Readers: Allowing A 7-9 Year Old Child To Play At A Local Park Is NOT Child Neglect

In the poll last week most readers agreed the two moms arrested the week before shouldn’t have been arrested, letting their kids play in the park wasn’t child neglect. To refresh your memory:

In South Carolina a mom was arrested after allowing her 9-year old daughter to play in the park unsupervised:

She spent 17 days in jail, temporarily lost custody of her girl, thought she lost her job, and still faces 10 years in prison if convicted of felony child neglect. (CBS News) 

A very similar case reported in Florida the next day when a mom allowed her 7-year old to play in a park:

Dominic was playing when Port St. Lucie Police pulled up. Police took him home and arrested his mom charging her with child neglect. (source)

Here are the poll results.

Q: Is allowing a 7-9 year old child to play at a local park ‘child neglect’?

No 120 [71.43%]
Maybe 35 [20.83%]
Yes 9 [5.36%]
Unsure/No Opinion 4 [2.38%]

Comments on the post raised valid questions, such the time frame between letting a kid play and neglect; apparently one mom had her kid play in the park while she was at work.  I don’t know that we can put at time frame applicable to every kids. I know I was away from home for hours at a time as a child. My concern is those who answered “Yes” and “Maybe” might be too over protective.  As kids get older they need the freedom to gain independence.

A Psychology Today post titled Parenting: Raise Independent Children, Are you raising responsible or contingent children? addresses the issue:

One of your most important goals as a parent is to raise children who become independent and self-reliant people. Certainly, in early development, your children count on you. As infants, they rely on you for nourishment, cleaning, and mobility. As your children grow, they become more independent in these basic areas of living, but still depend on you for love, protection, guidance, and support. As your children reach adolescence and move toward adulthood, they become less reliant on you and gain greater independence in all aspects of their lives. This process of separation prepares your children for the demands of adulthood. But this progression toward adulthood is not inevitable and is often stymied by well-intentioned, but misguided, parents.

Contingent Children

Contingent children are dependent on others for how they feel about themselves. Some parents want to foster this dependence. These parents act on their own needs for power and use control and coercion to ensure that they remain the dominant forces in their children’s lives. Contingent children can be recognized in the following ways:

Depend on others to provide them with incentive to achieve.
Depend on others for their happiness because they have no ownership of their lives and little responsibility for their own thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Reinforced with inappropriate rewards and no limits, and regardless of their behavior.
Poor decision makers because their parents hold the belief that they always know what is best and make decisions without soliciting their children’s wishes.

Independent Children

Independent children differ from contingent children in several essential ways. If your children are independent, you have provided them with the belief that they are competent and capable of taking care of themselves. You offered them the guidance to find activities that are meaningful and satisfying. You gave your children the freedom to experience life fully and learn its many important lessons. Independent children can be recognized in the following ways:

Intrinsically motivated because they are allowed to find their own reasons to achieve.
Were given the opportunity and guidance to explore achievement activities of their own choosing.
Parents use extrinsic rewards appropriately and sparingly.
Collaborative rather than a controlled relationship with their parents in which the children’s ideas and wishes are solicited and considered.
Good decision makers because they were allowed to consider various options and, with the support and guidance of their parents, make their own decisions.

The world is no worse than it was 20-30-40 years ago, we just have more news outlets with time to fill. Keep your kids safe, but please make sure they learn how to become independent.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Should St. Louis Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages?

A couple of weeks ago you may have seen this story:

St. Louis Health Department Director Pam Walker said Saturday night that she would attempt to ban horse-drawn carriages from city streets.

Walker’s vow followed an incident in front of the City Museum downtown on Saturday night. Walker, who lives in a building adjacent to the museum, was walking her dog just before 9 p.m. when she spotted what she said was a horse “showing classic signs of heatstroke.” (stltoday)

The poll this week asks if we should ban horse-drawn carriages, I’ve provided a variety of answers but you can also supply your own. The poll is at the top of the right sidebar (mobile users need to switch to the desktop layout).

— Steve Patterson

Banks Closing Drive-Thru Lanes

Shortly after the weekly poll started last week I realized a flaw in how I constructed the answers, lumping walk-up ATMs and drive-up ATMs together as one:

Q: You’ve got a check to deposit into your checking or savings account, pick your two preferred methods from the following list:

ATM 45 [28.85%]
Lobby teller 39 [25%]
Drive-thru teller 34 [21.79%]
Smartphone app 32 [20.51%]
Mailing check to my financial institution 5 [3.21%]
N/A — I don’t have a checking/savings account 1 [0.64%]

Had I broken the ATM answer down into the two types as I did with tellers the results would’ve been different. Still, the results are interesting. In a few years I think we’ll see smartphone apps increasingly used for depositing increasingly rare checks.

For decades banks  razed buildings to build drive through lanes. Decades ago these lanes were full of cars but now fewer and fewer use them. Last year Bank of America began closing drive-up teller service at some locations.

In the latest move to scale back its branches, Bank of America is ending drive-up teller service at some locations, including in the Charlotte region.

The reason? Too few people are using the drive-thru lanes, the bank says.

