October 30, 2025 • 39 mins
What’s the line between giving your growing children the independence they crave and need and what Massachusetts considers “child neglect"? Assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University School of Law Andrew Haile says MA’s murky laws are hindering parents from providing children with vital learning experiences. Andrew joined us to discuss his own story as a parent to growing children and the various MA child laws he's discovered. We welcomed parents to call in and share how they have granted their kids independence.
You can hear NightSide with Dan Rea, Live! Weeknights From 8PM-12AM on WBZ - Boston's News Radio.
You can hear NightSide with Dan Rea, Live! Weeknights From 8PM-12AM on WBZ - Boston's News Radio.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm w BZY, Boston's new radio.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
All right, welcome back everybody as we move into our
third hour here on this very rainy Thursday night. And
if you're out there driving around, thank you for joining us,
thank you for listening, but please drive very carefully. All right.
This hour is a hour that we scheduled. We had
a brief conversation with our guest a couple of weeks ago.
(00:29):
Let me introduce him to you. His name is Andrew Hale.
He is a lawyer here in Massachusetts. He's a professor
at Northeastern University School of Law, lives in the Boston
area with his family, and has a couple of young girls.
And Andrew Hale, welcome, Welcome back to Nightside. How are
(00:50):
you this evening.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm doing great, Dan, Thank you so much for having
me back on.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
For a while you worked in the Attorney General's office,
I think dealing with issues that you're interested in here,
dealing with children's services, et cetera. And just to sort
of set the stage very quickly, you believe that the
laws in Massachusetts that you would have been in charge
(01:16):
of involved in enforcing are actually pretty vague. And arguably,
you know, arbitrary, vague, and capricious, as we learned that
phrase in law school many years ago, that they basically
handcuffed parents as to how they can raise their children,
(01:39):
as to how much freedom the children should have. So
let's start with that conversation. Tell us about your background.
Let me just lay the foundation of your background so
people know that at one point you were in charge
of having to enforce these laws.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Sure, Dan, thanks, So, like you said, I am a lawyer.
I'm not a law professor Northeastern. Prior to going into teaching,
I worked for the mass Attorney General's Office under now
Governor more Healy. Part of my job there was defending
the Department of Children and Families or DCF, so I
was familiar and got familiar with the child welfare laws
(02:16):
that we have in Massachusetts. And then, of course I'm
a dad. I have two girls there are nine and seven,
and I'm sort of in this phase of life now
along with all of my peers, where we're sort of
deciding about how much independence to give our kids as
they grow up. We live in Dorchester, we're sort of
navigating the city. And what I've realized is that the
(02:38):
parental norms have really shifted since when I was a kid.
I'm forty, and all of a sudden, it's become very
difficult to do some basic things like letting my kid,
for example, walk down the block, letting them run small errands,
maybe playing outside by themselves, And that our laws governing
child welfare actually make it more difficult for parents to
(03:01):
give children the independence that experts are increasingly saying that
they need.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, those laws were intended, I assume when they passed
the legislature to be protective of children number one, and
also to put the responsibility of keeping children safe on
parents and making them understand that by having children, they
(03:27):
have a responsibility to care and tend to their safety.
But what you're saying is that now these laws, which
probably you know as opposed to teaching to the top
of the class or teaching the center of the class,
you know, they're passing laws that really should apply to
absentee parents or parents who are not doing the proper
(03:52):
role of a parent. But those laws that are being
applied against people like you and others who might be
trying to give their children based upon their own intelligence
and their own instincts for public safety. You want to
give them a little more freedom a little sooner, but
(04:12):
DCF might come down on you, ironically, even though at
one point you were in the Attorney General's office. I
think that's what you're saying. It's a little convoluted the
way I've described it. I'm sure you can simplify it.
Thanks Dan.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I should say on the adset, I've never personally been
the subject of any DCF enforcement.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
If I applied that, I apologize.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
That's no problem. And I think to your point about
the intent of law is all of this is well intentioned.
There are really no villains here. Of course, the law
is designed to protect children, which is something that we
can all support. What I can say is just speaking anecdotally,
is this has happened to me now multiple times again.
(04:56):
We live in Dorchester. My girls are nine and seven there,
pretty mature for their age, and we're starting to get
to the point where we want them to be able
to say, go down the block to a friend's house,
or go down to the corner store and pick up
a gallon of milk, at least my eldest child. And
I've been scolded multiple times by my neighbors who say Andrew,
don't let them go out. They might get abducted. You
don't know what happened. These are pretty girls, et cetera,
(05:18):
et cetera. And what I realized is that in one
exchange that I had with a neighbor, they said, look out,
you see girls sort of walking around the neighborhood by themselves.
Somebody might call DCF. And well, again, again, I'm a lawyer,
I'm well versed in these laws. I'm sure I could
have an adequate sort of defense to that. I think
(05:40):
there is a chilling effect that takes place when parents
are concerned about the possibility of DCF enforcement. And what
that does is then parents are sort of more likely
to just keep their kids at home. And what happens
when they're at home, kids are then on screens sort
of for many hours a day, and I think that
is where we really run into some problems with our kids.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So what you're saying is these well intentioned laws, which
again are probably not directed against people of your background,
and in most parents, they're intended to be used, I
guess against parents who would be deleterious in their care
(06:23):
for their children, would allow the children to be out
playing in the street at ten o'clock at night as
supposed to be, you know. I mean, we can all
come up with hypothetical situations where where DCF certainly has
an interest in getting involved. Although I must tell you,
over the years, I've had plenty of people call me
as a talk show host and and and say to
(06:45):
me that that DCF showed up at their door and
they were very aggressive. And so there were people out
there who who are not happy with DCF and feel
that they were I don't know, maybe identified by paper
who called and bratted them out, you know. So I
mean it's like anything else. When I get caught for
(07:09):
driving too fast, my initial reaction is going to be
to the police officer. Look, I know I was going
sixty two in the fifty five, but that guy just
blew by me going seventy five. And I know what
the CoP's gonna say. I don't care. I didn't see
him doing seventy five. I saw you doing sixty two.
So lows of difficult things When they replied, I've spoken
(07:32):
to you once before, and I can remember as a kid,
my dad would give me a quarter go up to
the growth to the variety store at the street and
get him a pack of camels unfiltered. It was no
big til it was like, you know, a quarter of
a mile from the house, I was up, you know,
on a maje street walk walking there or whatever. I'd
grab a pack of baseball cards on the way home,
(07:53):
and I'd be looking at it halfway look at the
baseball cards. So but I also spent a lot of
time out playing and would What you're saying is that
their norm now is for parents to become overly protective.
Maybe they're seeing stuff in the media about kids being
kidnapped and they assumed that that their child might be next.
Maybe they want their kids in the house and doing
(08:14):
this screen time. But you're saying that's not allowing the
kid to mature and grow up and assume some responsibility,
which is a This is a difficult subject. It's a
difficult balance to strike, right.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Absolutely, and I think you're right, and I want to
say that, you know, every parent should do whatever they
feel most comfortable with around their kids. What I will
say is, you know, crime rates now are dramatically lower
than they were even in the eighties and nineties when
I was growing up as a kid Boston. Just for example,
last year, at twenty twenty four, had only twenty four homicideses,
(08:53):
the lowest since nineteen fifty seven. That's compared to one
hundred and fifty in nineteen ninety. For example, the homicide
rate is dramatically lower, crime rate is dramatically lower than
it was. And yet parents I think are much more
protective of their kids even despite that sort of landscape.
