Mother may be jailed for dropping son off at park

Chitown, the really funny thing is all the people who are, in my opinion, being ridiculously judgemental are all teenagers themselves. I am suprised that they are so negative on this...

I think the US has become too overbearing in the way they now legislate parenting. Can't spank your child, it's child abuse! Can't drop your child off at the mall/amusement park - that's child abandonment! Can't have an 11 year old babysit their sibling - that's child endangerment! Can't have a free uncensored internet -must regulate free speech!

It's a miracle previous generations survived childhood without all these asinine regulations. When I was 7 I went on two mile bike rides by myself and when I didn't return on time I got my a** spanked. As a kid I was also left home alone while my parents were at work. Hell we even had real f---ing fireworks that went **BOOM** none of this namby-pamby sparkler crap that only last 15 seconds now.

I spose my parents is are terrible people. When I was that age (summers after 4th and 5th grade), I was dropped off at WoF 2 or 3 times a week. Me and a couple of friends (also had terrible parents) were fine. I was clearly smart enough to handel myself, and I would have definately called my house to check in if there was any sort of mix up. I really don't see the problem here. The mother should dicipline her child, and that should be that.

Edit: I was talking about the composer.

*** This post was edited by Word 7/22/2004 1:35:17 AM ***

Reguarding medical treatment. I have worked as a paramedic for over 16 years and as far as I know in all states if it is a emergency situation we do not have to wait for parental consent to do treatment. In fact many times we will start treatment while trying to get hold of parents, or other responsible adults. Also with most school trips you have to sign a waiver that allows your child to be treated even if they can't get ahold of you right away.

As far as leaving a 11 year old alone at the park, I think it depends alot on the maturity of the child, if they are there alone or with friends, and the size of the park. I would be more inclined to let my child go to Adventureland here in Iowa alone then I would Cedar Point just because of the size and crowd difference. I remember being around that age and not finding out untill we met later in the day that my folks had acutally left me alone in the park for a little bit while they ran next door to the mall. I didn't think anything was wrong with that and before anyone points it out I realize things were different years ago.

I am older than the vast majority of the people who post here and granted it was a different world when I was 11, but this is ludicris!

Is an 11 year old(who SHOULD have some comon sense by this age) safer riding their bike around home, where you only see another human every few minutes, or at an amusement park with 5 or 10 thousand people and untold security guards where 1 scream will draw the attention of hundred.

At 10 I was riding the bus to baseball games 15 miles from home and by 12 was spending just about every Saturday at Six Flags WITHOUT MY PARENTS. No one EVER tried to kidnap, molest or harm me in any way, and I have never seen anything like this happen in a public place with this many people and security guards.

If we as a nation are going to panic because an 11 year old was "abandoned" at Six Flags and lock mom up, why don't we go after the moms who allow their 11 year old son's "girlfriend" to spend the night because they are "good kids" who turn mommie into grandma. Not trying to make this a moral issue, just pointing out there are lots of other more serious issues confronting America than an 11 year old spending a day at an amusement park without mom and dad.

I can’t believe that there are actually people who have the nerve to be offended by those who think that this mother exercised poor parental judgment, in droping her 11 year old kid off at an amusement park by himself, so she could go party with her girl friends. Guys this is about context. In the context of this scenario alone, in the setting of which it took place, and in the intentions behind the mother’s actions, I’m offended by those who choose to defend the mother and criticize law enforcement for their proactive response. Also let’s really tell the truth about “what did not happen”. If this child was abducted by some sexual predator, there is not a person involved in this discussion who would not call for the mother to be hung from the highest tree in the land.*** This post was edited by Al Miner 7/22/2004 2:34:07 AM ***

Being dropped off at an amusement park at 11 yeard old is no different than being dropped off at the mall or department store like I was at 11. :-)

But things have changed. I see kids running around in the malls and amusement parks unsupervised who are MUCH younger than 11, and I always wonder where the hell their parents are.

