I'm not a parent so I don't have the benefit of experience here, but others who are parents will weigh in. However, if I were a parent... no, I would not let a five-year-old child walk alone anywhere. I might let the child think s/he was walking alone, but I'd be tailing the kid to make sure s/he made it safely to the intended destination. IMHO, it's just not safe to let young kids go anywhere alone these days.

We were so scared. We don't have any sex offenders registered in my neighborhood but that doesn't mean a child can't be kidnapped anywhere. So sad but was a happy ending for all.

I would not have allowed my 5 year old to go down the street alone. Yes, they are vulnerable to criminals. They also are not mature enough to control impulses such as wandering off to explore or play elsewhere. ( As we see here )

NO, you are not supposed to allow five year old children to be unattended.

The boy didn't go missing. He was busy investigating/exploring the world around him, just like most other 5 year old boys. It's his parent's responsibility to make sure he is safe every minute of every day. The parents failed and should be held accountable by social services.

They should also attend a parenting class available at Children's Hospital.

WOW Brushworks that is WAAAY over the top. The answer as so many like this is it DEPENDS..on the child, the neighborhood, the distance, the circumstance (was he expected...were they watching for him). With a ravine that close I am going to think pretty old..a kindergartner is old enough to have heard the rule and follow (NEVER GO THERE, stay on the sidewalk from here to your friends)--but he didn't. Here in lies the quandary. Truth is no parent can keep any child 100% safe. The variables are many. When mine left my sight I had to make a decision to live in fear or faith. I doused mine with holy water and a blessing and prayed their TRAINING and guardian angel had them covered. We had two FRIGHTS with #1DD. She wandered away twice from situations where she was being supervised and she put herself in potentially dangerous situations--but in her head strong way SHE knew better and went where she wanted, in the split second when the adult was not looking AT HER she got away. When you live with children you become very aware of how fast something can go wrong no matter how many safeguards you put in place.

I'm a more "modern day" parent, and no, I would never let my son walk some place out of sight by himself at 5. He was allowed to play in the sandbox in the backyard, and climb the tree, all in a fenced in yard and under my watchful eye (him outside, me inside). So he could get the feel for the world on his own. I might've let him walk to someone's house in our neighborhood at 8 or 9, but he's a really responsible kid. Most kids, I'd think 10 or 11 before alone. Until last night. Another really responsible 11 year old went out back to feed his dogs last night and now he's missing. This is one messed up world in which we live. Craig is really on my mind this morning.

ETA: Craig was found safe. Whew.

How often do you hear on the news of children being abducted...too often in my book. So why would a parent put their most precious at risk at such a young inquisitive age. Yes we teach them don't do this don't do that but fact is they have never experienced this bad stuff so they don't have a real understanding of it..and they can't understand their too immature to understand. I'm sorry I'm with Brushworks..shame on a parent letting such a young child go off alone..but of course..it won't happen to me or my child..

Arcy,

The child. The neighborhood. The distance. The circumstance.

In Columbus, OH the 5 year old boy needs accompanied by an adult.

Children are abducted every day, so why would parents risk his life?

I live in a very safe community. However, the school district will not allow a student, pre-school through 3rd grade to exit a bus unless their guardian is present. They don't care if the kid lives across from the bus stop!

Caution, not heartbreak.

I don't have any children but if I did I would not let my 5 year old walk anywhere alone. I may let them walk alone a few houses down but I would be standing in my front yard watching until they got in the house they were going to.

5??? Nope. Not even where I live - rural Missouri in a town of 7,000.

A few years ago a girl of about 8 was picked up at her school bus stop by a man and driven to a remote area for nefarious purposes. When she realized what was happening, she pitched such a fit that he apparently lost his nerve and took her back to the bus stop. Fortunately, the bus stop was near a public building with cameras in the parking lot. Oops.

Thirty something years ago when my son was 5, he was not allowed out of my sight alone. It's such a dangerous world that we live in.

