighborhood street, or a trafficked highway? If its the latter, I'm defending arresting her. Not by a little, but by a long shot this was bad judgement.

Allison at April 8, 2016 7:05 PM

I fear for the republic. The disturbing, stupid, and dangerous idea that the police are there to arrest and punish people for doing things that *might* be dangerous, is becoming all too common.

The 3 year old was definitely too young to be doing that with a 9 year old. 3 year olds are squirrelly and hard to manage.

However, the arresting thing has got to stop. I am not sure how that benefits anyone including the children.

I babysat babies when I was 12 too. In fact when I was 13 1/2 I watched a 6 month old from 7am to 6pm 2 days a week that summer. However there is a huge difference between 9 and 12.

from age 5 up I walked 1/2 mile to school. Went out and played by myself. If I strayed too far, got in trouble with parents--they defined what was too far. Not only is this stupid, but there is no actual law defining how old kids need to be to do what. You can be arrested arbitrarily.

"The year old was definitely too young to be doing that with a 9 year old. 3 year olds are squirrelly and hard to manage."

You weren't there, and you don't know.

When my daughter was six, she walked her four year old brother to preschool during nice weather as it was right across the street from her private elementary school and two blocks from our house.

When my son was three, he could run the washing machine, and the dryer. Count change, and do basic math, beat Mario Brothers on Nintendo, and ride a two wheeled bike, unaided.

He knew what a crosswalk was, and he knew what cars were, as did I at that age.

If your three year old won't hold your hand or the hand of another older child, and follow very basic instructions, the kid is either learning disabled, or you are a very poor parent.

I haven't had a 9 yo in a while but my not yet 3 yo walks without holding hands except when crossing streets.

If I thought my 9 yo was capable of taking the toddler I would let them.

The 2 yo doesn't always listen and I worry about her going into the street; she has never actually done it.

She definitely would rather walk without holding hands (I let her except crossing the street). She knows she has to hold hands to cross the street so she will reach out for a hand.

I think it depends on the 3 yo and the 9 yo. If I knew the 9 yo would follow my directions it would be fine. I probably could have handled it at 9.

For all judgement calls I will side with the parent because I do not want the government to have any more power than it does.

Isab,

Given that you have been a competitive shooter for some time, I'm pretty sure you radiate the concept of personal responsibility, and any child eager to please you would notice that exhibiting the same traits would do that at once. I know I'd treat the capable child of a friend or stranger better than a helpless one.

When I was in elementary school, one of the teachers asked my Mom not to teach me arithmetic and English. Her answer was, "But he asks me!"

If you have a parent that is stupid, thinks that teaching is for others, etc., you get incapable kids, even if they are "helicoptered". They teach by their actions that they know nothing and are less worthy of respect, and then wonder why the kids don't listen.

I bet yours does!

https://www.rt.com/usa/intelligence-stanford-years-fragile-531/

Radwaste, People who are raised to be sheep, tend to raise their children to be sheep.

History is replete with examples where being a sheep was a death sentence.

I think the guy at Stanford has it about right.

Overprotective mommies who think their three or four year old walking a few blocks with an older child is a major risk, need to read up on what the real dangers are to kids.

They are far safer statistically walking a few blocks, and learning a little bit of responsibility and independence, than they are strapped into that car seat with mommy behind the wheel.

I know kids at 9 who could NOT be trusted like that... but they are few and far between. The main issue is if the 9-year-old can take care of the 3-year-old. So, would the kid hold hands crossing the street? That's about the only question in my mind.

The great thing about going to a business, if there is a problem, there is also a phone to call home with. It'd be safer than, say, letting them go walking a quarter mile down a nature trail.

I know 3-yos for whom it would not work, and plenty of even younger kids for whom it would work just fine. I have a 9-yo, and while he has zero interest in being responsible for tiny humans, some of his peers are regularly walking younger siblings to the park, responsible for holding their hands in parking lots, walking them down the street to a friend's house, etc.

It really just depends on the kids and the family. If the kids are used to the arrangement and comfortable with it, it is totally fine.

A quarter mile is not very far and it doesn't sound like this was a really traffic-y area. If there is no report of the 3-yo crying, screaming, running off, etc. you can be pretty sure it didn't happen. In which case, things were just fine.

To add something to my last two posts (someone else mentioned this years ago):

If you had to hold your arm up in the air until you lost all feeling in your fingers, you'd get crabby and rebellious too and likely try to yank your way out of the taller person's grasp. This is why many (most?) parents in busy urban neighborhoods would be leery of letting a 9-year-old walk a preschooler around - and why harnesses are popular. At least the kid doesn't suffer as much that way.

Also, it's interesting - in Judy Blume's "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing," there's a scene where the toddler jumps off the top of a jungle gym in NYC and breaks two teeth - while under the "supervision" of three 9-year-olds who were fighting with each other. Granted, that accident could have happened with an adult's supervision as well (the toddler had never tried to do that before), but at least some critics felt it was ludicrous and contrived (as Blume's stories often are) for a mother to leave her toddler alone with kids that age in a public park. It's not as if there are usually things as tall as jungle gyms INDOORS for kids to climb on, after all.

BTW, there are definitely at least two other ludicrous, contrived set-ups in the same book - the chain lock that any kid armed with a chair could unlock, plus the dad/executive bringing his valued, childfree, middle-aged clients home to spend the night - with the toddler present!

hmmm.
At 6 I started learning how to drive trucks and tractors, though for the most part I couldn't reach the pedals very well... my unc said that once I could push in the clutch well, he'd teach me more, out on the road. By 9 I was driving hay trucks on the country road pulling a hay trailer. By 12 on a divided highway.

I was a city kid that had farmer relatives, and I couldn't wait to go visit in the summer. And all the kids I knew out there we similar, if more experienced.

The reason that we have this stupid extended adolescence is that we cut off the bottom rungs of the ladder you climb to get more experience and responsibility. When my sisters came along when I was 10.5... I babysat them almost immediately. Twins. One of whom is the responsible one, the other - hell on wheels. Left home at 16, and went to another state to finish high-school...

And somehow, no-one croaked. "that cut ain't close to your heart, put a band aid on it." turns to push the skin closed and wrap electrical tape around it. This works, by the way.

But. There was a cousin a bit older than me, that SIMPLY HAD NO SENSE. They didn't let her near equipment, livestock or even cooking. No impulse control, but smart as a whip. She realized early that she could get out of working by acting that way.

This is a kid by kid thing. In that respect, putting an all purpose law, or rule over it doesn't work. At best.
At worst you grow an entire generation of kids that has never HAD to walk anywhere, and so? Wont.
These kids will expect their lives handed to them, and will ask for the moon on a plate.
And? They're going to move the window of realistic expectation.
There is the potential they already have.

"You're microagressing me."
'Yeah? tell it to someone who cares.'

But. There was a cousin a bit older than me, that SIMPLY HAD NO SENSE. They didn't let her near equipment, livestock or even cooking. No impulse control, but smart as a whip. She realized early that she could get out of working by acting that way.
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You mean, regarding cooking, she broke dishes on purpose or something similar and they stopped trying to get her to learn to do things right?

Why didn't they just punish her for trying to sabotage things, until she broke down?

I don't know why some parents either expect every kid to learn things right the first time - or why they don't at least SUSPECT the kid is doing it wrong on purpose and make the kid snap out of it before it becomes a nasty habit.

Example of such a failure, from a well-known comic strip (I believe the boys are 9 in this one):

http://catalog.fborfw.com/indexid.php?q=713&Submit=Search