Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

[Neverslip]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

if I go into the bedroom to look for a shoe, I make a game of it and bring both kids and all 3 of us look. This way I get help with finding it

Tricky... there are Child Labor Laws, ya know.... ... jk

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

That's the thing, we really don't know. If it was an "age appropriate" baby sitter, and this was a situation that happens a lot, then this is a fluke accident and not a sign of bad parenting imo. But until we know all the details I don't think we can really judge them. I have older siblings and many times they would see me off to school or make my dinner because one parent was at work and the other was asleep because they worked all night. Hell I've had to babysit my nieces and nephews for the same exact reasons.

The bottom line is, we don't even know how long this kid was left alone. If he was already dressed for school, and knew where the car keys were, it would only take a minute for him to grab em, hop in the car, start it up and drive off. He obviously knew how to work the car, hell he even knew what direction to go in and what roads to turn at, so he was obviously a smart kid. So I do believe it could have taken him a minute or two tops to grab the keys and drive off.

As I said, I haven't said anything about the parents except note where they were at the time of the incident. It WAS bad parenting on part of the babysitter though. I do NOT believe that the child could have done all of this in a minute or two. I live with a child that age right now and things don't come as easily to them as an adult because of their size and weight. Car doors are heavy. It's a long way to the brake and gas and takes time to figure out the configuration.....its not like pushing X on a controller. This took time. Time that the babysitter should have been thinking "Oh wow, it sure is quiet. I wonder what Bobby is doing out there." and then went to look.

And as far as the parents, they obviously let the kid play GTA and that IS bad parenting.

[Mhurron]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

Oh, and you know me personally Mhurron? Bullshit. I am a firm parent and my kids will attest to that.

With all due respect, that's feasibly impossible.

Exactly, "[sic] ever out of my sight for more than 1 or 2 minutes" is not possible. Parents and other care givers always over estimate the amount of time they have two eyes on those they are caring for.

These are children, they do have minds of their own and can be surprisingly good escape artists and unless you're an asshole, they watch what you do ever moment they're around you.

takes time to figure out the configuration

You've never had a kid ask a question before?

Oh and helicopter parenting is bad parenting too.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

Exactly, "[sic] ever out of my sight for more than 1 or 2 minutes" is not possible. Parents and other care givers always over estimate the amount of time they have two eyes on those they are caring for.

These are children, they do have minds of their own and can be surprisingly good escape artists and unless you're an asshole, they watch what you do ever moment they're around you.

You've never had a kid ask a question before?

Oh and helicopter parenting is bad parenting too.

I always get a good laugh at people who try to tell someone how to do something right and they've never done it before themselves. Young children need close supervision. As they get older you slowly relax the "purse strings" and teach them how to be responsible and independent. At the ripe age of 6 you keep a close eye on them and when you leave the room for more than a minute, you always are listening and aware that they are on their own. You never leave them along for more than a minute or two.....especially if its quiet and you can't hear what they are doing. (Which would apply to a child going outside to start a car.) If whatever you are doing is going to take you away from them for longer than that, you include them. While you include them you can teach them at the same time and also make it fun. Looking for a missing shoe can turn into a fun game of hide and seek and achieve the same goal as doing it yourself. The bonus is you know where they are and what they are doing.

Young childrens attention spans change like the wind. You know this as a parent and its one of the guiding factors to not leaving them alone for extended periods of time. My grandchildren are limited in playing area depending on where I am in the house. If I'm in the kitchen they get the living room and the kitchen to play in. Both areas are in my line of site and I only have to take 2 seconds to turn around to see what they are doing. Hence, they are never out of my sight for very long. The longest is when I use the bathroom and even then I have my ears tuned into what they are doing/saying while I take care of business. If I go upstairs, they do to. I usually make it interesting to them in some fashion. If I'm taking something upstairs, then I give them a small portion of it to take up (like a pair of socks, etc.) so they feel included and important. They even help me clean the bathroom and have fun doing it too. They are always so proud and show their grandfather or mother whenever they get home. THIS is attentive parenting. It doesn't take much more effort but its often time more than most parents care to do.

