Does This Library WANT to Make Kids Feel Unwelcome?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/01/suspect_in_rape_at_library_was_freed_sex_offender/

You know – the King County Library Systems, in WA has a great policy on kids; it’s robust and functional, and their librarians are awesome.
http://www.kcls.org

I’d get a lot of like-minded parents together and write a very courteous, non-combative letter, and ask for a meeting. Remind them of how their library is funded, and let them know you’ll escalate the issue.

I mostly agree with the writer, but I’m uncomfortable with the part about letting her little one play with the Christmas tree because she didn’t hurt anything. The librarians couldn’t KNOW the kid wouldn’t hurt anything — how many one-year-olds wouldn’t? And did the mom even know that HER one-year-old wouldn’t do something destructive. One year olds mostly don’t even know better. And there are plenty whose parents don’t even make the effort and whose kids do cause disruption or destruction — was the librarian supposed to realize at a glance that she was a good parent and it was all cool?

So like JRR, I think you have to take responsibility for very young children in public — it’s not just about their “safety,” it’s about other things as well.

As for the “no policy at all, simply librarian discretion” approach, maybe that might work in some places, but at a large library in a city, that would be a recipe for disaster, or at least for making librarians play cop all day instead of doing their actual librarian jobs. Librarians aren’t just sales clerks for a free service — they have many things to do other than keep an eye open to make sure kids are properly behaved. Policies need to be intelligently constructed so they’re not unnecessarily hampering people from normal behavior, but “no policy” means no boundaries for people without common sense.

Having said that, I’m just really thankful that at our library, I can help my younger kids (8 and 11) pick out a few books in the children’s section, then wander upstairs by myself to the adult fiction or over to the adult non-fiction to browse by myself for a few minutes, while they’re parked at a table enjoying their finds.

I agree that the policies described above are extreme and need to be modified, probably in the direction of relaxing what is meant by “accompanied.” Actually, it might just be a matter of training the staff to apply it reasonably — maybe this particular librarian thought she was enforcing the policy but was being far more strict than those who created the policy intended. Still, the mom needs to have a little empathy for the librarians as well. It may have looked to the librarian that here was one kid over here, messing with the tree, and here was another kid over there, running away from mom, and maybe mom needed to keep an eye on them. I agree that there was no real danger in letting the child run from dad to mom repeatedly along the same route, but one and four are not exactly “free range” age in large public places.

I realize I didn’t offer a solution during my long response. I wonder if you could talk to them about increasing childrens’ programs or having a supervised children’s area you can sign them in and out of.

and once again, I’m glad I’m old!!
When I was 7 my mom got me a library card. Well, I was a weird little kid and wanted to learn about genetics. So I spent most of my time taking out “grownup” books.

I was a literate little kid, so by the time I was 8 I wanted to read Manchild in a Promised Land and other books that I guess most 8 year olds didn’t read. That set off the local librarians. But my mom went down and wrote a note stating that I was allowed to read anything I wanted to, no limits.

And yes my mom did have to go down. We lived about a mile away, but I rode my bike all by myself.. I was so little that I was under orders to get off the bike and walk across the only big street (really it wasn’t, just to a little kid), but otherwise, no rules other than go have fun in the library.

All these years later I still remember the books on genetics I read by Amram Scheinfeld including twins and supertwins. that one came out when I was 8 and as a twin I loved it.

People should WANT kids in a library!! It’s where kids should be. What a funny place the world has become.

I agree completely with JRR and I’m a mom of two young boys.

“A librarian came out of that section and shooed my daughter away from the tree. Seeing me, she asked if I was also with a boy. When I confirmed it, she made my son leave the children’s section and wait in the main corridor until I finished my conversation at the main desk and entered with him.”

I think the librarian acted in a reasonable manner in this case.

Yeah, I don’t know. I’m kind of with the folks who say kids in public places is less about abduction than it is about being disruptive or getting lost. I wasn’t there, and I don’t know how your kids were behaving, but I too can offer some practical anecdotes. I worked catering for years, and it was amazing how parents would let their children run amok at weddings and social functions. We have TONS of potentially harmful situations ranging from having a full tray of food or dirty plates dropped into a kid who runs headlong into a server, to fun things like fire alarms and a water fountain. I’ve had parents give me the stink eye for asking them to move their infant from the aisle so I don’t trip over their kid (and, like JRR said… don’t you know the parents would flip their nut and sue immediately). It amazed me that parents sometimes expected us to do our jobs, which are extremely labor intensive while also keeping an eye on their children.

This is definitely one of those areas where free range DOESN’T mean letting the kids run off because they’ll be “fine.”

I think you need to be responsible for your kids, and that the shaking of the tree was not a good idea, but that a kid going back and forth between parents should not be a problem. My kids go to the library every week and I comfortably let them browse in the children’s section. The librarians recognize them and have never given us any problems. The library should be a safe place and I don’t appreciate other people trying to scare kids unrealistically. The library is the place where I feel perfectly safe letting my 8 year old son, who is on the autism spectrum, go to the restroom by himself. If not there then where?

