Mandated Reporting: Unsupervised Children

One vexing question in the mandated reporter area is when to report children who appear to have no adults supervising them. It is more difficult than most situations of abuse or neglect because there is a growing body of research that children need unsupervised time to develop into psychologically healthy adults.

Recent studies, for example, show that children of over-protective parents have increased anxiety, “higher levels of narcissism and more ineffective coping skills,” and higher levels of depression. While chronic stress is debilitating, research is showing that short bursts of acute stress (such as sports, video games, or risky play) is both fun and beneficial. Just as our immune systems benefit from mild, limited exposure to physical stressors, our psychological systems benefit from mild psychological stressors.

Having unsupervised time is a necessary part of this mild stress, and consequently necessary for developing resilience. Yet, our current laws and social expectations do not allow for much unsupervised time. Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt tell the story of a teenage boy chopping wood. A passerby called the police, who “took the tools for safekeeping.” The idea that a teenage boy is not mature enough to handle a mundane chore of chopping wood would be ludicrous to societies and generations less pampered than ours.

Children’s playgrounds are so safe now as to be boring, even though studies show that the benefits of risky (not dangerous) play far outweigh the risk of injuries. The famed 1979 book Your Six-Year-Old listed in its factors of whether a child is ready for first grade the question, “Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to the store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home?” As one parent stated about her daughter, “Who knows if she can travel around four to eight blocks by herself? I’ve never let her even try! I’d probably be reported to the police if I did try!”

We can hope that the pendulum swings back to expectations that are healthier for our children. In the meantime, we are bound by current conventions and authorities’ prejudices. Georgia’s protective services agency, for example, has guidelines that children younger than eight may not be left alone for any period of time, while children between nine and twelve may be left alone for up to two hours. These are only guidelines, but they seem to be pretty firm. If you learn of children left alone for longer periods, or even shorter periods in dangerous situations, then the law requires you to call protective services.