So at the same time, the sort of risk of
(09:13):
abduction by a stranger is actually extremely rare. We're talking
the odds of one out of seven hundred and twenty thousand,
so it's just really really rare that a stranger is
going to abduct your child. And then at the same time,
what's not rare, though, is we're seeing increasingly kids getting
addicted to screens, sort of being you know, seven, eight, nine,
(09:35):
ten hours a day on a screen, unable to really
engage with other people, unable to kind of form those
friendships that they need to to develop that resiliency and
independence that is going to make them responsible adults. And
so I think the solution to that is get the
kids outside, get them outdoors, get them playing with each other,
get them resolving disputes amongst themselves. But that is I
(09:55):
think a little bit hindered by our child eglect laws
large And we.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Can talk all about the organization of sports. I mean
I remember I played, you know, hundreds of pickup baseball
games and then we did have Little League. But I
think there are sub communities where the kids will only
play instructured games with parents there as coaches, and they
never go out on their own and grab a bat
(10:22):
and as we used to say, bucket up and then
you pick your friends and you form a team. And
a little different in terms of the crime. We hear
about a lot of crime, and there's a lot of
crime as you know, within the criminal justice system, uh
that that gets downgraded and there are continuouses without a
finding and cases are broomed out. Homicide rates in Boston
(10:46):
have jumped back up more than they were a year ago.
That that trend of going down has gone the other way.
And with high profile cases. You read about some woman
who's who's jogging in the middle of Iowa who is
abducted in that eventually killed. Those become high profile cases
and people hear about them. So there are social and media,
(11:10):
you know, trends that maybe didn't exist you know when
you were growing up, it was a nightly newscast of
thirty minutes and not the twenty four hours, seven days
a week, drumbeat of local news and profile, high profile cases.
Let's do this, and let's take a quick break. I
(11:30):
want to invite callers to join the conversation. I think
what you say makes a lot of sense. I also
think that again, it very much depends upon you know
where you live, what the circumstances are. Bad things can
happen to kids in any community, in any community, some
of the more rural communities. I remember reading the other
(11:54):
day about a little girl who Holly Parine, and this
is thirty five years ago. I covered the stories of
television television reporter. They still haven't solved that crime. She
literally walked down the street to visit a yard with puppies.
So you have cases like that which I think sends
a chill through through an entire community, for that matter,
entire state. We'll take a break if you want to
(12:15):
join this conversation. How do you strike the balance between
what good parents want to do for their children in
introducing them to uh freedom, introducing them to freedom, with
freedom comes responsibility. How do you balance that off in
a world where there are high profile cases and there
(12:36):
are and there are concerns, and is it anyone else's
business besides the DCF. Does the woman who I'm sure
she spoke with Andrew out of concern for Andrew's children,
But is that appropriate? Well, I'm sure she did, but
is that appropriate? There's there's a there's a variety of
(13:00):
topics here which we can take this conversation, and I
hope people will be expansive, uh and focus more broadly
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty, six one seven, nine, three,
one ten thirty. I have often been approached by my
audience members to do something on DCF and upon how
children are dealt with. And there was a period of time,
(13:20):
as I mentioned before, and I know this is not
what you're advocating, so called free range parents, where kids
were given an extraordinary amount of freedom.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
And the parents were fully supportive of that, and they
believed in that it was their philosophy, their lifestyle. UH.
And that became a little bit of H. Well, I
think a pejorative term free range parenting. We'll take a break.
We have a couple of lines at six one, seven,
nine three, one, ten thirty. Let's get the conversation going
(13:50):
here on nights Side. My guess uh the Northeastern University
Law school professor Andrew Hale, who has also worked in
the Attorney General's Office. He's been on the other side
of this, representing Council of the Department of Children and Families.
We'll be back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on the Boston's
News radio.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Andrew, let's get some phone calls. If you're all set,
I'm all set.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
All right, let's go. Let's start off with Jason in Boston. Jason,
you first this hour with Northeastern University law professor Andrew Hale.
He has a two young daughters, seven and nine, and
he wants them to understand freedom and responsibility, and he
feels that a lot of other parents probably need to
(14:41):
give their children maybe a little bit more freedom than
they're giving them right now. Go ahead, Jason, Yeah, Hi,
how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
First, I'm actually listening to your show first time.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
First time you're listening to my show?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I don't typically stay up super late. This is at
you know, one of the first times I heard the
article of the excuse me the subject, and I.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Was like, I have an opinion, So you know, well.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
You're I'm assuming since it's the first time, you're also
making a first call to the show, and if that's true,
we want to give you a round of a plug
and tug the studio audience. You're all with Professor Andrew Hale,
Go right ahead, Jason.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, so I will say so, I actually do sort
of bleed in part of what Professor Andrew Hale is saying.
I have three kids, and they arrange the age of
like twelve to seven, and by the time they're twelve
and they're in Boston public schools. Boston and public schools
are straight up just like, hey, your kid can no
longer take the yellow buts. They have to find their
(15:42):
own way to get up there. And I'm highly happy
my older daughter's in Boston Latin school. She's doing great,
but realistically speaking, where we live, there's just no way
we were going to get her to her school long time,
so she has to take public transportation. And we've had
points where we've been nervous and scared, but over all
we've been able to give her a little bit of
(16:02):
communication ability with her cell phone, which is not a smartphone,
just a regular flip phone. All it does is text
to make phone calls. And she has been very responsible.
She's been waking up on time and doing all the
things she used to do. She's been able to periodically
help us by picking up her younger brother and sister.
And it's been a really big Godsden be able to
(16:22):
trust her with this freedom. And we didn't just like
go hey school starting boom, hear the phone by. We
started practicing with her over the summer and getting her
ready for the idea that she was going to need
that independence and that drive to be able to do
it herself.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, let's let's get Andrew's response to that. What is
she is? She a seventh grader with the Boston Line School.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
She's a seventh grader.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yes, we called that it. We used to call that
a sixty. I graduated from that school.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, last six Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I don't understand what that means.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
But a countdown. If you're a sixty, that's six years
until you graduate in the seventh grade sixty, So you
got to keep a six year is and she'll be
graduating as a senior. It'll go by before you know it, Andrew?
What what Jason had to say?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sure? First of all, I just I think Jason maybe
he should get you know, a hat or a sweatshirt,
maybe some swag Dan Ray swag for being a first
time caller. I think that's awesome, swagged.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
The first time call Andrew would be in the poorhouse.
But anyway, we'll see what we can do here.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Go ahead, go ahead, all right, no worries. I'll talk
to the producer afterwards. But no, I got thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I'm going to give something Jason for his daughter for
his daughter, and uh when we finish up. But you've
convinced me, go ahead, and you're a good litigator.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Oh that's great. I can close this deal for sure. No,
I thanks, thanks Jason for those great thoughts. You know,
I think we're in a similar situation. It sounds like
Jason's kids a little older than ours, But I mean,
my girls are in Boston public schools too, And I
think what Jason's highlighting is what we're not saying. And
maybe and then maybe this was what you were referring
(18:00):
to around the free range parenting, But what we're not
saying is just open the door, let the kid run around.
You know, I think we're saying this, Actually this approach
to parenting actually does take a sort of much more engaged,
sustain thoughtful conversation with your kid. It's asking them what
are you comfortable with? And then you know, okay, so
(18:20):
let's let's talk to the scenarios. Let's say you're walking
to school and let's say you get approached by a stranger. Well,
how are you going to handle that? What are you
going to be your strategies? And so I think for me,
it's it's really helping us as parents to equip our
kids and making sure that they're comfortable, they have a
contingency plan, it's not just turning them loose. So I
think Jason's right on with that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, thank you, Yeah, because I mean, on the other
end of that spectrum, So, one day a week, my
nine year old walks home from her school bus from
the school bus stop to our house and on average
it's been fine, but one day she did have an
issue that was really scary in alarm to us. And
(19:01):
I mean the answer was either a like sort of
in a way like almost lock her up on a
tower and be like you can't come out anymore, or
we had to find other options to make sure that
she felt secure and confident enough, and also knew that
like this is going to be a thing, and you
have different tools and your toolbox that you're able to
help resolve issues like that with. So you know, for me,
(19:25):
it's more important because eventually all these kids are gonna
get out of the house, hopefully, and when they do,
they're going to be independent and on their own, and
they need to know how to do these things. I
don't want them to be eighteen and not know how
to interact with people or how to keep themselves safe.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Absolutely. What the circumstance with your daughter, it wasn't hopefully
it wasn't a potentially criminal III.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well, I mean, I'll tell you basically, she got off
the bus stop at the age of ten, and she's ten,
and a man came up to her and gave her
a bunch of compliment and then proceeded to follow her.