Wow. We have an exceedingly child friendly library, so much that I was shocked to read this kind of policy exists! Our library is at least half kids’ section, if not more than half. The childrens’ librarians are on a first name basis with the hundreds of kids who frequent the library, and have gone out of their way to create safe play zones for the little “haptic readers.” The “big” and more restrictive library in the next city over has an accompanied policy on children under 8 outside the kids’ section, which is a closed environment, and completely seperate from the rest of the library. Requiring parents to be within feet of their children in a library seems to run counter to the point of a library, to me. It doesn’t encourage independent reading choices, or self-guided attempts to understand the categorization method of the library. I understand kids on their own can pose a problem, but this kind of draconian policy strikes me as being made of fail.

Aaron, I’m familiar with that story being from the Boston area. In that case no one blamed the mother, but rather a criminal system and also the social system. The child rapist was known to molest children as a child himself while he was in foster care and came from a home in which sexually abuse occurred.

The back story of the criminal’s childhood who raped the six year old is just as horrific if not more. We know many child molesters were themselves once victims, rather then just hiding our children is there anything we can do as a matter of public policy other then the two options of keep them locked up or released?

Our neighborhood library (about 1/3 mile away) has been under renovations for the past 18 months. It looks like it will finally be done w/in two months. Then I’ll let my 10 yo walk down there himself and get a library card. YES!

I don’t think it’s a problem as far as potential abduction, but I can see how at least the 1-year-old was being disruptive. I’m glad the tree and ornaments weren’t hurt, but you couldn’t have known they wouldn’t be with a child so young. And the 4-year-old could have been being disruptive. I can’t tell from this anecdote. If he was being disruptive then the librarian’s actions were fair, but if not then she should have backed off.

My 7-year-old does fine wandering freely at the library without being disruptive and would have been fine certainly at 6 and maybe even at the last half of 5, so I think the age of 8 seems a bit old, but it does seem reasonable to have some age limit on when children can wander without a parent in the library.

as a parent I do try hard to teach my children to NOT be disruptive to other people – in restaurants, private homes, libraries, stores. To be cognizant of those around them. And if I see my child not acting in this manner, I absolutely will take action with them; it’s my job to teach them.

That being said, adults can be just as damned cognizant and thoughtful! Small children are NOT small adults. They are NOT going to behave like small adults. Inasmuch as one expects children to behave and pay attention, so must adults and that means occasionally you may encounter a child behaving less-than-adult-like. They may be doing the little kid run from parent to parent in the library. This is not always disruptive and is rarely a personal affront TO YOU. Really. Step aside and let him by, continue on your way. If the child is not posing an ACTUAL risk to you or to property (and I do agree, a toddler shaking a Christmas tree could very well lead to dumping the tree, breaking an ornament, or otherwise causing damage to self or public property so a “no, no, only for looking” comment would be completely appropriate here) then let the child be the child, and you be the grownup and not whine about a child actually existing in your library.

I understand. I really do. But sometimes I think adults OVERREACT to situations that don’t require that much OMGCHILD shock and horror.

Oh I thought this was going to be about dropping off an 8 year old to do a research project and mom coming back to find herself in trouble with the cops.
I don’t agree with the world is a scary place argument, but that is more PC of her to say than “your kid running back and forth is annoying the crap out of me”.
I am enjoying sending my own kids to the library and soon the pool on their own. Heck, even the mall. But even I think that a four year old and a one year old need to be within a controllable distance of mom or dad.
There is the possibility that your children aren’t as well behaved as you think they are as they wander the library. If you visit weekly, the librarians know your kids. And maybe, just maybe, they’ve had enough and are now starting to assert themselves and the policy to you.

In terms of what to do: You might start by finding out if the librarian was really enforcing that policy, or just using it to try to generally prevent disruption for other patrons. Because it doesn’t sound like you actually violated their unattended children’s policy – they talk about “If the proper person cannot be located within one half-hour” that doesn’t sound like a policy intended to have parents holding their kids hands the whole time.

If it is the policy, and the library leadership does intend it to mean such close supervision, I suggest finding model policies you like and some other like minded patrons and starting a conversation with the leadership. That’s how most people start to effect change on things like this (at least, if they’re not already politically active and connected).

I tend to agree with several others that the one year old playing with the tree when you were not in a position to stop her should anything have gone wrong would bother me if I were the librarian.

On your son going into the children’s section without you and walking back and forth between you and your husband – I think that depends entirely on how he was behaving. If he was non-disruptive (which means, effectively, being pretty much silent when walking in the main library) then I think the librarians were out of line. But if he were being at all disruptive then I think they were within their rights to ask you to be more attentive – not because of their children’s policy, but because librarians should take steps to ensure no patrons disrupt the library for others.

8 seems a little old for me for an absolute cut off on unattended children. I love the Harris County policy and it’s reminder that children are people too! It seems to do a good job of making the policy about the ability of people to act as appropriate in a library. I am concerned about the comments by the librarian who thought unattended children were a problem simply because people complained about them being unattended. If the complaints are about disruption, that’s one thing. But other people not liking someone using a library appropriately because of their age is the complainers problem.

I do think it’s nice when libraries focus on children and allow for somewhat rowdier (for want of a better description) kids to use the facilities so long as they also allow others to use them quietly. Such services might introduce books to more children at a younger age and provide some relief for parents, but I think this is an extra about providing something on top of general library services. I don’t think people should expect to be able to take their kids to the library regardless of how they behave – which isn’t to say the original letter writer did.

From the Harris County PL policy posted above:
“1. Children have the same rights as adults to be in the library. They must follow library rules of behavior.”