Even the most well-behaved child will do unexpected things at that age. My sister and I played all around the neighborhood from a very young age. When I was four, I disappeared along with a neighbor girl who was two. After a long time searching, they found us at the park, a long block away, where I had never gone by myself before.

Watchmelol, your experience growing up was exactly like mine, down to walking a mile away to parochial school. Sadly, times have changed. No, I would not allow my 5 year old to walk unsupervised, in Columbus Ohio. I have never been there, but know that it is a large city with lots of crime.

Scott, I'm so happy they found the little boy! It must have been horrible for everyone to go through that 5-hour ordeal. Yes, times have certainly changed, and no matter what age your child, you must remain vigilant. Just look what happened to those poor girls in Indiana who were hiking the other day!

Watchmelol, your experience, and even our kids growing up in the 70's-early 80's was different than it is today. We didn't give our kids 'free rein', but they did feel safe in our cul-de-sac and on their way to school with each other. No one does that now though, even in our old neighborhood. They are all dropped off and picked up. Or if they do live close to the schools the parents meet them near the corner where the crossing guards are and walk them home.

Well actually I live in Worthington, which is a suburb of Columbus. It's a nice neighborhood, but as with every city, there is good & bad.

I will say it was very alarming to see almost a whole police force here at one time as the police drive down our street maybe once a month.

I am glad he was found safe. What a scare for the parents.

I wonder how many of you that think the world is more dangerous today, so children should be constantly under supervision, also chastise helicopter parents. Free range parents are "criminals"; helicopter parents are derided. All parents must stand on the imaginary sweet spot!

It is not so much that the world is more dangerous, but that the dangers we focus on have changed. In very simplified examples, in times when there were high chances of child mortality due to diseases, the relatively small chance of abduction was not what parents focused their worry on. Minimize the disease fears, and suddenly abduction gets a whole lot more attention. Growing up, did your parents know about every abduction in a small town eight states away? Today, we hear about them all. Perception has changed.

Glad he's ok. How scary.

It highlights exactly why 5-year olds shouldn't go by themselves! Shiny ball! Oooh!

Kid never gets where he's supposed to be going.

This "Free Range Parenting" is a big hot topic in my neck of the woods, and CPS would probably get involved depending on how far the 5-year old was expected to go by himself.

gyr makes a very good point. Crime is actually lower than it was in the 90s but we hear about every bad thing everywhere so the perception of danger is higher than it used to be.

As for me, I would not let a 5 year old walk by themselves unless I was standing outside watching them. My parents wouldn't have let me either.

My 7 year old and 9 year old sometimes like to take walks by themselves and I let them walk to the end of the block. I will usually be outside where I can see them if I need to. As you might be able to tell from the picture, it is actually a pretty good distance.

My goodness! What a strange world today. SO much fear... In fact, there are fewer child abductions today (non-relative ones), than in the past. We just hear about everything, everywhere.

We lived in a suburb of St Louis from my children's births until they were 9 and 11. Our block had a very busy street up the hill at one end, and it ended in a T at the other. So, a well-contained block. Did I mention that there were 21 children on this block?

My daughter started walking to school about 1/2 mile away, through a lovely neighborhood, for kindergarten. She walked with the other neighborhood children in the AM, but at noon, walked by herself. I met her at the top of the hill/busy street, and crossed her as there was no noon crossing guard. She was fine. She had been playing up and down the street since she was 2 - fiercely independent. The "block rule" was no child could cross the street alone until they were 5. Yes, this was in the 1970's.

My daughter started allowing her boys to walk up the hill to another house with two boys the same age, when they were about 5. They started walking to school at age 7. Her friends were appalled! Her neighborhood is a very nice, safe one and there was no reason for them not to walk. Two years ago, at ages 15 and not yet 13, she started allowing them to ride their bikes downtown in our city. They showed her the map and their route and where potential trouble spots were and how they would deal with them. They now ride their bikes all over our city!