And she was really scared and rattled and ran home,
you know, and we talked her about it, and then
proceedingly the next rex time when she had to do it,
(20:13):
I picked her up from the bus stop and proceeded
to show her all the different places that she can
go to, whether it's a school, whether it was a store,
whether it was friends of people who lived in the
area who were like, we are here for you, because
I wanted to, Like, again, it's not going to go
anywhere when she's eighteen. You I think you had something earlier.
(20:33):
You said someone walked in a parking lot and disappeared. Like,
that's not going anywhere, whether she's ten or whether she's eighteen.
So I need to get her.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
I talked. I was about seven years old, and she
was in western Massachusetts. It's a very well known case
about thirty five years ago. Her name was Holly Parena,
and she walked down the street with her parents' permission
to go visit a house a few houses away where
a dog had just had some puppies, and it was
(21:02):
one of those moments in time where someone I'm sure
this wasn't planned. I'm sure it was just a crime
of opportunity. Someone must have seen her and scooped her
up and she was never found. To this day, we
hear those stories, and unfortunately those stories do actually occur.
Not every story a happy ending.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yes, and those are definitely scary, but also unless I'm
going to tell her to never leave the house again.
This is life, and you're right on.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
The shame you were agreeing with Professor Hale. Hey, I'll
tell you what. Leave your name and number, and I'm
going to send you a night side coffee munk. You
can either give it to your daughter and she can
drive the teachers crazy at Boston Land School. She drinks coffee.
Maybe she shouldn't coffee, or you can get it. So
leave your information with Shane, maybe an address in a
(21:55):
daytime phone number. We'll get you a nightside coffee mug
and you can think Professor Hale for that. He obviously
has put me in a situation where I have to
do something.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, I'll bat you in the corner there, Dan, didn't
I you did a great job.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
You did a great job.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Okay, and enjoy the coffee.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Jason, your decision whether it goes to your daughter or
you keeping it for yourself, that's your decision. I'm going
to make it difficult for you. We'll take a break here.
We have a newscast coming up. Professor Andrew Hale of
Northeastern University Law School is with us. He has a
background in this legal background in this area, having worked
(22:35):
in the Massachusetts Attorney General's office as a legal counsel
for you know, Children's family and Children's Services. We will
continue our conversation if you would love to jump in
and explain to us how you're handling it as your child,
your children or child reaches certain points in their life
(22:55):
and how you give them freedom at the same time
and still upon with Dan a sense and understanding that hey,
not everybody out there on the street is a good person.
That's a sad message, but I think it's a message
that has to be conveyed at least I convaded to
my kids. I have a son and a daughter. They're
now in their thirties, so they're on their own at
(23:16):
this point. But I'll tell you I was. I've had
the same worries all of you as parents have had.
So whether your a parent or grandparents, give us a
call six one, seven, two, five, four to ten thirty
or six months, seven nine, three, one ten thirty. Going
to be talking with Christopher in the Great State of Ohio.
Coming up next, back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I'm w b Z Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
All right, welcome, back every when we are talking about
raising children reasonably and rationally and getting them out to
play and spend time with other kids, irrespective of well
you bringing children up in the city maybe more difficult
than the city I don't know, or Dorchester, where my guests,
Professor Andrew Hale of Northeastern University resides with his wife
(24:05):
and their two daughters. Andrew Professor Hale, for many years
represented the Massachusetts Apartment of Children and Families, which oftentimes
they're called also the DCF, but oftentimes has been criticized
for being too aggressive. The question is hot, where do
you hit that balance? Let me go next to Christopher
(24:27):
in Ohio. Hey, Christopher, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
How are you well?
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Yeah, I'm good, just Christopher.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, Christopher? How old are you? You sound like you
might be young.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Yeah, I'm thirteen and I live in Ohio.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Really do you listen to Night's Side or just happened
to find us tonight?
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
This is my first time, first time calling.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, well, we'll give you a round of applause you
for my Disney's studio audience.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I here now, Dan, oh I know.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, Chris, Christopher, you're thirteen years old? How much do
your How much freedom do your parents give you to
move around your neighborhood?
Speaker 5 (25:14):
Well's I ask calling about?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I was going to ask how should I go about
asking my parents for more freedom?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Wow, that's a pretty good question. Well, we got the
expert here for you, Professor Hale. This is a potential
law school student at some point here, Professor Hale.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Can we enroll thirteen year old in Northeast.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Little advanced courses early early admission? I think would be
perfect here, Go ahead, Professor Hale. Christopher is looking for
a way to get a little more freedom. Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Well, Christopher, first of all, I applaud you for thinking
about these issu use, especially for being up at ten
forty one pm and calling into.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
This radio station.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I think, Christopher, you should sit your parents down, and
you should. You should go over a plan and discuss
and maybe do some negotiation with them and say, hey,
look up thirteen, here are some things that I'd like
to be able to do. Are there certain reasons why
I can or can't do that? And you know, I think,
see what they say. I think the communication between the
parent and the child, in particular, when the parents lay
(26:28):
down a rule, it's really you want to make sure
that that rule is well reasoned and and and have
them talked that through with you. So I applaud you
for calling him Christopher.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
How many siblings do you have? If I can ask you,
are you the oldest in your family? Or do you
have older brothers or sisters?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
No?
Speaker 5 (26:45):
I have three other siblings. I have a younger brother
and two older well, one other older brother and one
older sister.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Okay, well, here's the strategy that you might use. Do
you feel that they have a little more freedom than you?
I mean, they probably should because they're older, but uh
are you? Can you talk to them and say, hey,
what are you allowed to do? And maybe convince your
parents that that you know, what are you specifically looking for?
(27:19):
Do you want to spend more time, you know, playing
sports somewhere? What? What's what would this? What would this
entail to you? What do you need? Do you want
to be able to ride your bike to the mall
or something? I know we're about to Ohio. Do you
live If I could ask what what community?
Speaker 5 (27:37):
I live in Twinsburg, like northeast Ohio.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Northeast, so you're kind of over by Cleveland in that
neck of the woods kind of in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Okay,
so yeah, yeah, what is the freedom that you're looking for?
Are your buddies and your your pals able to have
more freedom than you? What? What's how do you make
your case? Professor Hale made the point you want to
(28:02):
sit with your parents, but are they Are they good communicators?
You sound like a really smart guy. So yeah, uh,
what do you have in terms of negotiation with your parents?
Do you do you have a goal? Is there something
that you want to do that they're saying Christopher, You're
(28:24):
not ready to do that yet.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, like get a phone so I can like text
with my friends.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Okay, okay, so now we're down to a phone. Let
me ask Professor Hale the phones here? This is this
a tough one.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Let's let's talk about Christopher. There has been listening to
the rest of my diatribe about childhood independence. I was
with you, Christopher. You ride your bike around the neighborhood
and you go play football, whatever you want to do.
But if it means having a saw a flip phone,
I think it's fine. It's the smartphone that I think
and really develop these addictive tendencies. And there's this great
(29:03):
book by Jonathan Haate called He's a social psychologist from NYU.