It's also NOT "helicoptor" parenting, its called RESPONSIBLE parenting. Maybe you should go out into the world and have a couple kids and come talk to me in 20 years when you have actual knowledge and experience. I'm confident thats something you would say to someone trying to talk tech to you when they didn't have a lick of knowledge or experience in that area either.

[Mhurron]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

Neither of my grandsons is ever out of my sight for more than 1 or 2 minutes.

I said that I pay close attention

keep a close eye on them and when you leave the room for more than a minute, you always are listening and aware that they are on their own. You never leave them along for more than a minute or two.....especially if its quiet and you can't hear what they are doing.

Every time you come back there is less and less 'never out of my sight' and more paying attention while I do other things I have to do in a day.

I'm sorry that you can't realize that you can not watch another human being every second of the day. Even places that pay people to keep tabs on others and cameras all over the place are unable to do that.

I'm also sorry that you've forgotten what it was to be a child. I may not be a parent, (actually I'm certain I'm not) but I can remember being on the other end and am not under the delusion that I would know every little thing another living being did.

Not every little child has so short attention span they can't do anything complicated. Like all other people on the planet, they are different. I have always been able to sit and focus on a single task, yes, even when I was six. I could pay attention to all sorts of things around me. By the age of oh 5~7, I was how my mother got around the city. Just by going places. I could tell you streets, directions, landmarks. I was how we got home at night instead of getting lost and waiting for my Dad to get off work and find us. At 7 I destroyed the OS install of our computer, and reinstalled it before my Dad got home. So maybe just because you can't see the two kids you watch being able to pull it off, doesn't mean no kid can. All I ever did was watch.

And essentially tying a tether around them is helicopter parenting.

Ever wondered how new parents raise children. After all they've never done it before so the couldn't possibly know a damn thing about it right? They learned from their parents and every parent around them. So laugh all you want, but I have as much experience as you did when you first started. Were you a bad parent when you started?

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

I never stated that I sit all day and watch them without doing anything else. Thats just asinine and an attempt by you to blur my point because you don't have a leg to stand on. My point was that a child thats the age of 6 thats out of sight and quiet (which this child would have been both) for more than a couple of minutes has the potential of getting hurt or in trouble. A good parent/babysitter knows this and keeps track of the children which wouldn't allow for all the time it took to get your boots on, get your coat on, find the car keys, open the door, go to the car, open a heavy car door, get in, close the heavy car door, figure out the ignition and how to use it, figure out which pedal does what, figure out how to reach them and be able to see to drive, figure out how to put he car into the right gear, and THEN drive off and probably rather slowly and jerkily since he's never done it before.

You know I'm confident that you know this but just want to start an arguement with me since I gave you an infraction eariler today. I know that if someone were trying to tell you the ins and outs of fixing a computer issue without having any knowledge of what they were talking about and no experience doing it, you certainly would let them know they were full of shit. So argue on with yourself Mhurron, with your hypothetical logic.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

She keeps rewording it cause you keep ignoring that point. You can't call her wrong on what may be a fact for her. If she implied that's what MOST parents would do, then you'd have a point, but you do not.

My mother was VERY overprotective. When I was a kid, I was always watched. When I went to where my dad worked(Bodega/Grocery store), she'd be sitting in the front, and if I went anywhere near the back of the store she'd be right behind me, pretending to play some sort of chase game, which obviously I enjoyed at the time. We didn't live somewhere big, so she could be at one point in the house in the kitchen, and could see me at the other point of the house if I scampered over there, and if I tried to move any sort of door she'd take notice. It's seriously NOT hard to monitor a child's movements if you actually pay attention, I don't care how special you think you were as a child. If you were unoccupied as a child, it's cause the person watching over you wasn't paying attention, thus not doing their job.

You can call it helicopter parenting all you want, but with all the stories of kids having accidents at home, getting kidnapped when their parents only didn't look for a split second, etc etc, I'd rather be happy I grew up under 'helicopter parenting' with no drug vices, and an intelligence that got me into a good university than a pretentious prick who thinks they know better cause mommy let them 'express' themselves at a young age.

Just cause you were a child once does not make you an expert on child behavior. Not everyone is brought up the same.

[BurningPanther]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

I believe she's kept an eye on her grandsons with 100% accuracy. I just don't expect that to last much longer.



Mom was sleeping, pops was out doing whatever it is pops does, the babysitter was preoccupied with a shoe.

