I don't know about Arizona laws, but in the state I grew up in, it is illegal to leave a child under the age of nine alone to take care of him or her self. It is also illegal to leave children under the age of nine under the care of a babysitter younger than thirteen years old.
In the state where I grew up, those parents committed multiple serious legal infractions. I am not familiar with Arizona child safety laws so I cannot speak to this specific incident. But leaving the issue of autism entirely out of the picture, I do think those parents made a poor choice.
I was 9 when I babysat my little sister... and we were left in the car alone for years before that.
I probably would have acknowledged that the person was likely a law enforcement officer and would have (depending on the officer's approach) likely been able to interact in a very mature way for my age.
I think that the parents should have known the stress level of their child and thus not put him in that situation.
I was in Phoenix for several days in April and it was way too hot even then to stay in a parked car whose air conditioning might cut out. And Tuscan is even hotter. I wouldn't let my dog stay in a car when temp is above 50 for any reason-- never mind children.
Sorry folks, I think the cops have the right of it on this one. And if dad was using the autism thing for whatever, well shame on him.
Re: the weatherelhalflingJuly 27 2007, 00:55:59 UTC
Even in February, Arizona (Phoenix from personal experience) can be too hot for a kid to be left in a car like that. My parents rarely left my sisters and I in the car (and then only to run into pick up the mail from the house run over to the ATM at the bank and such tasks) if it was above 60 degrees F. (Just a comparison, it gets up to 115 in the summer here, so 60 is anywhere from late October to March or so.)
8 is a mite young to leave alone and responsible for siblings - though certainly it has been done in the past, right or wrong.
There is a mother of two - an 8 year old boy with Autism and his 18 month old half sister - who has gone missing from her home in Riverside CA. They recently found her car out of gas. They seem to be vaccillating between saying that she's been killed, or that she perhaps has abandoned her children and just simply walked away from them, which I find hard to believe unless she was doing drugs or something.
They seem to be vaccillating between saying that she's been killed, or that she perhaps has abandoned her children and just simply walked away from them, which I find hard to believe unless she was doing drugs or something.
After seeing the footage from that Autism Speaks film where the mother openly admitted (in front of her autistic child!!) that, until she met other "supportive" parents, she was seriously planning to drive off a bridge with her child in the car because she couldn't bear raising an autistic child . . . well, when a woman can just openly admit that she'd rather kill her child and herself than raise an autistic child it (sadly) would'nt surprise me in the least to learn that a mother of an autistic child had run her car out of gas and then gotten out of it and walked away to make a new life for herself.
Fortunately, there are good parents out there. Unfortuantely, there are plenty of awful ones as well.
I have an eight-year-old autistic son who would have been able to follow all of the police officer's questions and cues, but I still wouldn't leave him alone with my younger son and expect him to babysit.
Comments 13
In the state where I grew up, those parents committed multiple serious legal infractions. I am not familiar with Arizona child safety laws so I cannot speak to this specific incident. But leaving the issue of autism entirely out of the picture, I do think those parents made a poor choice.
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I probably would have acknowledged that the person was likely a law enforcement officer and would have (depending on the officer's approach) likely been able to interact in a very mature way for my age.
I think that the parents should have known the stress level of their child and thus not put him in that situation.
Reply
I was in Phoenix for several days in April and it was way too hot even then to stay in a parked car whose air conditioning might cut out.
And Tuscan is even hotter.
I wouldn't let my dog stay in a car when temp is above 50 for any reason--
never mind children.
Sorry folks, I think the cops have the right of it on this one.
And if dad was using the autism thing for whatever, well shame on him.
spike
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Reply
There is a mother of two - an 8 year old boy with Autism and his 18 month old half sister - who has gone missing from her home in Riverside CA. They recently found her car out of gas. They seem to be vaccillating between saying that she's been killed, or that she perhaps has abandoned her children and just simply walked away from them, which I find hard to believe unless she was doing drugs or something.
Reply
After seeing the footage from that Autism Speaks film where the mother openly admitted (in front of her autistic child!!) that, until she met other "supportive" parents, she was seriously planning to drive off a bridge with her child in the car because she couldn't bear raising an autistic child . . . well, when a woman can just openly admit that she'd rather kill her child and herself than raise an autistic child it (sadly) would'nt surprise me in the least to learn that a mother of an autistic child had run her car out of gas and then gotten out of it and walked away to make a new life for herself.
Fortunately, there are good parents out there. Unfortuantely, there are plenty of awful ones as well.
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