It's called The Anxious Generation, and it's all about kind
of this rise in mental illness that we've seen, particularly
on teenagers, particularly my teenage girls, that happens beginning in
the mid sort of twenty tens with the rise of
smartphones and social media. And so I think, unfortunately, I'm
(29:25):
probably not with you, Christopher on the smartphone negotiation. But
a flip phone, I think that's probably fine.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah. You know. The thing about a flip phone, Christopher,
and I you may be disappointed in what I'm going
to say is it allows you to communicate with your parents.
It allows them to keep track of you know where
you are. If you're going to go to the mall
or something, I go to the movies or go bowling
or whatever you're going to do, they know where you are.
The cell phones can can be really distracting, and a
(29:58):
lot of adults, not just thirteen year old guys like you,
but adults. They get lost in the cell phones and
there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff on
the cell phones which is really junk. To be honest
with you, okay, And I would not want my son
(30:20):
at the age of thirteen with what they call a smartphone.
And I know that's probably not what you want to
hear us say, but I think we're both telling you
what we really believe. How are you doing in school?
You must be doing pretty well in school. You're really
well spoken. Yeah, so you're doing well in school. Right.
(30:43):
You said, how many of you how many of your
friends your buddies have cell phones are so called smartphones.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
I'd say about like half of my friends, maybe a
little more than that.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Okay, do some of your friends have flip phones?
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yeah, one of my friends has a flip phone.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And what a flip phone means is that if you
are out some night and then and you need to
ride home and call your parents, they can call you.
So there's a there's a value to a flip phone,
real value. But this there's a there's a lot of
just stuff that that I don't know. Yeah, I don't
know how to put this to you. Let me put
(31:31):
it to you as best I can. There's a lot
of stuff on smartphones that is just junk. I mean,
it's it's that it has no value. Uh, it's not educational,
it's not informative. It's it's really just stupid stuff. And
I think, uh, most parents who love their kids are
going to say, look, I don't want you looking and
(31:53):
dealing with stupid stuff and wasting your time. That's that.
That's that's my thought on it. Do you did you
just find us tonight on the radio out there? Will
you flipping the radio around tonight?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Yeah? Okay, totally random, totally random.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I like that. Okay, Well, look, do me a favor.
I'll tell you what I'm going to do for you. Your
first time called, we gave you a round of applause. Uh.
I'm going to send you a night Side T shirt?
What sized Nightside T shirt? Would? Would you wear it?
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You know? Uh?
Speaker 5 (32:28):
Small?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Okay, yeah, fair enough. Okay, we'll get that in the
mail to you. Leave your name and address uh with
with my producer and we'll get that out in the
mail to you. This was a great call, Christopher.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I hope you.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I hope you continue to listen to night Side. We
do a lot of stuff on this show, uh that
I think someone with your intelligence uh will appreciate because
because you you kept right with our car, you kept
you you you did really well talking to a broken
down talk show host and a young law professor.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So you're writing the game home, Chris.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Thank you, Christopher. Your parents should be very proud of you.
I tell my kids the most important words in the
world are please and thank you. And we will get
you that T shirt. I promise you, uh uh, and
I want you to wear it proudly in Ohio. Thanks Christopher,
don't hang up, don't hang up. Okay, You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Thanks Christopher.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
I'll tell you that's a That's a great phoonk call.
That's one I'm going to remember for a while.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
You get thirteen year olds calling on radio dance.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
No No in the country, guys, think Christopher and make
sure you get everything right on him and you can
include that as well. We will take a break. We
got two more callers we're going to get to. I
promise this is great stuff. I mean the thing about
we do have a really strong signal. I'm not surprised
by the phone call from Ohio. I am surprised by
(33:59):
the full of intelligence for a thirteen year old. It
takes some guts to dial in and then talk to
two adults like you and me. I mean, I'm serious.
Good for him. He'll he's going to be a successful
young man. I'll tell you there should be some schools
thinking about him. That's for sure. I'm overwhelmed and impressed
(34:21):
with that young guy. We'll take a break. We will
be back with my guest, Professor Andrew Hale of Northeastern University,
talking about balancing freedom for children and the responsibility of
parents obviously to be protective, but not overwhelmingly protective of children,
giving them some freedom and let them learn. We'll be
(34:42):
back on night's side right after this break.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling Boston's News Radio, let's
keep rolling.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Gonna go to Anika and Nick. We normally don't take
two people together, but Anaka and Nick, we'll give it
a shot. You are both on with Professor Andrew Hale.
He's a professor at Northeast University Law School, and we're
talking about parents children. How do they incorporate freedom and
responsibility in children so that the children are safe and
(35:13):
yet they have the ability to kind of get out
and experience the world. An Nick, go right ahead.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
Unfortunately we're not parents, but we are former students of
Professor Hale, so we figured we'd just give a call.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
In to say hello and say great job, and also
just to add in Valadi that he was a great
choice for the show. He knows so much and we've
learned so much from him. So hi both.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
I see that you have a Connecticut number. Are you
guys down in Connecticut?
Speaker 4 (35:45):
We're in Boston, so we're currently in our last year
at Northeastern. We had Professor Hale a couple of years.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Ago, but I'm from Connecticut. I'm a two or three number.
We met in Professor Hill's class and we're in a
relationship now. It's all going well. So he's for us, And.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I don't know how these guys got through the lines.
You really got to screen them a little better, you know. Well,
I goodness.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I hope we gave you a good laugh tonight.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Yes, we just wanted to say hi and say that
you're doing a great job.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
We love your article.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So so you you read the article and uh yeah,
and you understand what he's saying. When I first talked
with him, I don't know, a week or so ago,
I was talking about it was a concept of free
range parenting, which was the rage three or four years ago.
And uh uh and Professor Hale was quick to disabuse
(36:46):
me of the notion that this was anything close to
free range parenting, and there were some parents who's whose
kids were really quite a distance away. Is he as
good a teacher in class as he is as a
talk show host?
Speaker 5 (37:02):
I think he's probably equally as good a professor as
he is talk show host.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
As he is dad.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Sorry, yeah, that's bad. That's my bad. Be a great
host also, I'm sure I know.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
But hey, don't let my management. No, I could be
out of a job.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
He's got a job in Northeastern. Don't worry. Don't worry. So, yeah,
he's he's equally good as a professor, talk show guest,
and a dad. His kids have a great, great respect
and great affection for.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Him, both of you and Nick. You're in your third
year at Northeastern, about to graduate, I assume next May
or June.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Yeah, we just supplied to graduate, so it's it's imminent.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Okay. One piece of advice, and that is, before you
take the bar, make sure you take the bar review course.
You'll learn more in the bar review on it.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
We're on it. We're on it. And many of Professor
Hill's uh former students have passed recently, so it's not
the testament to his work, then we're happy to praise it.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Well, that's great, that's great. Well, thank you very much
for calling in. We had an interesting, uh combination of
guests of callers tonight, that is for sure. And again, Nick,
thanks very much. I hope you continue to listen to
Night's Night and call in, whether he's the guest or not. Okay,
thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Thanks tonight.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Dan. Did they get T shirts too or I figured.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Thirteen year old? No, I at this point it will
be firing me for giving away too much, too much merch.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
You're never going to invite me back.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
No, no, no at all. Thank you very much. I
enjoyed the conversation immensely so tonight and I, uh, and
I learned a lot. And I think you you take
a very reasonable position. And uh, I'm sure you're a
great law school professor. Witnessed the testimony of a couple
of students here. That's that's wonderful. Look keep in touch
with on and I hope you continue to listen. If
(39:07):
there's any other subjects that come up, keep us, keep
us posted. Always looking to add people to the roster
of our returning guests. Thank you so much for your
time tonight.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Thank you Dan, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
You're more than welcome. And again I highly recommend people
can find the article it was in which mag It
was was in Prospective Man, Boston Globe. It was in
the Boston Globe.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, the Boston Globe.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yep, kids need more independence. If only Massachusetts law would
allow it easy to find in the Globe. Thanks again,
Professor Andrew Hale of Northeastern University.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Law School, Thanks Man, take care.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
You're welcome, you too. Okay, we get back. We're going
to open up a fourth and final hour tonight. Stay
with us here on Nightside back right after the eleven
o'clock news
It's Night Side with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm w BZY, Boston's new radio.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
All right, welcome back everybody as we move into our
third hour here on this very rainy Thursday night. And
if you're out there driving around, thank you for joining us,
thank you for listening, but please drive very carefully. All right.