I guess both my daughter and I would be described today as "free range" parents. To me, it was just what a parent did - gradual freedoms so that they developed self-confidence and good judgement. Last summer, my SIL was driving his older son back from the Vineyard and had to stop in Lancaster PA to help clean out his mother's house as she was moving to a retirement facility. Eldest son (he had turned 16 in early April and this was late July), got tired of doing this, so he looked up how to get from Lancaster to Philadelphia by train. He took the train there, took Uber then to visit Univ of PA and Drexel, again by Uber. He thoroughly enjoyed doing this on his own and was just fine - train back late that afternoon.

Oh - didn't mention that I allowed my daughter to fly to London when her brother was doing an independent study trimester there at the end of his senior yr in high school - he worked at Lloyd's. She was a month shy of being 16 and was on her own in London during the day, M-F as her brother was at work. We carefully planned her trip (shopping and museums) and she loved her independence and had a fabulous time! I can hear the phones dialing Child Protective Services right now....

No wonder children are a total mess in college these days!!!! Helicopter parenting and not allowing a child to experience independence starting at an early age, is what causes college students to need mental health care and safe spaces in college. Yes, that 5 year old scared the bejesus out of his parents, but he was just being a curious 5 yr old. He now will know he must ask to do this and that it is important for people living together to always know where one another is. Common courtesy as well as safety.

Statistics show every 40 seconds a child becomes missing or abducted in the US with most wondering off. Some of these kids that wonder off get themselves in life threatening situations....I for one don't care if its 5 children a year that's missing..I'm not going to risk one of my children and place them in those statistics. Its a big world out there for inquisitive little minds...and I never could understand how anyone would take the risk.

One takes the risk as it's how a child learns self-confidence and mastery of his own world, to say nothing of independence. A sheltered child hears "You are not capable" when a child protects him. Mastery starts with a baby crawling behind the chair where his mother is sitting - being out of sight is a big deal for a baby. Then, with increasing confidence and curiosity, the baby crawls to another room. Eventually, they are allowed out in a fenced in backyard to play with mum at the kitchen sink window, watching. From there, to walking to a neighbor's house. And on and on and on to flying cross country alone.

Mastery is how a child builds self-confidence! Whether it's the mastery of using a knife and fork, dressing oneself, or walking to a friend's house or riding a bike somewhere alone.

You can all scare yourselves and your children to death if you want to - they are YOUR children. But your facts are WAY off and are continuing to be reported erroneously, which is just tragic. Read the following:

<http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.html>;

<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/?utm_term=.e381575d77e6>;

No parent can totally protect a child from all harm or risk of harm. We all chose to ride in or drive cars with our children in them. The risk of that is far greater than the risk of abduction, yet no one is going to become a hermit. Children die in random, ridiculous ways all the time. One of my daughter's good friends lost a child to meningitis - they did everything "right" - doctor visits etc - yet for unknown reasons, a simple spring respiratory virus turning into something that took the life of a dear little 7 yr old boy in a matter of hours.

I can think of nothing more awful than losing a child, however it might happen. It's the worst thing that can happen to any parent. Unfortunately, I have several friends to whom this has happened and my heart breaks for them. Not one was a child abduction.

But I do have a HS classmate who lost his 18 year old daughter, presumably to abduction. She had just graduated from high school that night, went to the graduation party, and then called her parents to say she was going to the house of a girl with whom she had been friends at one time but not recently. They made it to the girl's house where her mother was at home. By the next morning, all three were missing. You've probably seen this on various unsolved crime shows over the past - it happened in June of 1992 in sleepy, safe little Springfield MO. I happened to be visiting my mother in Springfield when it happened and I remember reading about it. It was not until my 50th HS reunion in 2011, that I found out that one of the girls was the daughter of my classmate. The girl was Stacy McCall. There was no risky behavior involved just a total mystery and still unsolved to this day and their bodies have never been found. Nothing could have been done to prevent this - a true random act of violence.

PLEASE don't scare yourselves to death or your children! Yes, teach your children to be safe and how to cross streets and to never help a stranger "look for a lost kitten" or go to a stranger's car to see a puppy or kitten. ALL of these things are part of the lessons one must live in order to make good choices and be safe. But also allow them to grow and "master" their neighborhoods.