I guess it would depend on the 11 year-old's maturity level whether I would leave him/her at an amusement park by themselves. On average an 11-year old is a little more aware of their surroundings and should of gained a lot of common sense by now, but who knows. I see adults running around parks and malls who act more immature than their kids. I would feel A LOT better if he/she already had friends with him before dropping them off. I don't see anything wrong with dropping your 11 year old off for an evening, but I think it's wrong to use a park as a babysitter.

I am sure if the kid would of called his mother to say he is at a friend's house nothing would of came of it.

-Tina*** This post was edited by coasterqueenTRN 7/22/2004 5:03:08 AM ***

I was simply horrified to read that this wasn't the first such incident! She had actually dropped her son off at the park before! I tell you, it's people like this who show us that you should have a license before you should be allowed kids.

..."Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a *real* useful invention." (French for the above passage was sarcastic.)

Mum gets sentenced to a year in prison. Kid gets sent to a foster home for the duration. Kid is psychologically scarred for life. The system works!

If there's one thing I don't like about Six Flags parks, it's that they act as a $60 per year babysitting company. This isn't about that though, this is about a completely stupid law that could serve no useful purpose other than to destroy families.

I still say that if I had an 11 yrd old child, I wouldn't drop them off at a park alone. Adult supervision is needed for more than just medical decisions. As Al Miner said, no one would question the police's judgement had he been kidnapped. And, don't think that just because he is at an amusement park with all of those people around, someone can't be kidnapped. It happens in public all the time.

Al Miner, "so she could go party with her girl friends"?

You're stretching the facts waaay out of proportion here...There's a big difference between partying and meeting some friends. It would be one thing if she dropped him off at opening and not come back until the park closed but she dropped him off at 7:30pm "to meet friends." Let's just, for the sake of argument, say that said friends were 15 minutes from the park - that only left her a scant 2 hours to "party". That isn't that much time...

Secondly, either the friends "junior"was meeting were also unsupervised (and if so why were their parents not charged) or granny who took "junior" home for a sleepover was watching them.

He was only supposed to be at the park for 2.5 hours, no longer than most movies nowadays...there are (at least) two other people that screwed up...the kid for not cally mom to let her know about sleepover and grandma for allowing it without checking with mom. ALSO, if you so strongly believe that mom is guilty, you should also charge granny for dropping "junior" off at the park the next morning completely unsupervised...*** This post was edited by redman822 7/22/2004 9:42:38 AM ***

Wow how times have changed for the worse.

Growing up we were very financially challenged. POOR

Certainley no money for a theme park, but my bug had already bitten.

When I was 9 -14, in the summer I used to go and cut lawns around the neighborhood. I rode my bike all around collecting returnable coke bottles, took them home and washed them, then went to the store to get my money.

I would get so excited when I save up $15.00. I would beg and beg until I found a ride to Astroworld, dropped off at 9:00, and called to be picked up at 10:00. I did this three to four times each summer. I would not be the enthusiast I am today, had it not been for this. I never caused one ounce of trouble. I just rode rides all day, and ate bread for lunch and dinner.

Personally I think it is an individual judgement based on the way the child was raised. If I could ride a bus across town to and from school, go to the mall and hang, ride my bike to the park or pool for half a day, then what is wrong with being dropped of at an amusement park.

I see nothing wrong with what the mother did. She should whip the heck out of the boy for not calling her to ask about the sleep over. End of story. This is news?

Redman brings up an interesting point... this is legislating "good parenting," whatever that's supposed to be. When a kid is a little jerk, I don't blame the circumstances that put him in the same room or queue or whatever, I blame the parents.

Furthermore, what "could have happened" to the kid could have happened anywhere, including right in front of his own house. I'd sooner have my kid roaming about a theme park in public than biking around the subdivisions. If something happens to the kid at a park, it won't go unnoticed.

Jeff, you can't say that it would not go unnoticed. You don't think kids are kidnapped in stores all the time, right in front of other people?