This hour is a hour that we scheduled. We had
a brief conversation with our guest a couple of weeks ago.
(00:29):
Let me introduce him to you. His name is Andrew Hale.
He is a lawyer here in Massachusetts. He's a professor
at Northeastern University School of Law, lives in the Boston
area with his family, and has a couple of young girls.
And Andrew Hale, welcome, Welcome back to Nightside. How are
(00:50):
you this evening.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm doing great, Dan, Thank you so much for having
me back on.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
For a while you worked in the Attorney General's office,
I think dealing with issues that you're interested in here,
dealing with children's services, et cetera. And just to sort
of set the stage very quickly, you believe that the
laws in Massachusetts that you would have been in charge
(01:16):
of involved in enforcing are actually pretty vague. And arguably,
you know, arbitrary, vague, and capricious, as we learned that
phrase in law school many years ago, that they basically
handcuffed parents as to how they can raise their children,
(01:39):
as to how much freedom the children should have. So
let's start with that conversation. Tell us about your background.
Let me just lay the foundation of your background so
people know that at one point you were in charge
of having to enforce these laws.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Sure, Dan, thanks, So, like you said, I am a lawyer.
I'm not a law professor Northeastern. Prior to going into teaching,
I worked for the mass Attorney General's Office under now
Governor more Healy. Part of my job there was defending
the Department of Children and Families or DCF, so I
was familiar and got familiar with the child welfare laws
(02:16):
that we have in Massachusetts. And then, of course I'm
a dad. I have two girls there are nine and seven,
and I'm sort of in this phase of life now
along with all of my peers, where we're sort of
deciding about how much independence to give our kids as
they grow up. We live in Dorchester, we're sort of
navigating the city. And what I've realized is that the
(02:38):
parental norms have really shifted since when I was a kid.
I'm forty, and all of a sudden, it's become very
difficult to do some basic things like letting my kid,
for example, walk down the block, letting them run small errands,
maybe playing outside by themselves, And that our laws governing
child welfare actually make it more difficult for parents to
(03:01):
give children the independence that experts are increasingly saying that
they need.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, those laws were intended, I assume when they passed
the legislature to be protective of children number one, and
also to put the responsibility of keeping children safe on
parents and making them understand that by having children, they
(03:27):
have a responsibility to care and tend to their safety.
But what you're saying is that now these laws, which
probably you know as opposed to teaching to the top
of the class or teaching the center of the class,
you know, they're passing laws that really should apply to
absentee parents or parents who are not doing the proper
(03:52):
role of a parent. But those laws that are being
applied against people like you and others who might be
trying to give their children based upon their own intelligence
and their own instincts for public safety. You want to
give them a little more freedom a little sooner, but
(04:12):
DCF might come down on you, ironically, even though at
one point you were in the Attorney General's office. I
think that's what you're saying. It's a little convoluted the
way I've described it. I'm sure you can simplify it.
Thanks Dan.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I should say on the adset, I've never personally been
the subject of any DCF enforcement.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
If I applied that, I apologize.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
That's no problem. And I think to your point about
the intent of law is all of this is well intentioned.
There are really no villains here. Of course, the law
is designed to protect children, which is something that we
can all support. What I can say is just speaking anecdotally,
is this has happened to me now multiple times again.
(04:56):
We live in Dorchester. My girls are nine and seven there,
pretty mature for their age, and we're starting to get
to the point where we want them to be able
to say, go down the block to a friend's house,
or go down to the corner store and pick up
a gallon of milk, at least my eldest child. And
I've been scolded multiple times by my neighbors who say Andrew,
don't let them go out. They might get abducted. You
don't know what happened. These are pretty girls, et cetera,
(05:18):
et cetera. And what I realized is that in one
exchange that I had with a neighbor, they said, look out,
you see girls sort of walking around the neighborhood by themselves.
Somebody might call DCF. And well, again, again, I'm a lawyer,
I'm well versed in these laws. I'm sure I could
have an adequate sort of defense to that. I think
(05:40):
there is a chilling effect that takes place when parents
are concerned about the possibility of DCF enforcement. And what
that does is then parents are sort of more likely
to just keep their kids at home. And what happens
when they're at home, kids are then on screens sort
of for many hours a day, and I think that
is where we really run into some problems with our kids.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So what you're saying is these well intentioned laws, which
again are probably not directed against people of your background,
and in most parents, they're intended to be used, I
guess against parents who would be deleterious in their care
(06:23):
for their children, would allow the children to be out
playing in the street at ten o'clock at night as
supposed to be, you know. I mean, we can all
come up with hypothetical situations where where DCF certainly has
an interest in getting involved. Although I must tell you,
over the years, I've had plenty of people call me
as a talk show host and and and say to
(06:45):
me that that DCF showed up at their door and
they were very aggressive. And so there were people out
there who who are not happy with DCF and feel
that they were I don't know, maybe identified by paper
who called and bratted them out, you know. So I
mean it's like anything else. When I get caught for
(07:09):
driving too fast, my initial reaction is going to be
to the police officer. Look, I know I was going
sixty two in the fifty five, but that guy just
blew by me going seventy five. And I know what
the CoP's gonna say. I don't care. I didn't see
him doing seventy five. I saw you doing sixty two.
So lows of difficult things When they replied, I've spoken
(07:32):
to you once before, and I can remember as a kid,
my dad would give me a quarter go up to
the growth to the variety store at the street and
get him a pack of camels unfiltered. It was no
big til it was like, you know, a quarter of
a mile from the house, I was up, you know,
on a maje street walk walking there or whatever. I'd
grab a pack of baseball cards on the way home,
(07:53):
and I'd be looking at it halfway look at the
baseball cards. So but I also spent a lot of
time out playing and would What you're saying is that
their norm now is for parents to become overly protective.
Maybe they're seeing stuff in the media about kids being
kidnapped and they assumed that that their child might be next.
Maybe they want their kids in the house and doing
(08:14):
this screen time. But you're saying that's not allowing the
kid to mature and grow up and assume some responsibility,
which is a This is a difficult subject. It's a
difficult balance to strike, right.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Absolutely, and I think you're right, and I want to
say that, you know, every parent should do whatever they
feel most comfortable with around their kids. What I will
say is, you know, crime rates now are dramatically lower
than they were even in the eighties and nineties when
I was growing up as a kid Boston. Just for example,
last year, at twenty twenty four, had only twenty four homicideses,
(08:53):
the lowest since nineteen fifty seven. That's compared to one
hundred and fifty in nineteen ninety. For example, the homicide
rate is dramatically lower, crime rate is dramatically lower than
it was. And yet parents I think are much more
protective of their kids even despite that sort of landscape.