This is great. Children have rights in the library; they also have responsibilities. Harris Co. makes it clear that the library expects all its users, regardless of age, to follow the rules.

Thank you for all the comments, especially those of you who left links to other policies.
Very interesting reaction. I actually thought the librarians’ intervention was more justified in Incident One, since our son left the children’s section, and that Incident Two was far more heavy-handed, but opinion is certainly running the other way. I also considered the Christmas tree part tangential to the whole thing, so interesting to see how many people focused on that. I hadn’t thought that perhaps by being out of restraining range of my daughter that I would be coloring myself negligent and thus affecting how the librarian interpreted the part with my son, which to me was the central part of Incident Two. I do want to re-point out that in Incident Two, my son was entering the children’s area – the area intended for him.
Also, LauraL, thank you for providing the reality check on children not being small adults! I was getting discouraged til I read that.

I think I agree with pretty much everyone here. This possibly isn’t so much a case of free-range, as it is a possible case of running wild. The difference is expectations. In the library, the behavior should be much closer to what you would expect of the children when visiting a school or an office. A lot of people are trying to get actual work done there (except in the children’s section), so a sense of quiet and decorum is called for. You can’t expect kids to be 100% quiet, but you can set the expectation IN ADVANCE, and reiterate it as necessary.

With my daughter, when she was four, I made her stay pretty close beside me at all times. I made her a deal: However long you can behave yourself with me in the grown-up section, that’s how long we spend in the kids section. If she became disruptive in five minutes, we left, went to the kids section, and spent five minutes, before leaving altogether. Since that wasn’t enough time (it was a really NEAT kid’s section), the next time around, she’d behave herself longer, so she could play longer.

A four-year-old who is wandering by himself probably isn’t a danger, but could be a disruption. My daughter at that age might have stopped to say hi to a few people along the way, or been tempted to practice her skipping, jumping, or play the “walking game” (a game I used to play to get her to actually use her feet, rather than the stroller, when she was young). I didn’t let her out of line of sight in the library at that age, and asked her every time on the way in “How do we behave in here?” to get her to remind herself to be quiet.

You might try discussing with the librarians, since it sounds like you are a frequent visitor, and find out if your kids have caused a disruption. If so, you need to work with the kids, not the library. Once they’ve learned your expectations, you can start extending them free-range privileges. When you do, make sure the librarians know they can approach you if your child creates a disruption, so that you can deal with it. From there, side with the librarian. Most people are a lot more fault-tolerant with kids if they know they can come to you with a real problem. If it turns out the librarian is completely kid-intolerant, THEN you need to have a word with the director of the library.

Libraries!

Don’t get me started.

As a writer, I am often working–or trying to work– in a library. Here’s what I’ve found (no, this isn’t really a ‘free range’ issue, but it is, I think, important): In the dim and dark past, libraries who places where most areas and rooms were off limits to talking, noise, music, eating, drinking, and small children. Eg, they were places intended to foster thinking, reading, contemplation, research, or just a peaceful snooze.

If you wanted to work WITH someone, or talk, or conduct group study, you had to ask for a ‘special room’ intended for that use.

But, today, in most community libraries I am aware of, all that has been turned upside down.

Now, as I’ve been unceremoniously informed of by a number of very talkative, and often noisy, librarians themselves, one may talk in nearly any space in the library, often in full, or ‘outside’, or downright loud voices, and conduct group study, tutor another, eat, munch, chew, rattle, hum, slam doors, slide chairs all about–you get my drift–in just about any area in said ‘library’.

In other words, the small, community library has become more of a ‘community center’ in many areas of the country.

And for those of us who need relatively quiet, calm places to work, this really rankles! I, and another writer I have worked with, have actually gotten into tussles (verbal, of course) with staff over this at our otherwise excellent local library.

And it’s not just kids. The kids are often–as The Who said so well–alright. It’s the teens, the adults, often, oddly, older adults, and, yes, employees of the library who can be comically, rudely, in one’s face, LOUD.

I don’t get it, and, obviously, don’t like it.

Why can’t Americans put the proverbial lid on it once in awhile??

As for kids in libraries, I took my own often when they were very young, and older. But, yes, please do supervise, and teach them to be quiet. It can be done! And don’t schlep too many at one time–enlist another adult, or older kid to help, or wait for another day. What parent needs a headache like that anyway?

I am a recovering parent (the “baby” is now 23), not a grandparent, and a former public library director.

Libraries are not the same kinds of places that they were when I grew up. And I grew up in a town small enough where it seemed like everyone knew my parents — I got away with almost nothing!

At the same time there may be state or local rules. In Connecticut, in the early days of the casinos there were people who left children in their cars while they gambled. This resulted in a state law about “unattended children.” The large urban public library I directed had a policy similar to the one you quote, which was crafted, with legal advice, to ensure that we followed the state law.

So….while what other say is true, you should also inquire if the policy is partly inspired by something outside the library’s control.

As always, acting respectfully (which you have) will almost always guarantee a respectful discussion.

I’m a Youth Services Librarian for a medium sized county library and our policy is even more restrictive than this one. We don’t allow children under 10 in the library at all unless accompanied by an adult (18 or older). I’m fairly new at this particular library, but I much prefer this policy to my previous place of employment’s lack of policy, even though it is difficult to enforce at times.

I have to agree with all the commenters who have said this: LIBRARIES ARE NOT SAFE PLACES. As a librarian who works with kids and who loves them all, I wish this was not true, but it is.