Hey, it happens. Occasionally, parents need to sleep, occasionally, they need to go out and run errands(or--imagine this--work), sometimes, they get preoccupied with shit little kids tend to lose inexplicably. And, the more children you have, the greater the chances that accidents will happen. The child endangerment charge was a ridiculous overreaction to shit that happens in every home on the planet.

[Feba]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

The fact is, whether you're a hypervigilant parent or not, CPS taking the kids away is bullshit. They didn't leave the car running with the kid in it. The kid got the keys, and went off by himself. I don't know about you guys, but when I was that age, I walked to school, and I could ride a bike. I also played my fair share of racing games. If I had wanted to drive a car, I could've managed it; although I have no idea how he reached the pedals.

In fact, I distinctly remember my parents allowing me to sit on their lap and steer around parking lots and suburbs from time to time! And the fact is, it would've been just as easy for this kid to get in to trouble when he was at school, or day care, whether it was the parents or the babysitter or whatever. This kid got into trouble, and CPS went looking for someone to blame. Do you honestly think, based on ONE incident that could've happened to anyone, that the kid's parents are really a danger to their children? And that being placed in state custody is actually BETTER for them?

[Malacite]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

Epic Fail.

First of all, why were the keys even reachable by the 6 year old in question?

[Clever Ninja]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

I still don't understand how they say he learned to drive from GTA4. Unless the parents car uses a PS3/360 controller for a steering wheel.

[Caspian]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

How the crap did he get it out of park? Every automatic transmission car I've seen requires you to push the brake to shift out. If it was a standard transmission, how did he know to push the clutch when he started it and then be able to push the clutch and shift into gear? Pretty skilled kid. And I'm still not sure how GTA4 could teach someone how to drive a car. FPS certainly never tought me how to properly fire a gun. The two are like night and day.
And yeah, the state taking the kid is bullshit.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

The fact is, whether you're a hypervigilant parent or not, CPS taking the kids away is bullshit. They didn't leave the car running with the kid in it. The kid got the keys, and went off by himself. I don't know about you guys, but when I was that age, I walked to school, and I could ride a bike. I also played my fair share of racing games. If I had wanted to drive a car, I could've managed it; although I have no idea how he reached the pedals.

In fact, I distinctly remember my parents allowing me to sit on their lap and steer around parking lots and suburbs from time to time! And the fact is, it would've been just as easy for this kid to get in to trouble when he was at school, or day care, whether it was the parents or the babysitter or whatever. This kid got into trouble, and CPS went looking for someone to blame. Do you honestly think, based on ONE incident that could've happened to anyone, that the kid's parents are really a danger to their children? And that being placed in state custody is actually BETTER for them?

And I never did say taking the kids away was a good thing, did I? All I stated was that the parenting sucked in the game department for letting a 6 yr old play GTA. I also said whoever was in charge of the children, apparently a babysitter, that their parenting skills sucked monkey balls. Others have taken what I said and distorted it into something else. If the parents had a babysitter that was of decent age watching the kids, then they didn't do anything wrong. The blame lies on the babysitters shoulders and they should be charged. Now if the parents were letting an 8 yr old take care of the kids while she slept/he was out of the house, then yes they should investigate it further because that is irresponsible parenting. I believe there is something more to the story since they know what they can get away with legally and wouldn't do something like this without knowing they could make it stick.

[Feba]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

And I never did say taking the kids away was a good thing, did I?

Did I say you did? I was saying "let's stop the arguing, we all agree that CPS taking the kids is bullshit"

I believe there is something more to the story since they know what they can get away with legally and wouldn't do something like this without knowing they could make it stick.

CPS where you live must be very nice. I've personally hardly ever heard a good thing about them. My parents got a call from CPS once because I decided to go to school without a jacket once. Despite the fact that I took the bus. And it was in the 50s. And I was barely outside at all.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Ok ya...we've all heard this garbage before but...

I live within a large metropolitan area. They don't have enough time or manpower to investigate a silly claim like a child not wearing a coat to school. I had a disgruntled girlfriend call CPS on my family and they were PISSED when they came out and found out about the bogus claim. Subsequently they fined her and also found out about her poor parenting and took her children away from her until she could complete their requirements to get them back.