“In [a New Jersey] appeals court decision last week, three judges ruled that a mother who left her toddler sleeping in his car seat while she went into a store for five to 10 minutes was indeed guilty of abuse or neglect for taking insufficient care to protect him from harm.” The child was unharmed. [Lenore Skenazy, New York Post and Free-Range Kids] Author Lenore Skenazy, who has written about hundreds of instances of questionable legal protectiveness or overprotectiveness at her Free-Range Kids blog, will be speaking at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, with me commenting; the event is free and open to the public, but you need to register here. (Update: postponed due to weather)

And: Scott Greenfield has more thoughts on the impulse to bring brief episodes of unattended back-seat child solitude into the criminal, therapeutic or supervisory orbit. Like so many others of my generation, I was left in the car during brief shopping errands by my own decidedly conscientious and non-abusive mother.

Filed under: child protection, Child Protective Services