Blanket policies may not be the best way of handling situations this delicate, but as someone else pointed out, I don’t have time to weigh the circumstances of every situation. I’m very busy and I see probably 200 kids a day. You may know that your child is mature enough to run back and forth between areas, but the librarian might not. She just sees an unattended child. In my 13 years of library service, I’ve been cussed out on numerous occasions for enforcing various rules, but parents are by far the worst. How dare I stop kids from climbing bookshelves, sliding down the banisters, pulling the fire alarms, throwing books at each other, setting the trash cans on fire, spitting on each other, wrestling in the geneaology room, etc, etc, etc? And these are just the infractions I can print. Our guard pulled an 11 year old girl and a 15 year old boy out of the children’s bathroom a few weeks ago. This morning, I got a lecture from a mother who was upstairs on the computer with her headphones on, for returning her 3 year old son to her. “He was fine where he was”, she said, which was downstairs in adult magazines, amongst the homeless men who hang out there.

My point is this: you are probably a good parent and your kids are probably good kids. Policies like this aren’t made for you. They’re made for parents who drop their 3 year old off with a 12 year old as “guardian” for 6 hours. Maybe in your case, the librarian was just cranky. But if it were me, I would just be trying to be consistent.

On a side note, I recently promoted Free Range Kids and several of the books that it references at a talk for our local homeschooling association. 🙂

Christie, I wasn’t talking about keeping her by my side, but rather within eyeshot. When they’re that young, you keep them where you can see them and hear them, so that if they do start to create a disturbance, you are on top of it, right away. Small kids have a short attention span, and discipline has to be prompt. If you’re busy at the librarian’s desk, you can’t stop what you are doing to go discipline the kid – in that case, yes, you SHOULD keep them close to you, unless they’ve already proven their trustworthiness.

The metaphorical leash you keep the kids on should depend on circumstances, and the kid. As their impulse control improves, so should the distance they can roam. Creating a disturbance may not be disastrous, but it is rude. To me, part of parenting free-range is taking the time to make sure they handle the liberty reasonably politely. I don’t expect adult-like behavior, but I do expect a child to handle both the practicalities and the social aspects of the situation appropriately before turning them loose. If that means I hover a little longer to teach manners, so be it.

LauraL,

As much as I like the idea of your suggestion, I don’t think it’s very feasible for most libraries. It might work in a small public library, but we see way too many children on a daily basis to test them on library skills or make sure they’re wearing a bracelet. And even if we did give out some sort of identifier, they’d actually have to bring it to the library every time. We’re busy from 3:30 til closing helping with reports, computer glitches, printing errors, programs, you name it. And for most kids, it’s difficult enough to remember their library cards and books.

I’m inclined to consider the library policy pretty reasonable. The 4 year old going between parents I wouldn’t see as a problem – my 4 year old would be wanting to do the same thing.

But I wouldn’t be letting my (nearly) 1 year old play with the decorations because I couldn’t be sure if she’d suddenly get rough with it all. I know over the next several months she’ll get better about knowing how to treat things, but children that age are very impulsive.

On the other hand, I’d probably still be trying to get my 7 year old to quit trying to talk loudly to anyone she met, especially kids near her own age.

I am a librarian and we have a similar policy at our library, although, I work closer to the adults in the library than the children in the library (I am not a youth librarian). A number of the reasons for the policy have already been addressed, but I will add that a library is a public place where anyone can walk in. The emphasis here is on anyone: ex-convicts, sex offenders, mentally ill persons, homeless persons, seedy characters, etc. For the safety of your children in a library, I would always keep them in my sight. You never know what could happen or who could be around you.

At the same time, if you’re visibly watching your children and they are not doing anything disruptive to other patrons or library property, I would think the librarians should leave you and your children alone after being sure the kid had a guardian of some kind in sight. But, again, keeping them within your site at all times in a public library is the best practice for their safety.

I agree with the majority of people on here regarding the tree.

I think this is, as it’s been said, less a free-range issue and more of a young kids in a library issue.

I won’t harangue you again on the baby and the tree – but with a 4-year-old, I can see how the back and forth and back and forth might make the librarians nervous for other patrons.

For myself, my kids were expected in a place like that to pop a squat, read some books, etc. As a child, I would be taken to the kids section and allowed to pick out several books, then accompany my adult to the adult section – sit and read, while they went looking for their own books. Once I was about 7-8 I was allowed to go to the library on my own, but by being taught that wandering wasn’t allowed (because it was disruptive to people trying to learn/read/study), I was never looked upon negatively by the librarians and even got to know them and vice versa. It was great when they’d tell me about new books they’d gotten in – and I was under 10.

I think the policy is a good one… under 7/8 is a good age to have your kids near you in a library just to be sure they aren’t disruptive. Granted, they aren’t mini-adults and I wouldn’t expect them to behave that way – but by the same token, they don’t learn how to behave if they’re not being shown what to do.

I think I’m rambling a bit. I understand how you might have felt embarrassed and slighted by the incident – but I think the librarians were being reasonable and that the policy itself is a very reasonable one. (Unlike the one someone posted on here about kids under **16** needing supervision… what a crock.)

