Things are about to get tougher for parents in the Australian state of Victoria with penalties set to increase for parents who leave their under 16 year olds home unaccompanied.
The Age article outlines that: "penalties for leaving children under 16 unattended are set to increase, with the government proposing a doubling of the maximum jail sentence, from three to six months. Fines will increase by two-thirds, to $3690".
"Despite declining crime rates in most Western societies, parenting experts say anxiety around children's safety has never been higher."
"Though triggered by a rise in ambulance call-outs for young children left in cars, the penalties have a wider application for kids and teens left at home, walking the streets alone or catching public transport unsupervised."
While some children are left in risky situations how helpful is an age-based law like this?
Potentially damaging, claims Lenore Skenazy, a New York-based author of 'Free-Range Kids', "this is government grandstanding, symptomatic of a paranoia about children’s safety. “It’s part of the overarching belief that any moment a child is not directly supervised, generally by the mother or the school, they are in grave danger,” she says. “I know that every year children die in cars, but actually more children die getting run over by cars [and in car accidents]. The time a mother is most guilty of putting her child in danger is the minute she decides to drive the child anywhere.”
"Skenazy wants children to be as independent as possible: to walk or ride to school alone at around age seven; to go to the playground alone at age nine, and to head into town unaccompanied when they’re mature enough. Her teenage son was at Times Square with a friend when she spoke to Fairfax Media. “If you have a hysterical population who thinks children are in constant danger, the courts are going to be interpreting it like that too. If you’re arresting parents because something bad could happen, well you can jail anybody. Right now my son is out with another kid and they’re in Manhattan and it’s dark. They could be murdered. They won’t be, but should you be jailing me?”
Majella Lewis, a teacher from Ballarat, has three children. "Lewis says most parents use common sense and that she takes little notice of laws pertaining to supervision. "I look at rules like that and think they only count for those extreme parents who leave kids in cars when they go to the casino. I don't think it's for the everyday person, but equally I don't know if this law is trying to make everyday parents like us more aware. Perhaps it is."
Some children will need this law to protect them. For instance there are children who are left in unsafe home environments for long periods of time with no support structure or strategies for coping. What role should the state play in their protection? How do we strike the right balance between protection and independence? Has this law got that balance right?
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www.njfamily.comIt is proposed that penalties should apply to all parents who leave under 16 year olds home unaccompanied