The law for michigan, as I know it, states children under the age of 13 (12 and younger) cannot be left alone, unsupervised for any length of time. It was the same law used against a woman who left an 11 year old at home babysitting younger siblings when a fire broke out and two of the younger ones died.

Of course parents leave 10-12 year olds alone all the time. Many are latchkey kids considered too old for daycare (and would be totally offended by it!) But if something happens to them, the parents will be prosecuted.

A local mall has instituted a policy in the past couple of weeks stating no kids under the age of 18 can be in the mall after 5:30 pm without parental supervision.

There is a huge difference between kids playing in the neighborhood where a parent is (ideally) close by and dropping a kid off at a mall or amusement park. There is also a difference between letting kids have some freedom in a park or mall while the parents (or specific supervision as in field trips) are on the premises versus no parent or supervisor on the premises to intervene in case of an emergency or problem.

And how mature is an 11 year old who knows mom is to pick him up at a certain time and instead goes off with a friend without calling mom to let her know? Or, for that matter, a grandmother who should KNOW better than to take another woman's child home without first insuring it's okay.

Call me over protective, but I never dropped Ian off unsupervised at a mall or park. In fact, he wasn't allowed to wander CP without me until he was 14, and even then I was at the park and he had to check in every 2-3 hours. Even in the neighborhood, he had to let me know where he was going to be. If he left one friend's house for another, he had to call, and he could not be in any friend's house unless a parent was there (in fact, that is still a rule).

I still come back to this...either the kid was supervised by granny - because he was with his friend(s), or all the kids he was with were unsupervised.

If it's the former, she did not just drop him at the park to fend for himself.

If it's the latter, why aren't the other kid's parents being charged???

Maybe it was only the one kids' mother that didn't know what the plan was. So, there would be no need to charge anyone else. There's not enough detail to determine exactly what happened and whom knew what.

from what i get out of this is that 11 year old drop off at the park left with a friend. He did not go there with him. When the mother came to pick him up the kid was nowhere to be found. In the grandmothers defense maybe she thought a previous deal had been made for the kid to come over or something so when the friend ask his grandma if it was ok to stay then she saw no problem with it. And for the record i was 13 before my parents allowed me to go to a park with them. even then i had to be with an older cusion or with someone else

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Jeff, you can't say that it would not go unnoticed. You don't think kids are kidnapped in stores all the time, right in front of other people?

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You can come up with an exception to any situation you can think of. You've heard the term, "Life sucks, buy a helmet." At some point you allow paranoia get in the way of living.

Like I said... that bus full of second graders, and thousands like me, managed to get to and from school every day in places a lot scarier than an amusement park.

Here's a thought....

Why didn't the ticket-taker employee (granted - probably a teenager) realize that an 11 year old was buying a ticket on his own? On the other hand, great job by the security guard!*** This post was edited by Richie Reflux 7/22/2004 10:20:44 PM ***

"Life sucks, buy a helmet"? That's poetic. By the way... what kind of 2.5 hour “meeting with friends” could not accommodate Ms. Mother of the Year in taking the 11 year old kid with her?

Kid probably begged Mum's (must appologise for my correct spelling of that word :)) butt off to let him go to the park to meet Jimmy and Granny.

When Mum tucks Kid into bed every night, is that abandonment? Hey, I've watched CSI, I know that any creep with a crowbar can get into Kid's room from outside. A little less extreme, but is Mum supposed to follow Kid into the toilet when they're out shopping, or does Kid have to go with Mum into the ladies?

I understand curfews - it's my understanding that most US cities have after-dark restrictions for under 18s, and rightfully so. This law goes beyond that - it, as redman put it, legislates parenting. It reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons with George Bush Sr. and all the phooey about questioning Marge & Homer's parenting. If a child is put into a genuinely dangerous or potentially dangerous position of any nature as a result of parenting, then by all means take the stupid parents to court and get them locked up for life. Any more than that and the law is poking its nose where it don't belong.