Big libraries are ABSOLUTELY not safe places for kids to be unsupervised. I don’t mean to be an alarmist anti-Free-Ranger here, but I’ve worked in a large urban library for five years. Catching masturbators at the computers is a daily occurrence. People having sex in the public restrooms is at least a weekly to monthly occurrence. Once in my five years I did have a 10-year-old boy come to the reference desk and tell us that a man in the bathroom had tried to molest him. The most disturbing thing I ever saw was the time someone had used our books on child sexual abuse as a masturbation aid. I got to clean it up, too.

Dangers in libraries aren’t just limited to children either. I literally don’t know a single female employee at our library who hasn’t been stalked or harassed by a patron at some point- especially the shelvers, who work alone in the stacks instead of at the desk in view of other people.

Other commenters are correct though, that unattended-child policies are more for the library’s safety than the kids’. You would be surprised how many people think it’s appropriate to abandon toddlers in the library and think that someone there will look after them.

Just a quick something to add to this thread. I am a children’s librarian and some of the things I see parents allow their children to do even when they are withing eyeshot/earshot of their children is appalling. In Cari’s case though I more than likely would have spoken to her about he 1 year old with the tree and let the 4 year old do his thing.

I absolutely love those parents who come to me to say they will be in the adult section and that their kids should be okay. I love those parents who not only say this but introduce me to the kids then tell the kids that it is of utmost importance to respect the rules of the library as well as the librarian or there would be hell to pay.

I have no problems with kids who are respectful and know how to behave in the library. Unfortunately, lots and lots of 8 and unders are not real sure of the rules and regulations and require some sort of adult intervention at some point. The best intervention comes from a loving parent rather than an imposing authority figure (me).

Our policy says this: “The library does not act in loco parentis. A responsible adult or caregiver should accompany children while they are using the library. While in the library parents and caregivers are responsible for monitoring and regulating the behavior of their children.” A very liberal policy which affords me the opportunity to not be so restrictive but can be a bit much when I’ve got 5 year olds with no parents in sight climbing on my tree and folks that earnestly need help with choosing materials.

What I’m trying to get across here is your kids are your kids and they are your responsibility. In Cari’s case she seems like a pretty responsible person but you have to put yourself in the librarian’s shoes. She has policy she must follow and if she’s not familiar with you or your children she may have lumped them into those kids who she’s constantly having to fuss at for whatever transgressions. Give her a break. Go speak with her and maybe next time something like this happens she’ll remember that you are one of the good ones and don’t allow your kids to become so disruptive in the library.

Having read most of the replies I would like to suggest that from the perspective of both parents who want to practice Free-Range and librarians who would want to be supportive of Free-Range parents the best solution is for the parents to make personal connections with your librarians. Make sure that you and your children know the librarians and they know you, preferably by name.

Personal connections will transcend any policy that the organization wants to impose. The more personal connections you have with the librarians the more flexible they will imagine they can be. They will have to draw the line somewhere, of course, and when they do they will be well prepared to confront you respectfully based on your established relationship.

As the librarians pointed out, they are real people with cares and concerns just like the parents, so getting to know each other is the best way to anticipate how to get along best given the policies that define what’s appropriate.
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Enjoy,

Don Berg

Site: http://www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com
Free E-book: The Attitude Problem in Education

One thing, that has not been mentioned by other library employees, is the terror that is often experienced by young children who suddenly realize they cannot see their parent or caregiver. i can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to take a deeply worried or extremely frightened child to hunt down their parent or caregiver in the library. We have the children under 8 policy also, so the child must have been behaving themselves or we would have noticed they were alone and found the parent before they got so upset. Now a crying or screaming and/or running distractedly around child is definitely disturbing to others.

I am go to Harris County Libraries every week. There are tons of kids, some with parents some without. A good number of tween and teens are actually volunteers, shelving books, and helping with story times.

Right before and right after a story time, movie, or other event the noise level goes up – simply because there are large numbers of people. Honestly the kids events are quieter than the adults. Other than that there is a buzz of people moving around, whispering about books, that type of thing.

The librarians expect good behavior from adults and children. People know the librarians will enforce the rules, so they behave.

Another observation. I go without kids and spend time in the kids section getting books I use in teaching. No-one has ever batted an eye about an adult without kids in the kids sections.

That sounds very much like the policy at my library (of which I am an employee.)
At our branch the only thing that would have raised eyebrows about the scene you described was if you child was running back and forth, and we just would have asked him not to run.

Our policy also goes on the describe disruptive behavior and it’s consequences — which is what the running would fall under.

Is this a NEW policy? I do understand that libraries are NOT to be used for baby sitting, so that is a valid discussion point. But this policy seems more to have been thought up by the legal department. If the children are unaccompanied and there is even a hint of any improper behavior by a staff member the city could get sued. So this may be a CYA situation, which is why the librarians are so touchy.

As to an earlier post about libraries being a hotbed of pedophiliac activity? I did find a story while researching about a pedophile that raped a 6 year old in a library. But only ONE story, I could not find ANY other information. I think molestations occurring inside a library are pretty rare and I have no issues with my children wandering thru the childrens library at the main library here in San Francisco. AND the librarians don’t seem to mind either!

