(I don't know: What do range kids go for, normally?)

Had Laura Dekker (note spelling) been a 16-year-old to begin with, it probably would have caused less problems - e.g., she would then have been beyond compulsory education - but the whole affair started when she was 13. Still, most of it was about the number of children the average person sees around himself that he is certain are able to sail around the world unsupervised. As that number is usually zero, quite a few people went into impossible-mode.


Well, as a six-year old I went to school supervised, by my three year older brother. I never saw it like that, though: We were merely going to the same school. About 800m / half a mile, I guess. I think our mother got angry with us for getting distracted and being late only once.
This is also my only problem with that story: I don't see anything wrong with a kid with purpose walking to the park. (If you can't even be safe in the park, then the city has bigger problems than unsupervised kids, IMO.) I wonder how he got distracted and got into conversation with people in a pool, though. Maybe what they saw in the situation was a kid roaming around without any purpose and without any visible supervision.
                                                                Mysha