So at the same time, the sort of risk of
(09:13):
abduction by a stranger is actually extremely rare. We're talking
the odds of one out of seven hundred and twenty thousand,
so it's just really really rare that a stranger is
going to abduct your child. And then at the same time,
what's not rare, though, is we're seeing increasingly kids getting
addicted to screens, sort of being you know, seven, eight, nine,
(09:35):
ten hours a day on a screen, unable to really
engage with other people, unable to kind of form those
friendships that they need to to develop that resiliency and
independence that is going to make them responsible adults. And
so I think the solution to that is get the
kids outside, get them outdoors, get them playing with each other,
get them resolving disputes amongst themselves. But that is I
(09:55):
think a little bit hindered by our child eglect laws
large And we.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Can talk all about the organization of sports. I mean
I remember I played, you know, hundreds of pickup baseball
games and then we did have Little League. But I
think there are sub communities where the kids will only
play instructured games with parents there as coaches, and they
never go out on their own and grab a bat
(10:22):
and as we used to say, bucket up and then
you pick your friends and you form a team. And
a little different in terms of the crime. We hear
about a lot of crime, and there's a lot of
crime as you know, within the criminal justice system, uh
that that gets downgraded and there are continuouses without a
finding and cases are broomed out. Homicide rates in Boston
(10:46):
have jumped back up more than they were a year ago.
That that trend of going down has gone the other way.
And with high profile cases. You read about some woman
who's who's jogging in the middle of Iowa who is
abducted in that eventually killed. Those become high profile cases
and people hear about them. So there are social and media,
(11:10):
you know, trends that maybe didn't exist you know when
you were growing up, it was a nightly newscast of
thirty minutes and not the twenty four hours, seven days
a week, drumbeat of local news and profile, high profile cases.
Let's do this, and let's take a quick break. I
(11:30):
want to invite callers to join the conversation. I think
what you say makes a lot of sense. I also
think that again, it very much depends upon you know
where you live, what the circumstances are. Bad things can
happen to kids in any community, in any community, some
of the more rural communities. I remember reading the other
(11:54):
day about a little girl who Holly Parine, and this
is thirty five years ago. I covered the stories of
television television reporter. They still haven't solved that crime. She
literally walked down the street to visit a yard with puppies.
So you have cases like that which I think sends
a chill through through an entire community, for that matter,
entire state. We'll take a break if you want to
(12:15):
join this conversation. How do you strike the balance between
what good parents want to do for their children in
introducing them to uh freedom, introducing them to freedom, with
freedom comes responsibility. How do you balance that off in
a world where there are high profile cases and there
(12:36):
are and there are concerns, and is it anyone else's
business besides the DCF. Does the woman who I'm sure
she spoke with Andrew out of concern for Andrew's children,
But is that appropriate? Well, I'm sure she did, but
is that appropriate? There's there's a there's a variety of
(13:00):
topics here which we can take this conversation, and I
hope people will be expansive, uh and focus more broadly
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty, six one seven, nine, three,
one ten thirty. I have often been approached by my
audience members to do something on DCF and upon how
children are dealt with. And there was a period of time,
(13:20):
as I mentioned before, and I know this is not
what you're advocating, so called free range parents, where kids
were given an extraordinary amount of freedom.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
And the parents were fully supportive of that, and they
believed in that it was their philosophy, their lifestyle. UH.
And that became a little bit of H. Well, I
think a pejorative term free range parenting. We'll take a break.
We have a couple of lines at six one, seven,
nine three, one, ten thirty. Let's get the conversation going
(13:50):
here on nights Side. My guess uh the Northeastern University
Law school professor Andrew Hale, who has also worked in
the Attorney General's Office. He's been on the other side
of this, representing Council of the Department of Children and Families.
We'll be back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on the Boston's
News radio.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Andrew, let's get some phone calls. If you're all set,
I'm all set.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
All right, let's go. Let's start off with Jason in Boston. Jason,
you first this hour with Northeastern University law professor Andrew Hale.
He has a two young daughters, seven and nine, and
he wants them to understand freedom and responsibility, and he
feels that a lot of other parents probably need to
(14:41):
give their children maybe a little bit more freedom than
they're giving them right now. Go ahead, Jason, Yeah, Hi,
how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
First, I'm actually listening to your show first time.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
First time you're listening to my show?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I don't typically stay up super late. This is at
you know, one of the first times I heard the
article of the excuse me the subject, and I.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Was like, I have an opinion, So you know, well.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
You're I'm assuming since it's the first time, you're also
making a first call to the show, and if that's true,
we want to give you a round of a plug
and tug the studio audience. You're all with Professor Andrew Hale,
Go right ahead, Jason.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, so I will say so, I actually do sort
of bleed in part of what Professor Andrew Hale is saying.
I have three kids, and they arrange the age of
like twelve to seven, and by the time they're twelve
and they're in Boston public schools. Boston and public schools
are straight up just like, hey, your kid can no
longer take the yellow buts. They have to find their
(15:42):
own way to get up there. And I'm highly happy
my older daughter's in Boston Latin school. She's doing great,
but realistically speaking, where we live, there's just no way
we were going to get her to her school long time,
so she has to take public transportation. And we've had
points where we've been nervous and scared, but over all
we've been able to give her a little bit of
(16:02):
communication ability with her cell phone, which is not a smartphone,
just a regular flip phone. All it does is text
to make phone calls. And she has been very responsible.
She's been waking up on time and doing all the
things she used to do. She's been able to periodically
help us by picking up her younger brother and sister.
And it's been a really big Godsden be able to
(16:22):
trust her with this freedom. And we didn't just like
go hey school starting boom, hear the phone by. We
started practicing with her over the summer and getting her
ready for the idea that she was going to need
that independence and that drive to be able to do
it herself.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, let's let's get Andrew's response to that. What is
she is? She a seventh grader with the Boston Line School.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
She's a seventh grader.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yes, we called that it. We used to call that
a sixty. I graduated from that school.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, last six Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I don't understand what that means.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
But a countdown. If you're a sixty, that's six years
until you graduate in the seventh grade sixty, So you
got to keep a six year is and she'll be
graduating as a senior. It'll go by before you know it, Andrew?
What what Jason had to say?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sure? First of all, I just I think Jason maybe
he should get you know, a hat or a sweatshirt,
maybe some swag Dan Ray swag for being a first
time caller. I think that's awesome, swagged.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
The first time call Andrew would be in the poorhouse.
But anyway, we'll see what we can do here.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Go ahead, go ahead, all right, no worries. I'll talk
to the producer afterwards. But no, I got thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I'm going to give something Jason for his daughter for
his daughter, and uh when we finish up. But you've
convinced me, go ahead, and you're a good litigator.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Oh that's great. I can close this deal for sure. No,
I thanks, thanks Jason for those great thoughts. You know,
I think we're in a similar situation. It sounds like
Jason's kids a little older than ours, But I mean,
my girls are in Boston public schools too, And I
think what Jason's highlighting is what we're not saying. And
maybe and then maybe this was what you were referring
(18:00):
to around the free range parenting, But what we're not
saying is just open the door, let the kid run around.
You know, I think we're saying this, Actually this approach
to parenting actually does take a sort of much more engaged,
sustain thoughtful conversation with your kid. It's asking them what
are you comfortable with? And then you know, okay, so
(18:20):
let's let's talk to the scenarios. Let's say you're walking
to school and let's say you get approached by a stranger. Well,
how are you going to handle that? What are you
going to be your strategies? And so I think for me,
it's it's really helping us as parents to equip our
kids and making sure that they're comfortable, they have a
contingency plan, it's not just turning them loose. So I
think Jason's right on with that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, thank you, Yeah, because I mean, on the other
end of that spectrum, So, one day a week, my
nine year old walks home from her school bus from
the school bus stop to our house and on average
it's been fine, but one day she did have an
issue that was really scary in alarm to us. And
(19:01):
I mean the answer was either a like sort of
in a way like almost lock her up on a
tower and be like you can't come out anymore, or
we had to find other options to make sure that
she felt secure and confident enough, and also knew that
like this is going to be a thing, and you
have different tools and your toolbox that you're able to
help resolve issues like that with. So you know, for me,
(19:25):
it's more important because eventually all these kids are gonna
get out of the house, hopefully, and when they do,
they're going to be independent and on their own, and
they need to know how to do these things. I
don't want them to be eighteen and not know how
to interact with people or how to keep themselves safe.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Absolutely. What the circumstance with your daughter, it wasn't hopefully
it wasn't a potentially criminal III.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well, I mean, I'll tell you basically, she got off
the bus stop at the age of ten, and she's ten,
and a man came up to her and gave her
a bunch of compliment and then proceeded to follow her.
