14 Year Old Deemed Unfit to Watch Sibling While Parent's Go Out: Safety Issue or NWO Family Busting

there are also many parents who end up willfully neglecting their young children by leaving them at home alone. responsibilities don't needlessly lie with kids having to defend for themselves, it's the role of the parent to ensure their child is recieving the adequate care and support entrusted by them and not shifting those responsibilities to their children in filling these parentual roles that they are made to perform.

...if there was no problem while the mother was out, how did the police know that the 14yr old was taking care of the 3yr old?...

reply to post by topdog30


It did not say any family was busted, the practice of forcing parents to hire strangers to watch their children is the first phase of family busting, the stripping of a family decision ( to have older sib watch younger sibs) is the second phase, and the third phase unfortunately would be the inevitable rending of the kids from the family unit when a parent chooses to have an older sib sit and gets narced out or caught.

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks
...if there was no problem while the mother was out, how did the police know that the 14yr old was taking care of the 3yr old?...

I wish the story had more details. After V I will look around the web and see what I can dig up.

It depends on the age of the child/infant that is being babysat. IMO.

I'd quite gladly leave a 10 year old and over with his/her 14 year old sibling.
But I wouldn't leave a newborn or child under 5, most definitely.
Too much can go wrong, even in a short space of time.

And it helps a lot if the child the teenager is minding can at least articulate their needs or problems
if they arise, which most children of 10 and over could adequately do.

Between 5 and 10 is a grey area for me and would probably depend on other factors, like if the 14 year old has had a lot of hands on practice with the child, has shown concern for the younger siblings well being, has a close healthy relationship with the younger sibling....

And I sure wouldn't leave a child of any age with an older sibling/or sitter who has form of smoking marijuana or taking any kind of drugs behind a parents/adults back.
It would be a risk I wouldn't be prepared to take.

So yeah. For me, it's not the age of the child minder that would matter but moreso the age of the child they are minding.

reply to post by hotbakedtater


...i tried to find the original article in the times (that the article in your op was based off of) but i got lost cuz their website truly sucks... found 8000 other articles but not the one i was lookin for... maybe its just me, lol...

Originally posted by hotbakedtater
reply to post by topdog30

 

It did not say any family was busted, the practice of forcing parents to hire strangers to watch their children is the first phase of family busting, the stripping of a family decision ( to have older sib watch younger sibs) is the second phase, and the third phase unfortunately would be the inevitable rending of the kids from the family unit when a parent chooses to have an older sib sit and gets narced out or caught.

Who said it had to be a stranger??

Maybe that older sib isn't mature enough to take on that responsibility of watching a younger sib. Kids can be easily distracted and thats not good for the younger sib. The saftey of the younger sib should be a priority as well.

This is an interesting topic you have chosen. I don't have the answers, I also don't thik its the plan of some secret group to take someones kids.

I think there are valid points from both sides. Good luck in finding an acceptable answer.

Originally posted by redgy
there are also many parents who end up willfully neglecting their young children by leaving them at home alone. responsibilities don't needlessly lie with kids having to defend for themselves, it's the role of the parent to ensure their child is recieving the adequate care and support entrusted by them and not shifting those responsibilities to their children in filling these parentual roles that they are made to perform.

And yet the flip side of the coin requires parents to teach children responsibility, a work ethic, and sense of duty. A job which IMO we are failing at. As adults, we understand that working, living within a structure and receiving positive feedback are all important to our emotional well-being. Why would we not think our children have the same needs?

"Keeping" our children, rather than parenting them is the very reason this issue is being brought up. Looking at children as a whole today we see unchallenged, unstructured, undisciplined youth. Children have been a vital contributor to family survival for tens of thousands of years. Only in the last 50 have we adopted such different views, with obvious results. I doubt there has been a moment in history where on the whole entire generations of children were so (sorry to be blunt) useless.

My child is able and capable of watching his sibling for short periods. Why wouldn't I teach him how to do it, explain all the risks and dangers, and (carefully) allow him to perform a function for his family? Praise him for doing well, teach him when things don't go perfectly...That's the point, at least to me.

(That being said, abuse of this issue isn't acceptable. That is 'shifting responsibility' as you put it.)

One more note: When the SHTF (as many of us fear), what roles will your children be thown into overnight? Watching siblings? Foraging for food? Hauling water? How will the child who lives in a Xbox respond and adapt to something like that? What will happen to all the high-minded "let kids be kids" philosophy that day?