LauraL, great suggestion on the bracelets. Our pool has this kind of test, too. Yes, it would take effort but most worthwhile things do. (By way of comparison, the minimum age for unaccompanied kids at the pool is 6 – two years lower than the library. Yes, I realize that’s because lifeguards, unlike librarians, assume an in loco parentis role, but still, find it interesting that a place I would consider a far more LIKELY danger to young children than the library has a lower age limit.)
I have contacted the local police to find out about the incidence of crime at the library. Maybe I’m wrong that the library is a safe place, and if so, such facts would alter my habits. We live in a small town (pop 15,000) that is the hub of a larger (maybe 150,000) region.
Also I agree that the personal connections are important. That was one reason I was so surprised about both these incidents. Because we are there so often – attending story hour and special events as well as just going on our own – I believed both my kids and myself were well-known to the head youth librarian, who was involved in the first incident. I do not know the librarian involved the second incident, though the head youth librarian was also there witnessing it. I will take steps to remedy that.
As far as those who have said blanket policies are necessary, I offer this other perspective from an academic librarian also in my community. She said that policies exist to back one up once a problem has occurred (i.e. the librarian who had the stories of kids together in the bathroom, the masturbation at the computer, etc.) So pre-emptively enforcing because a child “might” be disruptive seems to me to be a waste of what I agree is valuable librarian time.
Again, thanks to all who commented. Good food for thought that I believe will help me be more effective, proactive and positive in my next move – both in regards to the policy, and how I handle my kids on our next visit.

You know what…I think they need to just get rid of libraries all together. They seem like a waste anymore, at least in my city. When ever I go to my local branch there is almost no one in there and the times there are people there they are on the computers. You are allowed 30 minutes on the computer then you have to get off. Those people then sit and read or sleep in the arm chairs until they can get back on the computer.
Same in the children’s section. The kids just sit on the computer the whole time and they aren’t doing research. They are playing games or getting on Club Penguin or whatever.
Most of the time I see families come in they aren’t looking for books, they are renting movies because they are free (you just pay a deposit which you get back when you return the book).
That library sucks. The kids section is great for picture books and easy readers and then for the juvenile section (for kids 10+) but for inbetween it sucks. There are very few easy chapter books for my middle 2 kids who are just learning to read.
The “research” section of the library is very limited. I was looking for the God Delusion and it isn’t in either of my local branches. If I want it I have to special order it from the main branch (there are like 4 copies circulating in the 100 or so branches in the city)…really, geesh. The libraries do have rows upon rows of trashy romance novels but little else in the adult fiction section.

I rarely take my kids to the library. We tend to just buy books when the kids want to read something new. I will say they are pretty lenient with the kids. Last time we were there I left the kids in the children’s section (which is right inside the door) with instructions to stay put and be quiet and if they weren’t they were in trouble when we got home then I went to look for what I was looking for. Twice my son (then 7) came looking for me and I asked him what he wanted and if he was wandering around who was watching his little sisters (who were 6 and 3 at the time).

My kids were probably the best behaved kids there. The other ones were rowdy and loud…the ones with parents sitting right next to them because they aren’t taught to behave in public places. My kids know how to behave and understand if they don’t they are in all sorts of trouble when they get home.

Last time I went to the library I went to a different branch. I thought I would sit and write in a quiet environment. Ha. It’s a pretty, new library, all open which sucks because everything echoes. There was a guy snoring away at one table, another women chatting away on her phone and two 13/14yo girls going on and on about some boy in their class while they stood in the racks just a few feet behind me. It was noisier then my house with my 4 kids in it. So I left. they didn’t even have individual little desks for people to sit at, just wide open tables and uncomfortable chairs.

In incident #1, the original post said that the boy was walking between the children’s area and the adult stacks, about 50 yards away in another wing. It doesn’t say how he was behaving during this — was he walking quietly? Or was he trotting along, calling “Daddy! Daddy! Mommy let me come see you!”?

A good library policy, like the Harris County one, makes it clear that there is *one* standard of behavior in the library. If retirees Fred and Ethel came into the library and Ethel ran over to shake the Christmas tree, or Fred was walking between the adult stacks and the children’s area (where Ethel was picking out books with the grandkids) calling for his wife, you’d be appalled. Basically, in a library, if an adult shouldn’t be doing something, a kid shouldn’t be doing it either.

I’m all for Free-Range, and I have a 2-year-old son. I’m also a library director in a busy public library in the Northeast. Please don’t be offended by the librarian having done her job — unless, of course, she displayed an obvious attitude problem while doing so. We get hundreds of children, parents, and others in and out of our particular library every day, most of whom obey the rules, don’t disturb other patrons, and don’t put themselves or others in danger. And then there are the ‘notable few’ who turn our hair gray. In today’s litigious society, you have to understand that librarians worry about little kids running around (possibly) unsupervised in a public place. _Anyone_ can (and does) come into a public library. Anyone. We are parents, too — and it freaks us out.

Instead of making an issue out of it, please try and quietly make peace with the librarian. I’m sure she will understand your point of view, especially if she gets to know you and your family. And it’ll probably make your trips to the library much more pleasant in the future!

I’m a librarian. Among the other scenarios mentioned by others where children can or have been hurt in the library, here are some I’ve seen first-hand because a parent wasn’t nearby:
* Fingers caught in closing doors
* Toddler in the street with oncoming traffic
* Teen boy making sexual advances to young girl
* Registered sex offender sitting near the children’s area
* Man arrested (unknown crime) and put in handcuffs near children’s area
* Heavy signs pulled off the wall and injuring a child’s shoulder

And my library is not in a high crime area!

This is not to mention the damage to library property I’ve seen from unattended children. Your children may be well-behaved, but librarians respond because of all the other situations they’ve seen before.

