Hacker News Reader

Comment by larrik | Hacker News Reader

> A 2-year-old was found unattended after his parents allegedly left home to play Pokémon Go.

> How much risk was there of some harm coming to the child while the parents were gone?

As a parent to young children, I would say pretty damn high, actually. Kids do stupid things all the time, and if you aren't there, and they know you aren't there, there is no limit to the stupid things a 2 year old can do. It's a normal part of growing up, but that doesn't make it safe to do it alone in the slightest.

That said, I agree with the gist of the article overall.

View on HN

It really, really depends on the kid. With my first, I genuinely wondered why they made childproof cabinet locks and foam corner guards for tables -- she would much rather read a book or play quietly than try to get into the drawers.

Then I had another kid. He'll turn the drawers into stairs and have climbed halfway to the counter in the time it takes you to run to the mailbox.

Point being, kids are all very different from one another, even within the same family. Something that's risky to your kid might not be risky to mine, and vice-versa. Some things are globally risky (pools, hot cars) but you might be surprised at the range of risk any particular child has.

I used to play a game as a toddler where I would climb up on the highest chair, push myself backwards off the table with a huge crash, then set the chair back up and do it all again.

I'm pretty sure the only way to keep me safe in that house would've been to not have objects.

Hilarious, I totally believe it. I used to think rowdy kids were just poorly-parented but seeing the crazy stuff my son does has changed my perception greatly!

I electrocuted myself three times as a child. IIRC, that last one was even unintentional!

I blame young child electrocutions for my technological giftedness. As my mom describes it, I kept popping those plastic covers off the outlets.

Either that, or lead solder fumes (ah, memories), have to explain at least some fraction of EE/computer folks' quirks...

Haha one of my only memories of kindergarten was one naptime my cot was next to a wall receptacle without a cover. My perception from this great temporal remove is that the shock was much less severe than others I've experienced since, perhaps because the fabric cot insulated me somewhat. [EDIT:] I've sometimes wondered how many other children were shocked by that particular outlet, given that there were fifty children in my class. Presumably most of us were only shocked once...

Nearly caught my bed on fire by not understanding that a battery-powered motor isn't going to spin faster if I plug it into the wall. It even dimmed the house lights enough for my dad to come into my room to check if I noticed it too. I pretended nothing had happened. No one ever noticed the singed hole in my sheets.

I could see that. A two year old could easily run out into traffic. A 7 or 8 year old, not so much.

I remember years ago about a women who had the police escort a kid to her house because she'd let him bicycle to school (wearing a helmet and it was < 2 miles). That is kinda crazy. When I went to elementary school (early 90s), there was a whole group of kids who walked to school. Sometimes the teacher in charge of the gate would forgot to unlock it and we'd see them all pile up while in homeroom (huge fence, took like 15 min to walk around so most kids would just wait).

> A two year old could easily run out into traffic. A 7 or 8 year old, not so much.

You overestimate 7 & 8 year olds. I know I definitely did. Ran into the side of a moving car.

I used to walk to school all by myself when I was 7 - I had to lock the door behind me, cross two roads to get to school, come back, let myself in, and have a fruit or a sandwich while I waited for my parents to come back. That was in 1998. Everyone walked to school - maybe one kid got dropped off by his parents but he was from a "rich" family and no one liked him because of it.

Same here. When I was 7 I had a half hour walk to/from school. Many of my class mates had similar distances to walk. We we walked along busy roads, and some had to cross them. We'd also be home alone for hours afterwards.

At one point my parents got worried that maybe it was to much, and got me a child minder. I proceeded to boycott her by dropping my school bag, leaving to play outside and not coming back until my parents would be there to pick me up - after a couple of weeks of that they decided it was pointless and let me be at home by myself again instead.

Could it have been because you didn't run into a moving car when you were two?

I saw this happen to a kid probably 20 years ago, and it still makes me laugh. Sorry :)

To the bigger point, even a supervising parent is not going to be able to prevent a lot of these "kids do dumb things" examples.

Shit man, I'm WAY more scared of my kids running out into traffic. My 8 year old son is completely oblivious to the world around him. Just this morning he chased a tennis ball right into the middle of a three-way intersection without even looking.

My daughter is much better (at 7). Kids are all crazy.

Kids are really sturdy and will heal from basically anything. Adults don't remember the reason kids "believe themselves immortal", and think they're dumb. They're not. The play that kids do evolved to teach them motor skills - not die.

To take this to an extreme (and not even as a reducto ad absurdum): if a child does something that has the potential to break a bone... that thing should still be basically considered "safe." Children's bones heal!

Yes! My 8 year old son recently wanted to ride down a steep hill but he was afraid. I asked him what the worst was that could happen and he said that he would fall. "OK, and if you fall, you might break a bone?" "Yes" "So? You'll be fine."

He rode down that hill until it was time to go home and even fell a couple of times (though no bones broken). Mission accomplished.

Well... yes. Kids play sports and that often results in broken bones. And I mean even simple sports, not things like rugby, where you're actually aiming to physically stop someone else from moving.

physically I'd agree.

Emotionally, no way.

Yeah. But look at the bright side: Not every part of growing older sucks.

EDIT - I should have read the article, sounds like the child was not only not asleep but in pretty bad condition.

---------

It doesn't say if the 2-year-old was asleep (does it? skimmed the article) - if it was asleep in a crib then it was probably in very little danger. When we lived in an apartment we would sometimes put the baby down and when we were sure he was asleep we'd go to the apartment hot tub. The hot tub was right under our room, we could see our front entryway and the baby's window. We would also start a phone call and leave one phone in the baby's room and take the other with us on mute as a longer distance baby-monitor. I don't think this was putting our son in danger.

The OP really just uses the title of the news article as a sort of segue. Reading the news article itself shows that the parents were fairly negligent.

>According to the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, a neighbor found the 2-year-old boy outside his home in the 700 block of East Payton Street Thursday night and called authorities.

>Deputies arrived and found the child screaming and crying, attempting to get into the residence. They said the boy was barefoot and wearing only a diaper and a T-shirt. The child was reportedly red-faced, sweaty and dirty.

It was also 98°F that day in San Tan, for reference.

I don't think we can make that judgement without more data about how the house was set up, how close help was, and how far away the parents went.

For example, going outside and down the street half-a-block for five minutes while your child is watching their favorite show is quite a bit different than leaving them working in the kitchen with knives laying around.

You're right, we can't make a wise judgment without more data. People all the time are making guesses and taking action based on it though. That's the scary part.

I wouldn't have left my son alone at home when he was 2 years old. That doesn't mean all kids and all homes are the same. The core problem is that people tend to judge these things on reflex, instead of on reflection. And then, to make things worse, that judgment gets enshrined in laws.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com