Playing outside

[Marc Chevalier]

Ain't seen one of them for a while

:cheers1:

bk

SO fftopic: fftopic: fftopic: lol

 

[The D.A.]

Scotrace, good to meet another member of the Midwest contingent. I fear that our numbers are dwarfed by the members of the East Coast contingent and the West Coast contingent.

I, too, live in something of a "Leave It to Beaver" sort of town--Lawrence, Kansas, home of the University of Kansas and the Jayhawks. Ironically (considering the topic of this thread), as I sit here in my office, I can look out the window and into the park (complete with old-fashioned band stand) and see kids playing while their parents watch from iron park benches. It's a reassuring sight.

Does the Midwest contingent ever have any events/get togethers like they do on the coasts?

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Again, well said. Bravo!

I live in a small town in the midwest. A Leave-It-To-Beaver sort of small City where everyone knows everyone else's business, people sometimes leave the front door unlocked, etc.
And there are fourteen reigstered sex offenders within ten blocks of my house, which is one block from a High School.

The dangers are quite real.

First off let me say I am not defending sex offenders, but here is a story of a convicted sex offender I knew.

I was a partner in a design firm and we often used interns from the Art Institute. One young fellow we used for a short period of time had to inform us he was a convicted sex offender. He had the same girlfriend in High School for three years, and the day he turned 18 her parents pressed charges against him by pressuring her into saying he assaulted her. He was convicted and given probation, but now everywhere he goes he has to inform potential employers or apartments of his status.

Is this common, I don't have any idea. But it made me wonder what the breakdown of these offenders is.

And as a side note, even though we knew his exact circumstances, the women in our office felt so uncomfortable that we had to let him go. None of the guys had any problem with it.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Is this common, I don't have any idea.

Radio advice-givers like Dr. Laura Schlesinger would like to make it so. She specifically advises parents to call the police on 18+ year old boyfriends of underage girls, even if their sexual relations are consensual.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

A good point. The vast majority of sex offenders have no (sexual) interest in children (stands to reason since there are far more sex offenders than paedophiles - small subgroup).

Makes me think of an utterly (not quite) unrelated story. When i was a kid i was part of a youth boys organisation. The older boy in charge who used to walk us home at night after meetings and the like turned out to be gay. My mother now says: "If i'd known at the time i'd never have left you alone with him." This is just an example. My mother equates homosexuality with child molestation - there is no separation in her mind.

We should be sure to separate the majority of sex offenders from paedophiles. As with the previous poster, i'm in no way defending sex offenders.

bk

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I can't bring myself to be afraid of a "sex offender" just because he's an 18 year-old guy having consensual sex with his 17 year-old girlfriend ... even if that girl were my daughter.

 

[mysterygal]

around where I live, any sunny day and the parks are full of happy children playing. I do think most children watch way too much t.v....personally, I think it's all common sense...why take the chance of letting your kid have something horrible happen to them? There's stories almost nightly it seems of another child abductor or molestor...and I'm not talking about the 18 year old with the 17yr old girlfriend. Parents of course need to let their kids play outside and go to parks, but with supervision.

 

[scotrace]

Does the Midwest contingent ever have any events/get togethers like they do on the coasts?

I'd sure like to see it happen. The Wright-Patterson AFBM in Dayton is a likely spot for it.
fftopic:

 

[Lauren]

Lauren, you can warn and warn children about specific dangers, but education about such things can only go so far. Educated adults, people with life experience who should know better, are victims of crime all the time. How can we expect children to do better?

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I didn't mean to make it seem like I would warn the kids at the door with "Ok, have a good day playing. Don't talk to strangers." and then brush it off. What I do mean is that you can't be around them all the time, so teach them what you can about warning signs and do's and don'ts. And obviously, people should know where their kids are and know their friends. I wouldn't personally let my kids go play out on the street unless I knew the kids and the neighborhood families because then you know you're not the only one looking out for them... but say that they're out playing ball and some wierd dude drives up in a wonky car. Better tell your kid to head for the nearest friend's house pronto, right? And who's to say they can't come and play in the backyard if you're fortunate enough to have one?

But with all this said, I'm not a parent so what do I know...

 

[The D.A.]

J.M.S.,

You make a good point. I don't know about other states, but here in Kansas when you look-up registered sex offenders it tells you what crimes they were convicted of, so it is sometimes possible to tell the so-called "Romeo and Juliet" offenders from the stereotypical sex offenders. In recent years, our lawmakers have also attempted to address the issue of "Romeo and Juliet" cases by reducing the severity level and removing (I think) the need to register as a sex offender.