I’m a sad to say some (and only some) of the librarians who have commented here make me think there is a real attitude problem at some libraries about serving children.

I’m kind of horrified that anyone would think it’s reasonable to say – we can’t ban [some element of the public they think is unsuitable for children to be around] so we’re going to ban kids who don’t come with their own body guard instead.

It seems like the Egyptian solution to women being raped in Cairo a decade or two ago – a curfew on women. Great! That solves the problem! What a lovely, considerate and supportive society.

I mean, I understand it can be a problem, and that libraries are unable to guarantee that nothing unsavory happens, but it should be a matter of informing parents and letting people make a choice (just as they do when they decide to let their kids go anywhere). Not of taking choice and opportunity away from those who have not, and are not about to, abuse the facilities.

I fully support rules that are intended to ensure the library is usable for its intended purpose, and some of the rules may be justifiable on those grounds. But to deny people the right to use public facilities because of what others might do to them is really inappropriate for a public service in a democratic society. This type of reasoning eats away at parental choice and authority until there is little room to manoeuvre.

Aaron, what happened in the article you posted was terrible. But I’m not sure what point you wanted to make. That kids shouldn’t go to the library at all? That the parent should hold their hands literally every minute? Sometimes terrible things happen, but we cannot prevent every single terrible thing.

Once in a while, a child is kidnapped right from his own bed at night. Does that mean parents and kids should all sleep together in one room? Or that parents should sleep in shifts so one of them can sit up and watch the kids at all times?

Most people don’t think so. We acknowledge that there’s a very very small risk of a child being kidnapped from his bed at night, and we live our lives without too much worry about it.

I agree that this may be more of an issue of trying to ensure that the kids don’t bother other patrons. Our kids are generally only adorable and precious to us. Even as a parent of a young child, I don’t want to be bothered by other people’s children when I go out (particulary on those rare occasions when mine isn’t with me). I don’t expect kids to be little adults but I shouldn’t have to put up with them being obnoxious and bothersome either.

As for the first instance, I stand 100% with the librarians, although certainly not for the danger reasons. Sorry but this was just a simple lack of consideration to other other patrons in the adult area on your and your husband’s part. If I were a patron working or reading along your child’s repeated path, he would have bugged the crap out of me. Even if he was walking perfectly silently and politely each and every pass (highly unlikely for me to believe as a mother of a 4 year old), his constant pacing would have been distracting. This is not appropriate activity for a library.

The librarian was 100% right about the tree as well. It’s their property and they have a right to tell you to keep your kid’s hands off of it.

As for the 4-year old going into the children’s section alone, I have to wonder if he wasn’t being disruptive. I know that my 4 year old is generally very excited when we first get to the library. She is more likely to be loud and distruptive. Once I calm her down with a book or game and get her back into the “we’re calm and quiet in the library” vibe, I can generally leave her for a few minutes and go talk someone or even quickly get a book. If he was not being disruptive, the librarian’s behavior was out of line.

I finally found our policy (Buffalo Erie county Library -NYS)
“Under Article 65, Section 3205 of New York State Education Law, each minor from six to sixteen years of age shall attend upon full time instruction. Accordingly, access to the library during regular school hours (without special permit or previous arrangement with school officials) is denied for minors between the ages of six and sixteen. No children under six years of age may be left unattended in any library at any time. Library staff will not be responsible for children who have been left without adult supervision. Adult patrons who are not engaged in library activities that require materials from the children’s area shall be asked to relocate to other areas of the library. The staff reserves the right to seek the intervention of appropriate law enforcement or social services agencies, as required by individual circumstances.”
This is awesome… no wonder I spent so much time by myself in the library.. We had lots of little community libraries and kids would spend summers there reading since they could WALK or BIKE there. Imagine that… the policy still stands. Finally, my girl is 6.. I can look for a book myself while she looks for hers.. all 50 ft away and no one can say a word. WOOHOO!

I was the librarian that posted about the kids being pulled out of the bathroom together. I’ve also broken up numerous fights, between kids, teens and adults. I found a drunk man passed out in a shopping cart near our entrance one morning. I had to clean up blood after a 6 year old embedded one of her teeth in our wall after being told to stop running by an employee. I trespassed a mentally unstable woman for spitting on some young boys for laughing at the basket of teddy bears she was carrying. One of our restrooms was shut down as a crime scene for hours after a man exposed himself to a young boy. We had a father attack a teen who talked a kid into meeting him at the library through Myspace. I could go on.

Unnattended children policies aren’t out to get parents and kids who use the library as it is intended, which is 98% of people. They are to keep children from being victims and to keep library staff from having to act as parents.

I disagree with the poster who said that the librarians here have bad attitudes and want to limit kids from coming to the library. I love kids. I want them to come to the library. You said that parents should be able to make their own choice. But if we let parents make their own choices, some of them are going to make really bad ones. Some of them are going to let their 5 year old watch the toddler while they run to Walmart. Some of them are going to let their 7 year old and his friends hang out at the library from 3:30 until 9pm every day until they get picked up by the police for setting the trash cans on fire. Some of them are going to ignore their screaming 3 year old until another patron slaps or curses them. And it might sound like I’m uncaring, but it’s a lot easier to require kids to come with an adult than it is to let the library be a free for all and have to constantly police what is going on. If we didn’t have this policy, we’d turn into an after school day care center in a heartbeat. As it is, we have 2 people on the children’s desk from 3:30 to 9pm and it still isn’t enough. We’ve have to triple our staff, which isn’t going to happen while our budgets are being slashed.

