How do you feel about the woman kicking her kids out of the car story?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/par...f_the_car.html

It strikes me as under the list of "things that would have been okay decades ago but today it a big no-no". I'm just glad the 10 year old wasn't found by someone bad. I know my brother and I fought a lot (we still do, just not as much) but we were never kicked out of the car. I think the worst that ever happened was when the car pulls over, because it generally means someone is going to be taken out of the car and spanked :P (Or yelled at a lot). I guess we should thank our parents for having a lot of patience...

But what do you think?

((((kaika))))))))))))))))))))))))) first of all want to say, As i have said before i have never spanked my kids. Im sorry yours did you. I did not as when i was young it got carryed away once. My mom did. So i never did that kinda thing.
As far as that woman leaving her children off and making them walk home.
These days in a minute a child can be gone. White plains is a busy area
One minute on life thats what she took a chance with imo.....I find it very sad she could not handle it,.Good greef my kids at a certain point fought all the time in the car. LOL I never would have left them. never...
(((((((((((((((((((((kaika))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

im sorry but that story kinda made me chuckle. i think what i would have done differently is I would have pulled away and to a spot where i could plainly see them like just at the corner or something. then waited for maybe 5 mins and turned around to pick them up and said something to the effect of "next time i wont wait"

and ive been to white plains, ny.....its not that bad. i understand all the things that can happen to a 10 yr old when theyre left alone on a street and i don't the mom should have kept driving but you can bet your *** those kids aren't going to fight in the car anymore.

Well, they never spanked me per say, because in general I didn't start the fights. (Though my brother begged to differ) and I don't think he was ever spanked that often either. Maybe once or twice, and it was always a last ditch sort of thing.

Anyways, I think they wont fight in the car anymore, for the wrong reasons. They will stop fighting because they are afraid of being abandoned on some street, not because they understand, (and I mean understand and not just saying "I know") that what they are doing is bad and why. Even though we don't know the context of the situation, it could have still been handled differently.

My son went through a shoplifting stage at the age of about 5. He took lollies and hid them in his room. Now I was a vigilant mother but I missed this one. I found them and confronted my son. He admitted to taking them. I told him how wrong it was and made him come to the store, apologise to the shopkeeper and pay for what he had taken. He cried, said he was sorry and that was that. About a month later I found more lollies from a different shop. I was worried, single mother and unsure how to handle it, so I rang a policeman friend of mine and he said he would visit. I did not tell my son.

Later that day, my friend showed up in a marked car in full uniform. My son went absolutely berserk. He thought he was going to jail. While my heart was breaking at his distress, I told him that the shopkeepers had probably rung him because what he was doing was breaking the law and they were sick of their stuff being taken. My friend was very gentle with my son and explained it to him while my son hid under the bed crying for me. In the end he calmed down and listened. He never did it again and has a healthy respect for the law.

Now was that trauma? yes. Was it discipline? yes. Was it abusive? maybe. Bu the outcome was positive without physical means. But abuse can come in many forms. I did not smack my son, hit him over the head with whatever was closest, stuck him in a cupboard or starved him as punishment as I copped as child. I wanted to teach him a lesson that he would take through life and that is consequence. I did not do it out of anger, I did it out of deep concern and desperation. I did what I thought was right. As we all do. Not all seemingly negligent, abusive parents are axe wielding murderers.

So where does discipline cross the line? When are we allowed to be parents and not be questioned every second of the way? Those children would have been more traumatised by their mother going to jail for the night than being asked to get out of the car and walk home. I believe I might not have handled it that way but I am hypervigilant. Who am I to judge someone who isn't me? Lets ask the mother, are you alright? What amount of frustration and anger led you to this decision? Are there terrible things going on in your life? How can we help you help your kids so you can COPE better and don't need to kick them out of the car so you don't rip all your hair out?