NO, NO, NO, NO. 5 years old is NOT old enough to be walking somewhere by themselves!!! How scary and I hope that parent learned a lesson from this.

I didn't allow my children to go places by themselves at that age. That said, my middle sometimes had big ideas and would sneak around to do his own thing. We had a few major incidents with him. He was small, skinny and a good climber when he was little. I had one incident where he climbed and hid on the top shelf of his closet when he was about five years old. I knew he was still in the house and stood in his room until I heard a noise. That's how I found him. I never would have thought to look up.

Anglophilea you describe my children's life in the 70s. However it is no longer the 70s. The parks my children played in are full of druggies now. There are homeless encampments between our neighborhood and the neighborhood school. Many of these homeless are mentally ill. Being a sanctuary city we have more than our share of youth criminals up from here from Mexico and South America. Car thefts and house break ins are commonplace.

It is not the 70s any longer. The streets are not what they were and the good neighborhoods have outside criminals loitering about looking for crimes of opportunity. People who would've been run off as undesirable back in the day have "civil rights" now. Mr. Child Molester and Mr. Full Load of Feces in my Pants is allowed to roam free and ride public transportation. It's their "right".

I believe in free range parenting also. My kids rode the county buses all over by the time they were 9, by themselves. Today? No way. The only people who take the bus are those who have absolutely no other means or are at least in their teens. It is not a perceived difference. All you have to do is get out and look around here. This is a "nice" area I live in. It's not the the people who live here that are the problem, it is the mobility of those who don't. One would have to be nuts to let their young children roam freely today.

Scott,

We had lunch in your area today. Worthington Wine Bistro. It was a 5 star visit for us.

Watchmelo, we're lucky that this has not happened in our area. It's really no different than it was 40+ yrs ago - very safe.

Hate to bring politics into it but this is what happens when a state goes to the far liberal left of the spectrum. The rights of transients, bums and illegals are cared about more than the rights of the families and children who live here. In fact they are trying to add more and more high density housing to replace the suburbs. We are a forgotten middle class here. Eventually it will be the ones who live in gated communities and the rest of us. Far far left liberal values. A police dept. whose hand are tied with a corrupt leadership and government. A populace with blinders on who continue to vote them in. The same people who are putting security lights and cameras on their homes. I just don't understand it.

I do have great neighbors despite the mess of the city overall. It's why we stay. But if something doesn't change I can see my children leaving the state in the future, albeit reluctantly. I hope not. But they may have no choice.

The fate of transients and "bums" is usually the result of funding cutbacks, higher density housing has nothing to do with the liberals but rather the profits for developers, corrupt police departments has nothing to do with the liberals but rather power hungry administrators.

You want to blame liberals for something, go for it, but find something for which they are to blame, a lost 5 year old child is not their fault.

My kids were young in the 80's and 90's. We live in a safe neighborhood and there were a ton of kids back then. At 5, if they were going up the street to play at a neighbor's I would watch them until I saw they were inside. If the house was a bit farther up the street where I couldn't see, I would walk them.

I wouldn't let my daughter go anywhere when she was five, but when I was five, or maybe a little less, my mother would give me a list and money and I would walk to the store to get a few things for her. However the store (like a general store that sold a little bit of everything from livestock feed to groceries and had a couple of gas pumps) was on the same side of the road and about the equivalent of half a block down. I grew up in another place and time. Not that something bad couldn't happen to a child anyway.

I remember when my daughter was about 6, she was playing on a slip and slide, set up in a grassy area in front of my barn, which was right on the road since the place had been a dairy and the barns were near the road for the convenience of the milk truck, and a really creepy man on a bicycle stopped and was watching her. I was standing just inside the barn, but he didn't see me. I walked out and he left. Could have been innocent on his part but it gave me a cold chill.

Brush, you were about 2 miles from my house! Glad you enjoyed the wine bistro. I've never been, but know where it is.

I love it here in Worthington. I rarely go to Columbus anymore.

Back to the 5 year old, We cheered & applauded when we saw the police officer come walking -holding his hand - when coming out of the ravine.