I worked in a library for several years.

I don’t think this mother is being fair to the library. She visits weekly, apparently, probably for rather short amounts of time.

Multiply that by hundreds of families with multiple hundreds of kids, and things can get pretty crazy. The library I worked at has an 8-and-younger rule about being accompanied by an older person. Patrons routinely ignored the rule and we had packs of kids using foul language, leaving trash everywhere, intimidating younger kids, “re-arranging” the books just for fun, etc.

Perhaps this woman’s kids behave perfectly at every second and would never, ever, ever cause even the most minor disruption. However, I doubt it. Kids are kids and they will behave as such. It’s not the library workers’ job to redirect them if the parent is not there to, and libraries have policies to ensure that people do not feel discriminated against.

I know that parents of this ideological bent often think their kids are above reproach, but as someone who witnessed the behavior of the kids of many of these parents, I can assure you that they often aren’t.

“When I worked retail, I saw this a lot. One woman was allowing her toddler to climb on the shelves a few aisles over. When I approached her and asked her to keep an eye on him and not to allow him to climb, she tore me a new one. Minutes later, a crash and the kid was on his way to the ER for stitches—and she sued the store.”

—

Did that REALLY happen or did you make it up?

Well, as a new children’s librarian myself, I realize that our library has a fairly liberal policy. Children come and go as they please, regardless of age and it doesn’t seem to cause many problems. It seems more often the kids whose parents are with them, but perhaps on a computer or browsing for books, that cause the most issues. And by issues I mean incidents exatcly like the tree-pulling. We had a donated tree and it was easily 30 feet tall and very unstable. Even when the city works department came and made it as sturdy as they could, it tipped over the next day when toddler pulled on one side. His mother was on the computer and thought he was coloring. The tree fell over the study tables area and thank God no one was sitting there! Also, I’ve seen a few suspicious people who like to ‘hover’ near the children’s section. It makes me afraid when I see small children playing and oblivious parents. So, yes, your library is problably right to ask you to keep close to your kids. I know how embarassing it is to have someone point out what you feel is perfectly fine behavior. I have 5 children ages 9 to 1 and i’ve had busy bodies in stores tell me they were ‘tcouching’ too many items! But like most everyone else here, free range doesn’t mean not having them clsoe to you. And a four year old ‘walking’ back and forth can be extremely distracting if he’s stomping, humming, chattering, or you just feel like you have to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t get lost.

I work with the Columbus Metropolitan Library and was very intrigued by your post, so I contacted our youth services administrator to discuss our current policy.

We do have an unattended child policy, but the age is 7. We serve very diverse neighborhoods and while many parents wouldn’t dream of sending a 7 year old to the library or store alone, many kids in urban neighborhoods are on their own long before age 7 and would never be able to come to a library (because their parents would never bring them) if the age was higher. The bottom line is that any child who is at least 7 must be able to adhere to our Code of Conduct when in the library.

The general consensus from our viewpoint is that some sort of policy is necessary even though we agree that the librarian was a little over zealous in enforcement.

Dear Parents,

When asked about the library’s reaction to children being unattended, let me tell you what is happening here at my library where I am the head Children’s Librarian.

We, my library director, me and staff of the library, just found out last week that if we want to have insurance coverage from sexual abuse allegations for the staff, we must have 2 staff member or 1 staff and a volunteer that has been given a background check with any any unattended children.

That means if I want to allow a “free range” child in my area, I have to call another staff member away from their work to be with me while the child has the run of the place.

Since over the past 5 years our budget has been cut to the bare bones, we’ve had to drop evening hours, and we’ve been given a hiring freeze for the next 2 to 5 years, you can see how pulling someone away from their work (which includes buying and processing the material you want to use and check out) could have a pretty big effect on the quality of service we can bring to our patrons.

It is a sad state of affairs that the world has come down to this, but it is reality. The American way of sueing first and asking questions later has made it so that my library may have to cut programing in half and require parents to attend programs we have for the past decade let children attend on their own.

I too like to see the children explore on their own and think that children picking out their own books really enhances their love of books and reading.

So before you yell at the librarian who insists you stay with your child, be reminded that she may be just protecting herself/hisself from liability.

Good luck on your campaign to bring some freedom back to our children.

I am a librarian in a public library in Maryland. Our policy is similar to this woman’s library. It is a state law that children under 8 may not be left with anyone under the age of 13; therefore, that is the age our policy uses. Several people have given good strategies for both understanding the library’s point of view and encouraging the library to possibly be more understanding.

Your children should be able to walk freely in the library, especially in the children’s section. As a child going to the library was one of my favourite places to go to.

My mam and I would part ways at the entrance, she went to the adult section, i went to the children’s section. When either of us was finished we would go look for the other.

Our library wasn’t huge, so I understand this might not be possible for everyone. but to stop a child from walking over to his other parent by himself is just ridiculous.

I have worked in retail too, a DIY store to be exact. This store was huge and yes sometimes a child lost sight of his/her parent but they were always brought to the info desk by another customer helping out. I worked there for 5 years and the only bad thing that happened was a child getting into an accident with one of the carts. But even he was fine after a trip to the doctor.

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