And she was really scared and rattled and ran home,
you know, and we talked her about it, and then
proceedingly the next rex time when she had to do it,
(20:13):
I picked her up from the bus stop and proceeded
to show her all the different places that she can
go to, whether it's a school, whether it was a store,
whether it was friends of people who lived in the
area who were like, we are here for you, because
I wanted to, Like, again, it's not going to go
anywhere when she's eighteen. You I think you had something earlier.
(20:33):
You said someone walked in a parking lot and disappeared. Like,
that's not going anywhere, whether she's ten or whether she's eighteen.
So I need to get her.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
I talked. I was about seven years old, and she
was in western Massachusetts. It's a very well known case
about thirty five years ago. Her name was Holly Parena,
and she walked down the street with her parents' permission
to go visit a house a few houses away where
a dog had just had some puppies, and it was
(21:02):
one of those moments in time where someone I'm sure
this wasn't planned. I'm sure it was just a crime
of opportunity. Someone must have seen her and scooped her
up and she was never found. To this day, we
hear those stories, and unfortunately those stories do actually occur.
Not every story a happy ending.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yes, and those are definitely scary, but also unless I'm
going to tell her to never leave the house again.
This is life, and you're right on.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
The shame you were agreeing with Professor Hale. Hey, I'll
tell you what. Leave your name and number, and I'm
going to send you a night side coffee munk. You
can either give it to your daughter and she can
drive the teachers crazy at Boston Land School. She drinks coffee.
Maybe she shouldn't coffee, or you can get it. So
leave your information with Shane, maybe an address in a
(21:55):
daytime phone number. We'll get you a nightside coffee mug
and you can think Professor Hale for that. He obviously
has put me in a situation where I have to
do something.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, I'll bat you in the corner there, Dan, didn't
I you did a great job.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
You did a great job.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Okay, and enjoy the coffee.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Jason, your decision whether it goes to your daughter or
you keeping it for yourself, that's your decision. I'm going
to make it difficult for you. We'll take a break here.
We have a newscast coming up. Professor Andrew Hale of
Northeastern University Law School is with us. He has a
background in this legal background in this area, having worked
(22:35):
in the Massachusetts Attorney General's office as a legal counsel
for you know, Children's family and Children's Services. We will
continue our conversation if you would love to jump in
and explain to us how you're handling it as your child,
your children or child reaches certain points in their life
(22:55):
and how you give them freedom at the same time
and still upon with Dan a sense and understanding that hey,
not everybody out there on the street is a good person.
That's a sad message, but I think it's a message
that has to be conveyed at least I convaded to
my kids. I have a son and a daughter. They're
now in their thirties, so they're on their own at
(23:16):
this point. But I'll tell you I was. I've had
the same worries all of you as parents have had.
So whether your a parent or grandparents, give us a
call six one, seven, two, five, four to ten thirty
or six months, seven nine, three, one ten thirty. Going
to be talking with Christopher in the Great State of Ohio.
Coming up next, back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I'm w b Z Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
All right, welcome, back every when we are talking about
raising children reasonably and rationally and getting them out to
play and spend time with other kids, irrespective of well
you bringing children up in the city maybe more difficult
than the city I don't know, or Dorchester, where my guests,
Professor Andrew Hale of Northeastern University resides with his wife
(24:05):
and their two daughters. Andrew Professor Hale, for many years
represented the Massachusetts Apartment of Children and Families, which oftentimes
they're called also the DCF, but oftentimes has been criticized
for being too aggressive. The question is hot, where do
you hit that balance? Let me go next to Christopher
(24:27):
in Ohio. Hey, Christopher, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
How are you well?
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Yeah, I'm good, just Christopher.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, Christopher? How old are you? You sound like you
might be young.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Yeah, I'm thirteen and I live in Ohio.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Really do you listen to Night's Side or just happened
to find us tonight?
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
This is my first time, first time calling.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, well, we'll give you a round of applause you
for my Disney's studio audience.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I here now, Dan, oh I know.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, Chris, Christopher, you're thirteen years old? How much do
your How much freedom do your parents give you to
move around your neighborhood?
Speaker 5 (25:14):
Well's I ask calling about?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I was going to ask how should I go about
asking my parents for more freedom?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Wow, that's a pretty good question. Well, we got the
expert here for you, Professor Hale. This is a potential
law school student at some point here, Professor Hale.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Can we enroll thirteen year old in Northeast.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Little advanced courses early early admission? I think would be
perfect here, Go ahead, Professor Hale. Christopher is looking for
a way to get a little more freedom. Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Well, Christopher, first of all, I applaud you for thinking
about these issu use, especially for being up at ten
forty one pm and calling into.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
This radio station.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I think, Christopher, you should sit your parents down, and
you should. You should go over a plan and discuss
and maybe do some negotiation with them and say, hey,
look up thirteen, here are some things that I'd like
to be able to do. Are there certain reasons why
I can or can't do that? And you know, I think,
see what they say. I think the communication between the
parent and the child, in particular, when the parents lay
(26:28):
down a rule, it's really you want to make sure
that that rule is well reasoned and and and have
them talked that through with you. So I applaud you
for calling him Christopher.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
How many siblings do you have? If I can ask you,
are you the oldest in your family? Or do you
have older brothers or sisters?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
No?
Speaker 5 (26:45):
I have three other siblings. I have a younger brother
and two older well, one other older brother and one
older sister.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Okay, well, here's the strategy that you might use. Do
you feel that they have a little more freedom than you?
I mean, they probably should because they're older, but uh
are you? Can you talk to them and say, hey,
what are you allowed to do? And maybe convince your
parents that that you know, what are you specifically looking for?
(27:19):
Do you want to spend more time, you know, playing
sports somewhere? What? What's what would this? What would this
entail to you? What do you need? Do you want
to be able to ride your bike to the mall
or something? I know we're about to Ohio. Do you
live If I could ask what what community?
Speaker 5 (27:37):
I live in Twinsburg, like northeast Ohio.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Northeast, so you're kind of over by Cleveland in that
neck of the woods kind of in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Okay,
so yeah, yeah, what is the freedom that you're looking for?
Are your buddies and your your pals able to have
more freedom than you? What? What's how do you make
your case? Professor Hale made the point you want to
(28:02):
sit with your parents, but are they Are they good communicators?
You sound like a really smart guy. So yeah, uh,
what do you have in terms of negotiation with your parents?
Do you do you have a goal? Is there something
that you want to do that they're saying Christopher, You're
(28:24):
not ready to do that yet.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, like get a phone so I can like text
with my friends.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Okay, okay, so now we're down to a phone. Let
me ask Professor Hale the phones here? This is this
a tough one.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Let's let's talk about Christopher. There has been listening to
the rest of my diatribe about childhood independence. I was
with you, Christopher. You ride your bike around the neighborhood
and you go play football, whatever you want to do.
But if it means having a saw a flip phone,
I think it's fine. It's the smartphone that I think
and really develop these addictive tendencies. And there's this great
(29:03):
book by Jonathan Haate called He's a social psychologist from NYU.
It's called The Anxious Generation, and it's all about kind
of this rise in mental illness that we've seen, particularly
on teenagers, particularly my teenage girls, that happens beginning in
the mid sort of twenty tens with the rise of
smartphones and social media. And so I think, unfortunately, I'm
(29:25):
probably not with you, Christopher on the smartphone negotiation. But
a flip phone, I think that's probably fine.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah. You know. The thing about a flip phone, Christopher,
and I you may be disappointed in what I'm going
to say is it allows you to communicate with your parents.