The move comes as the Charlotte-based lender is in cost-cutting mode, closing branches nationwide and shrinking its number of automated teller machines. (Bank of America to close drive-through teller lanes)

The Bank of America branch at 800 Market still has drive-thru lanes, but their website indicates the branch hours will change on August 4th. Will they close then? Don’t be fooled, the banking industry is changing big time:

Drive-through teller stations, once promoted as a convenience for the after-work crowd wanting to keep Bob Dylan songs playing while depositing their paychecks, are losing some of that traffic to mobile apps. As consumers increasingly use self-service channels from wherever they wish, financial institutions are reimagining their physical footprints, including drive-ups, to adjust. (American Banker)

The lobby branch of Bank of America at 100 North Broadway will close in November, according to their website. They surveyed their customers:

Almost two-thirds of consumers (62%) have at least tried to use mobile banking. The most common activities performed using mobile banking are account balance monitoring and statement viewing. Bank of America now has over 15 million active mobile banking users who access their accounts on a mobile device over 165 million times per month, according to SVP and mobile solutions executive Marc Warshawsky. This number is growing by more than 200,000 customers per month.

However, visits to bank branches are still the preferred method for managing accounts. Around 84% of respondents have visited a bank branch over the last six months. And 23% of the respondents said that they complete the majority of their banking transactions at a branch. About half (47%) of the respondents said that they use the bank’s mobile app or website as a preferred method for certain tasks. (Forbes)

When I deposit a check via ATM I don’t like having to use an envelope, the newer ATMs that read/scan the check as you deposit it are much more 21st century. I’ll revisit this in five years.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: How Do You Plan To Vote On Missouri’s Five Proposed Constitutional Amendments?

The poll this week has five questions, one for each of the five proposed constitutional amendments on Missouri’s August 5th ballot. The poll questions in the right sidebar are brief because of software, but here is the official ballot language for each:

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 1  Proposed by the 97th General Assembly (First Regular Session) CCS No. 2 SS HCS HJR Nos. 11 & 7

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ensure that the right of Missouri citizens to engage in agricultural production and ranching practices shall not be infringed? The potential costs or savings to governmental entities are unknown, but likely limited unless the resolution leads to increased litigation costs and/or the loss of federal funding.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 5 Proposed by the 97th General Assembly (Second Regular Session) SCS SJR No. 36

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to include a declaration that the right to keep and bear arms is an unalienable right and that the state government is obligated to uphold that right? State and local governmental entities should have no direct costs or savings from this proposal. However, the proposal’s passage will likely lead to increased litigation and criminal justice related costs. The total potential costs are unknown, but could be significant.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 7 Proposed by the 97th General Assembly (Second Regular Session) SS HJR No. 68

Should the Missouri Constitution be changed to enact a temporary sales tax of three-quarters of one percent to be used solely to fund state and local highways, roads, bridges and transportation projects for ten years, with priority given to repairing unsafe roads and bridges? This change is expected to produce $480 million annually to the state’s Transportation Safety and Job Creation Fund and $54 million for local governments. Increases in the gas tax will be prohibited. This revenue shall only be used for transportation purposes and cannot be diverted for other uses.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 8 Proposed by the 97th General Assembly (Second Regular Session) HJR No. 48

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to create a “Veterans Lottery Ticket” and to use the revenue from the sale of these tickets for projects and services related to veterans? The annual costs or savings to state and local governmental entities is unknown, but likely minimal. If sales of a veterans lottery ticket game decrease existing lottery ticket sales, the profits of which fund education, there could be a small annual shift in funding from education to veterans’ programs.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 9 Proposed by the 97th General Assembly (Second Regular Session) SCS SJR No. 27

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended so that the people shall be secure in their electronic communications and data from unreasonable searches and seizures as they are now likewise secure in their persons, homes, papers and effects? State and local governmental entities expect no significant costs or savings.

Please vote in the poll, I have answers to cover if you’re undecided, don’t plan to vote, or if you’re not a Missouri voter. Also, please don’t pick out just the one or two you might be passionate about, please select an answer for all five. Thank you.

— Steve Patterson

Fifty-Five Percent of Readers Live in the City of Saint Louis

Over 85% of the readers that participated in the non-scientific poll last week indicated they live in greater St. Louis (St. Louis City, Missouri counties of St. Louis, Jefferson, & St. Charles; Illinois counties of Madison & St. Clair). Here are the results:

Q: Where do you live?

1. St. Louis (South) 80 [32.13%]
2. St. Louis (Central Corridor) 50 [20.08%]
3. St. Louis County (Central/West) 39 [15.66%]
4. St. Louis County (South) 14 [5.62%]
5. US Northeast 9 [3.61%]
6. St. Louis County (North) 7 [2.81%]
7. TIE
   1. St. Louis (North) 6 [2.41%]
   2. Missouri (not St. Louis city; St. Louis, St. Charles, or Jefferson counties) 6 [2.41%]
8. TIE
   1. Madison County, IL 5 [2.01%]
   2. Illinois (not St. Clair or Madison counties) 5 [2.01%]
   3. US Southwest 5 [2.01%]
9. TIE
   1. St. Clair County, IL 4 [1.61%]
   2. St. Charles County, MO 4 [1.61%]
   3. Jefferson County, MO 4 [1.61%]
   4. US West/Northwest 4 [1.61%]
   5. Elsewhere in the world 4 [1.61%]
10. US Southeast 2 [0.8%]
11. US Midwest, except Missouri & Illinois 1 [0.4%]
12. North America, NOT the United States 0 [0%]

And a few calculations based on the above:

• Greater St. Louis: 213 [85.54%]
• City of St. Louis: 136 [54.62%]
• St. Louis County: 60 [24.10%]

I appreciate everyone’s participation.

— Steve Patterson