I've had my dogs back by the ravine a few times and it is a fun place for kids to run, play, climb & splash in water. But I decided it's not safe for dogs. Could have fleas & tics there so we left.

So the kid didn't return home in 5 hours? That sounds extreme to me. What 5 year old will go play on their own for 5 hours? None I've ever had or known.

To answer your question, Scott, I'd have to know where the friend's house was .... distance. And I agree that the home he was going to should've been on the lookout for him (maybe they were) and that the parents should've shadowed him (clearly they didn't). But my strong answer is no, 5 years old is too young to go alone.

I'm still curious about what he did for 5 hours and how it took 5 hours to find him behind his own development. How long was he missing before someone noticed and the search began?

I certainly "free ranged" as a child of the 50's. We had a child molester three doors away from us and we were simply told to stay away from him that he was not a nice man and might hurt you. We all crossed the street when we got near his house. Never really knew why. Unless we didn't show up for dinner, the families wouldn't have suspected anything. Yes. Bad things did happen back then. They were just not publicized.

That's horrible that he went missing, wonderful he was found!

This world we live in hasn't changed. I could tell YOU stories.....

I hope the parents talked to him about the rules and why they are important. I would keep a very tight eye on that little guy from now on!

This is a parenting failure, nothing more.

Poor parents cause death and suffering the same way that poor drivers can. The difference is, it takes some (minimal) amount of training and passing a test to become a driver. Becoming a parent, by contrast, has no regulation.

There are far more awful parents in the US than awful drivers. The results of their ineptness are everywhere to be seen.

I worked for 8 years with Children and youth services. Unbelieveable how many people have poor parenting skills.

As far as ** One takes the risk as its how children learn self-confidence and mastery of his own world** A 5 year old doesn't understand the risk even if they have been told.....Theres a time and a place, under the watchful eye of a parent to learn self confidence and how to master their world. It sure as crap not by sending them out alone in that world, (which by the way holds lots of dangers to a young child)..to face whatever dangers they come face to face with.

Not everyone will agree that a 5 year old should be supervised..some will continue to allow a child that age to go off alone..and so we will continue having 5 year olds abducted or lost.

I'm personally not scared nor am I instilling fear in my grands, but that may be because I take the time to watch my boys rather than taking the risk.

As someone else said, many are afraid to fly ... but not worried about driving to the airport. While for 100,000 miles per person travel, there are many more deaths in a car than flying.

When someone is killed in a car crash, there may be a small write-up in a local paper/TV/radio.

When there's a plane crash, usually there's a substantial number killed and it makes a fairly major news splash, over a fairly wide area.

When I was about three or four, about a dozen neighbours had gathered at our larger than average for the neighbourhood farm to help get our wheat threshed, and several of the wives were helping Mom get meals ready in the house, which was about 300 feet along a gravelled country road from a paved provincial highway. The threshing machine was at a barn about 500 feet away and one of the neighbours told Dad, who was arranging straw on the strawstack, that there was a kid on the highway that could well be his.

Dad took a look at the situation, saw Mom heading at rather high speed down the gravel road, and said that he figured that the situation was being taken care of.

I think that Mom found a small sapling and gave me a tuning up around the legs on the trip back to the house.

That was about 1932-3 when, shortly after 1929, the year of the crash in the stock market, and my birth, (and wasn't that the year that the Model "A" Ford was introduced?) there was not much money floating around during the depression and there weren't a large number of slower-moving cars on the road and people drove quite carefully (mostly).

I was 10 when World War II started, the hired hands went to war, so for several years of caring for crops, milking and beef cows, horses, pigs and chickens ... what Dad, this young lad and a couple of younger brothers got done ... got done ... and the rest didn't. So I learned early about choosing priorities, hard work, etc. ... and increasing responsibilities was part of the game.

Mom was hospitalized from when I was just under 6 and Dad didn't ride hard herd on me ... but when I did stupid stuff - I heard about it!