I agree that a sex offender label is a heavy burden to live with it. I have no doubt that, unfortunately, there are some people with that label that aren't a danger to the public at large.

 

[scotrace]

You're right of course, Lauren. Parental responsibility plays a big role.

If you say to children "don't talk to strangers." Well, to a child, a stranger is a shifty-looking character with a long cloak, pointy chin and bad teeth. So the fellow who is dressed nicely with a pretty smile and just wants them to come and listen to some Hilary Duff CD's in his nice car... well... that has to be OK, right...?

With ours, we had a password. Anyone who was claiming to be there to give them a ride ("Your mom is sick, she asked me to pick you up...") or who they did not know well who wanted to talk to them had to have this password to signal it was OK. Mostly they were instructed to flee any situation that felt the least bit scary. Of course, the password thing was never used because we would never send someone to pick them up. We'd call the school to make sure they knew what was up, the school would hold them in the office after school until one of us, sick or not, arrived to bring them home.

 

[jamespowers]

Lets put a face to the fear of abduction:

According to the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice and released in 1990, the yearly estimates of each type of “missing child” are:

Lost, Injured, or Otherwise Missing: 438,200
Runaways: 450,700
Family Abductions: 354,100
Attempted Non-family Abductions: 114,600
Thrown-aways: 127,100
Non-family Abductions: 3,200 to 4,600

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) there were 840,279 missing-person entries (adults and juveniles) in the year 2001. A review of NCIC data shows that that approximately 85– 90 percent of those entries were juveniles. Thus, in approximately 725,000 cases (or on average 2,000 per day) the disappearance of a child was serious enough that a parent called law enforcement and the law-enforcement agency took a report and entered it into NCIC. It should be noted, however, that the vast majority of these cases are resolved within hours.
According to the State of Washington’s Office of the Attorney General “the murder of a child who is abducted ... is a rare event. There are estimated to be about 100 such incidents in the United States each year, less than one-half of one percent of the murders committed”; however, “74 percent of abducted children who are murdered are dead within three hours of the abduction.”

All of this is sobering but the last paragraph about sums it up. The Statistical Abstract of the United States lists our population at around 300,000,000. Figuring the portion of the entire US that is actually "missing" makes the whole fear ridiculous. Out of our population that means the 2/10ths of 1% are likely to go missing in any given year. Whittle that down witht he Attorney General's comments and it is statistically insignificant that anything will ever happen. You are more likely to win the lottery--any lottery!
Fear of abduction is irrational but there is that small percent that you certainly do not want to be a part of. With reasonable care, I think your children will be more than fine. It reminds me of John Stossel's series about Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death.
Let them play out in the yard. Make it the backyard if you must. If they are over at a friend's then make it a point to know the parents and have good communication with them. That is a pretty good deterent. Children never pay attention to the stranger thing. The password might be a viable option. the other is just to tell them to stay away from people exhibiting strange or threatening behavior and situations. There is a good list on the website for National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=203
I just don't want all the hype to deter people from letting children be children. They only get to once.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Thank you for that post, Jamespowers!

 

[The D.A.]

But with all this said, I'm not a parent so what do I know...

What do you know? Well, you're obviously a person of great intelligence and exquisite taste, otherwise you wouldn't be in The Lounge in the first place!

I truly hope that I didn't convey the impression that I was being condescending, and I did not mean to imply that non-parents can't intelligently comment on the topic. That's the problem with the Internet--you can never quite be sure how you are being received. Your comments are well-taken, and I think that we're on the same page.

Now The Baron and J.M.S. are a different story. I think that I may have to open an investigation on them.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Now The Baron and J.M.S. are a different story. I think that I may have to open an investigation on them.

We already did. The men with the white jackets are on their way.

 

[The D.A.]

We already did. The men with the white jackets are on their way.

No doubt a stay in Arkham will do them wonders.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

lol

 

[Lauren]

Not to worry, D.A! No bad feeling here I just mean I'll probably know a bit more when I've reproduced lol

Very well said, James Powers!

 

[Twitch]

Matt I live near a park and there is always something going on with soccer basketball, tennis, handball, track practice and such. On the nice weekends it's family barbequing there. In fact I get sick of the traffic going by my house going and coming from all this. And this is typical of life in my quadrant of the world at the 105 and 710 freeways.[huh]

 

[jamespowers]

Very well said, James Powers!

"Just the facts ma'am."

Regards to all,

J