It allows them to keep track of you know where
you are. If you're going to go to the mall
or something, I go to the movies or go bowling
or whatever you're going to do, they know where you are.
The cell phones can can be really distracting, and a
(29:58):
lot of adults, not just thirteen year old guys like you,
but adults. They get lost in the cell phones and
there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff on
the cell phones which is really junk. To be honest
with you, okay, And I would not want my son
(30:20):
at the age of thirteen with what they call a smartphone.
And I know that's probably not what you want to
hear us say, but I think we're both telling you
what we really believe. How are you doing in school?
You must be doing pretty well in school. You're really
well spoken. Yeah, so you're doing well in school. Right.
(30:43):
You said, how many of you how many of your
friends your buddies have cell phones are so called smartphones.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
I'd say about like half of my friends, maybe a
little more than that.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Okay, do some of your friends have flip phones?
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yeah, one of my friends has a flip phone.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And what a flip phone means is that if you
are out some night and then and you need to
ride home and call your parents, they can call you.
So there's a there's a value to a flip phone,
real value. But this there's a there's a lot of
just stuff that that I don't know. Yeah, I don't
know how to put this to you. Let me put
(31:31):
it to you as best I can. There's a lot
of stuff on smartphones that is just junk. I mean,
it's it's that it has no value. Uh, it's not educational,
it's not informative. It's it's really just stupid stuff. And
I think, uh, most parents who love their kids are
going to say, look, I don't want you looking and
(31:53):
dealing with stupid stuff and wasting your time. That's that.
That's that's my thought on it. Do you did you
just find us tonight on the radio out there? Will
you flipping the radio around tonight?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Yeah? Okay, totally random, totally random.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I like that. Okay, Well, look, do me a favor.
I'll tell you what I'm going to do for you. Your
first time called, we gave you a round of applause. Uh.
I'm going to send you a night Side T shirt?
What sized Nightside T shirt? Would? Would you wear it?
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You know? Uh?
Speaker 5 (32:28):
Small?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Okay, yeah, fair enough. Okay, we'll get that in the
mail to you. Leave your name and address uh with
with my producer and we'll get that out in the
mail to you. This was a great call, Christopher.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I hope you.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I hope you continue to listen to night Side. We
do a lot of stuff on this show, uh that
I think someone with your intelligence uh will appreciate because
because you you kept right with our car, you kept
you you you did really well talking to a broken
down talk show host and a young law professor.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So you're writing the game home, Chris.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Thank you, Christopher. Your parents should be very proud of you.
I tell my kids the most important words in the
world are please and thank you. And we will get
you that T shirt. I promise you, uh uh, and
I want you to wear it proudly in Ohio. Thanks Christopher,
don't hang up, don't hang up. Okay, You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Thanks Christopher.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
I'll tell you that's a That's a great phoonk call.
That's one I'm going to remember for a while.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
You get thirteen year olds calling on radio dance.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
No No in the country, guys, think Christopher and make
sure you get everything right on him and you can
include that as well. We will take a break. We
got two more callers we're going to get to. I
promise this is great stuff. I mean the thing about
we do have a really strong signal. I'm not surprised
by the phone call from Ohio. I am surprised by
(33:59):
the full of intelligence for a thirteen year old. It
takes some guts to dial in and then talk to
two adults like you and me. I mean, I'm serious.
Good for him. He'll he's going to be a successful
young man. I'll tell you there should be some schools
thinking about him. That's for sure. I'm overwhelmed and impressed
(34:21):
with that young guy. We'll take a break. We will
be back with my guest, Professor Andrew Hale of Northeastern University,
talking about balancing freedom for children and the responsibility of
parents obviously to be protective, but not overwhelmingly protective of children,
giving them some freedom and let them learn. We'll be
(34:42):
back on night's side right after this break.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling Boston's News Radio, let's
keep rolling.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Gonna go to Anika and Nick. We normally don't take
two people together, but Anaka and Nick, we'll give it
a shot. You are both on with Professor Andrew Hale.
He's a professor at Northeast University Law School, and we're
talking about parents children. How do they incorporate freedom and
responsibility in children so that the children are safe and
(35:13):
yet they have the ability to kind of get out
and experience the world. An Nick, go right ahead.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
Unfortunately we're not parents, but we are former students of
Professor Hale, so we figured we'd just give a call.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
In to say hello and say great job, and also
just to add in Valadi that he was a great
choice for the show. He knows so much and we've
learned so much from him. So hi both.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
I see that you have a Connecticut number. Are you
guys down in Connecticut?
Speaker 4 (35:45):
We're in Boston, so we're currently in our last year
at Northeastern. We had Professor Hale a couple of years.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Ago, but I'm from Connecticut. I'm a two or three number.
We met in Professor Hill's class and we're in a
relationship now. It's all going well. So he's for us, And.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I don't know how these guys got through the lines.
You really got to screen them a little better, you know. Well,
I goodness.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I hope we gave you a good laugh tonight.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Yes, we just wanted to say hi and say that
you're doing a great job.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
We love your article.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So so you you read the article and uh yeah,
and you understand what he's saying. When I first talked
with him, I don't know, a week or so ago,
I was talking about it was a concept of free
range parenting, which was the rage three or four years ago.
And uh uh and Professor Hale was quick to disabuse
(36:46):
me of the notion that this was anything close to
free range parenting, and there were some parents who's whose
kids were really quite a distance away. Is he as
good a teacher in class as he is as a
talk show host?
Speaker 5 (37:02):
I think he's probably equally as good a professor as
he is talk show host.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
As he is dad.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Sorry, yeah, that's bad. That's my bad. Be a great
host also, I'm sure I know.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
But hey, don't let my management. No, I could be
out of a job.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
He's got a job in Northeastern. Don't worry. Don't worry. So, yeah,
he's he's equally good as a professor, talk show guest,
and a dad. His kids have a great, great respect
and great affection for.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Him, both of you and Nick. You're in your third
year at Northeastern, about to graduate, I assume next May
or June.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Yeah, we just supplied to graduate, so it's it's imminent.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Okay. One piece of advice, and that is, before you
take the bar, make sure you take the bar review course.
You'll learn more in the bar review on it.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
We're on it. We're on it. And many of Professor
Hill's uh former students have passed recently, so it's not
the testament to his work, then we're happy to praise it.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Well, that's great, that's great. Well, thank you very much
for calling in. We had an interesting, uh combination of
guests of callers tonight, that is for sure. And again, Nick,
thanks very much. I hope you continue to listen to
Night's Night and call in, whether he's the guest or not. Okay,
thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Thanks tonight.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Dan. Did they get T shirts too or I figured.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Thirteen year old? No, I at this point it will
be firing me for giving away too much, too much merch.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
You're never going to invite me back.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
No, no, no at all. Thank you very much. I
enjoyed the conversation immensely so tonight and I, uh, and
I learned a lot. And I think you you take
a very reasonable position. And uh, I'm sure you're a
great law school professor. Witnessed the testimony of a couple
of students here. That's that's wonderful. Look keep in touch
with on and I hope you continue to listen. If
(39:07):
there's any other subjects that come up, keep us, keep
us posted. Always looking to add people to the roster
of our returning guests. Thank you so much for your
time tonight.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Thank you Dan, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
You're more than welcome. And again I highly recommend people
can find the article it was in which mag It
was was in Prospective Man, Boston Globe. It was in
the Boston Globe.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, the Boston Globe.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yep, kids need more independence. If only Massachusetts law would
allow it easy to find in the Globe. Thanks again,
Professor Andrew Hale of Northeastern University.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Law School, Thanks Man, take care.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
You're welcome, you too. Okay, we get back. We're going
to open up a fourth and final hour tonight. Stay
with us here on Nightside back right after the eleven
o'clock news
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