When my two were small, we lived in a small town or village in rural areas. Our kids played with others, and if I recall correctly were allowed at that age to go alone to a friend's house, and I think that we seldom called to see whether s/he'd arrived: often, in good weather, we'd soon see them near the neighbour's house (if we looked). And by age six walked alone, or with friends, but not in a pre-arranged fashion, a couple of blocks along a village street to school.

Granted - things are somewhat different now, but I think less so than sometimes we worry about.

The new generation is going to have to be more self-reliant than people were just a few years ago, as long-term employment is becoming much scarcer ... and I heard the other day that within about 15? years, we can well find that about 40% of current jobs are likely to disappear.

But a substantial percentage of the post-secondary education crowd currently suffer from anxiety, even depression ... with a few taking their own lives.

It's tough being a parent, but it is crucially important that we encourage, support and require that our offspring learn in a step by step fashion to become independent.

ole joyful ... who has no grandkids

I doubt that 'the norm' of incidents involving children has changed greatly. Two things are at work. In the past, 'incidents' were hushed up. Today, with media needing to fill time 24/7, we hear about every incident, everywhere. There were and still are a range of wonderful, good, bad and downright cruel parents. Most are doing the best they can. Many parents are isolated from extended family that might help raise children.

There are *fewer* children and fewer large or extended families in the US today. This can lead to healthy and unhealthy focus on each one.

We could care more about ALL our children. Many other first world nations give families far greater priority than we do.

"The new generation is going to have to be more self-reliant than people were just a few years ago, as long-term employment is becoming much scarcer "

Employment growth in the US has been strong since 2010 and total employment is at record levels.

Family farm and rural/small town populations are declining as the country becomes more urban and small farms become economically not viable. . The hard farming life of yesteryear is one that fewer and fewer people need to deal with. It's also true that large blue collar employers have left many Rust Belt areas and those left behind need to either move, retrain, or remain unemployed. There are plenty of jobs around in growing areas for people with the right skills.

I still don't get it (and I'm not doubting it ... just confused). It was reported as soon as he didn't show up where he was supposed to show up, and the police found him within one hour. How does that equal him missing for 5 hours? What am I missing? I'm clearly behind the gun on this one. Regardless, I'm so glad that he was found unharmed.

I'm also confused about this time lapse..if we can call it that.

Oh I see what your saying. I worded it wrong.

The parents weren't notified right away. A couple hours might have pasts as they thought he was at the friends house and the friends mom calling to say where is he.

From what I was told, the parents actually started looking for him first before calling the police. Because I happened to be outside with Paxil & a lady asked me if I saw a 5 year old boy walk by & I said no.

Also, it's hard to describe the police timing. Because originally just 1 car was sent. But then every 10 minutes I guess, more cop cars started arriving. Then the detectives arrived.

As I was walking towards the officers for more details I was stopped by a regular truck, but the guy inside had a police or detective badge around his neck, so maybe off duty or undercover. I also told him I never saw the child.

So the officers stood outside in the court awhile devising a plan of action & then some started going door to door, others looked in between houses. Then the police dogs showed up and they sent the 2 dogs out. Then I saw the helicopter.

Then I saw a police officer walking & holding the kids hand coming from the ravine.

But it still took another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before all the police cars left. Probably paperwork.

So from my understanding, from the moment he left his house to the time the officers left was 5 hours.

Also, aside from all that, quite a few neighbors were outside looking and outside standing around trying to see what's going on.

We're not a close neighborhood and really don't know each other. Everyone just does their own thing & ignores everything.

Not like back in the day when people sat on porches and socialized with all their neighbors. At least I've never lived anywhere like that.

You mean the parents wernt notified right away that the child didn't arrive and a couple hours past by before the neighbor called the child's parent...in fact the parent never even checked to see if their 5 year old made it....Grrrr

Correct. The parents naturally figured he made it. And the family waiting for him figured he changed his mind. I guess.

I do wonder if children's services will investigate?

I don't blame the other parent, but the child's parent should have called right away since she/he didn't hear anything..pathetic. since the police were called yes they must report this to Childrens Services however that does not mean any investigation will take place, actually most likely not.