Group Plans Day to Take Kids to Park, Leave Them

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A Maryland free-range parenting group is planning a day where kids play in a Silver Spring park and walk home by themselves in a nod to the embattled Meitiv family.

Alexander and Danielle Meitiv are fighting a finding of neglect by Child Protective Services after letting their son, Rafi, 10, and daughter, Dvora, 6, walk home alone from Silver Spring parks.

In early April someone called police – as happened in two earlier cases – to report the Meitiv children were alone just a couple of blocks from home. The siblings were picked up by Montgomery County Police about 5 p.m. and turned over to the Child Protective Service 10:30 that night.

SEE ALSO: Embattled Parents to Pursue All Legal Options Against ‘Unlawful Seizure’ of Kids

The county agency in February determined that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv had committed unsubstantiated neglect of their children for an earlier unsupervised trek to the park.

The group Empower Kids Maryland said on its Facebook page that it will hold a Take Your Kids to the Park... And Let Them Walk Home by Themselves Day starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 9. The event will take place at Ellsworth Park in downtown Silver Spring, the park that the Meitiv children were on their way home from when they were detained.

Empower Kids Maryland calls the day “A time to send the message that letting our kids go to the park and walking safely through our neighborhood on their own should be the norm - not the exception.”

Russell Max Simon, co-founder of Empower Kids Maryland, told Montgomery Community Media that residents and their kids can meet each other and make friends. Then parents can go about their day and kids can remain at the park and play.

“I think the craziest thing in the world that can possibly happen is that someone will see a bunch of kids playing in the park and call the police,” Simon told the media outlet.

He noted the Meitiv family will not take part in the May 9 event.

SEE ALSO:

• County Council Wants Details on Unattended Child Policies
• Readers Call Actions Against Family ‘Troubling,’ ‘Harassing’ and ‘Abuse of Power’
• ‘Walk Heard Around the World’: Parents Face 5 Years of Legal Purgatory