Mother, 34, arrested for letting seven-year-old son walk to nearby park alone

[Ptarmigan]

Mother, 34, arrested for letting seven-year-old son walk to nearby park alone
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2711143/Mom-arrested-letting-son-7-park-alone.html

A mother has been charged with child neglect after she let her seven-year-old son walk to a nearby park alone.

Nicole Gainey, 34, of Port St. Lucie, Florida was arrested on Saturday after lifeguards saw her son Dominic walking past a pool on the way to the park, which is half a mile from his home.

When they questioned the boy, who has a learning disability, he ran toward the park, where officers picked him up and drove him home.

Children used to do that back than. I can imagine there would be a lot of people in jail for this if these stupids were in the 1960s or 1970s. 

[RayRaytheSBS]

My parents would be in jail. I was out and about roaming the neighborhood at the age of five. The stupidity sickens me.

[Fourwinds]

Mine would have been locked up. I had a bike at that age and was all over town, never mind the neighborhood.

[vesta111]

My parents would be in jail. I was out and about roaming the neighborhood at the age of five. The stupidity sickens me.

At what age are children allowed out of their parents sight ? 

Parents have it difficult today, if a child at 8 years goes to school  and complain that they are not allowed out of the house to play, some one will call social services.

Kids today are much more street wise at 7 years old then my generation at 10. They have the tools, the cell phone and know how to use them.   

At 10, we would climb the rafters in barns and jump off 10 feet into loose hay, head for the lake and swing out on a rope to let go and dive into the water.   Ride horses bare back, climb trees 20+ feet high and  ride our bikes on the road to town.  We built rafts at 8-9 and went out into a the 3 rd fastest river in the country and became stuck in the mud when the tide went out too fast to get to shore.

Looking back we kids were crazy to have done all this but we survived, had we had cell phones back then  and called for help every time we got in trouble,  we would have grown up weak and depending on others to get us out of any trouble we got into .

[DefiantSix]

At what age are children allowed out of their parents sight ? 

When I was a kid, I was riding my bicycle around most of our housing area of Naval Station Long Beach at about age 5-6.  So long as I stayed on the sidewalks I knew I was okay: the one time I ventured across the street on my own, outside of my mom's eyeshot one of our neighbors dropped the dime on me, and she knew about it before I got back to the quadrangle in front of our house (yeah, I was toast).