THATS the issue..........supporting the parents to support the child. IMO, that is not abuse........not where I come from. I wish my mother had only asked me to get out of the car and walk home if I was driving her mad.......not pull me across the floor by my hair and tell me she wished she had an abortion. Yeah, sorry, shes great compared to that.

how I feel about this being done:

No, no no no no no no no no no no no no no(etc)

ABSOLUTELY not. If this was 50 years ago in a small town where everyone knew each other, then YES maybe I would consider it. However. Leaving a ten year old child to fend for themselves is just begging for a kidnapping, murder, rape, vehicular accident or gosh knows what. Keep in mind that 10 year olds today deal with alot more dangerous stuff than 10 year olds 50 years ago. The preteen back then dealt with bullies, neighborhood known weirdos, and parents spanking or smacking them.. the preteen today is fighting off drug dealers, bullying that ends in murderous or violent outcomes, kids with guns and motives, released sex offenders, drunk drivers/high drivers/gang members doing drive bys.. you get my point i think.

to me, as well, you NEVER abandon your child. Abandonment from a parent is what causes half of the problems that I struggle with(namely the all too well known borderline personality disorder!) and there are ways of teaching that don't include traumatizing your child. Then again, im a hippy, beleive in cloth diapers, breastfeeding and attachment parenting. I choose love as my weapon. if it were me, I would have stopped the car and refused to keep going until the fighting stopped. OR, i would have just soldiered on, turning the music up as loud as possible and dealt with it when I got home(because lets be realistic here, how long exactly does it take to drive THREE MILES??? like, 5minutes tops.. im sure i could ignore for that long.

While every parent has been there and has probably thought about doing the exact same thing at one time or another... I personally do not feel it was right due to the age of the children.

I can relate to her frustration, but I don't approve of her actions. I'm sure she was at the end of her rope. I do not understand why she let one back in and left the younger one there. I hope they all get the help they need.

From what I heard on the news... the mother put both of them out of the car about three miles from their house and drove off... the older child (12) reconnected with her mother some time later (it was never told how) and the younger daughter (10) was found on the road crying by an adult that was passing by and they called the police.

The article I read stated that the 12 year old chased the car and the mother let her back in. If that is in fact true, mom had a few minutes to gather her thoughts and had it been me I would have asked both of them "are you ready to behave now? Both of you get back in this car and don't make a sound the rest of the way home."

I've given this a bit of thought since yesterday. I saw New York and thought "what was she thinking" but there are small communities even in large cities. My husband's family is from Chicago. In the burbs my sister-in-law lives in, if you didn't know any better you'd think you were in a small town.

My knee jerk reaction to 3 miles was also a bit extreme. Until my husband reminded me that in our own community, and many others we've lived in, your dwelling must be more than three miles from the school for the bus to pick you up. We live just under two miles from the high school. The school bus must stop at the stop sign right in front of my house every day but we have to drive our kids to school every day. In fact three years ago a co-worker got a frantic call from his daughter, her friends had gotten in an arguement with the school bus driver and he kicked pulled the bus over on the highway and kicked her friends off the bus several miles from their home. She knew her friends did not have a cell and the driver would not allow her to get off the bus with her friends so she called her dad to let him know what was going on. It was winter, bitter cold and gets dark very early. I was positive that the driver would be punished but he was not.

When I was growing up we were that age when we no longer had a baby sitter in the summers while my parents were working. Heck, I was babysitting full time for two kids at 10. On the days that I wasn't my friends and I would walk or ride our bikes over five miles to get to our local beach to swim for the day. If we were lucky one of our parents would pick us up there after work. We did some pretty stupid, dangerous things without parental supervision. Well in all honesty I was a bit of a coward, always afraid my parents would find out and prevent me from going so I followed the rules, but my younger brother is lucky to be alive 100 times over. This did influence my own parenting.

My children would spend the summers with my parents. I did not allow my younger three (daughter and twin sons) to go to the beach unsupervised until they were 14 because they over estimated their swimming ability.

This story brings up some interesting points. As with anything else we take thing from our own life and make a judgement about the situation.

Hi,
I'm sure even this woman herself now thinks that there was a better wat to handle it and she reacted impulsively in the heat of the moment. I agree with AAAAA, that it easy for people to sit on their pedestals in judgement and condemn her. As parents we all make mistakes, some bigger than others. I think the people around this lady should try to help her learn more positive ways to deal with her childrens fighting and her reaction to them. It's easy to point a finger, but it's better to gently guide and understand why.

Since when is it so bad to have to walk 3 miles to get home...
Where I live 11 and 12 year old kids have to go by bycicle to school for like 3 to 5 miles if they don't have a highschool where they live. Parents don't drive them around everywhere. Also there are no schoolbusses.

She should have turned around to pick her 10 year old up though, but to put her in jail for this? That seems to be a bit over the top.