LIVERMORE FALLS, Maine — Police charged a Sewall Street man on Thursday after his 5-year-old child went to another residence on the street and a resident called police.
It was at least the second time since May that the child has been returned to his parents after wandering away, police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. said Friday.
Police charged Everett Smalley, 51, by summons on a count of endangering the welfare of a child, police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. said.
The Maine Department of Health and Human Services was again notified of the situation, he said.
The boy lives at 4 Sewall St., and he walked to a house at 20 Sewall St.
The resident didn’t know the child and called police.
In May, the child then 4, walked away from his apartment and went down the road and across Route 133, Steward said. An employee at Ware-Butler lumberyard brought the child into the business to keep him safe and called police.
Smalley was not charged then, he said.
Chain Lock!!! They are cheap, easily installed and work!!!! After the first time, He should have gotten the Land Lord’s permission to install one or have the Land Lord Do it. It doesn’t say if the father was awake or a sleep. If he was sleeping,Shame on him.
Where is the mother? I have 2 children with Autism. I am up before them. I know how quick and quiet they can be. I have a chain lock on both of my doors. There is no excuse for a child of 5 years to get out and wander the streets. I am thankful that the child wasn’t hit,got lost or abducted.
I have seen several 4 to 5 year olds who could easily open a chain lock. By the age of 2 – 3 they were pushing chairs, stacking boxes or doing whatever was possible to climb up and unlock simple devices like that.
I understand young children can climb. Just because Mine have autism doesn’t mean they are stupid. Believe me, it is the other way around. My children had gotten out while there was 3 adults in the Apt. It only takes a second. Thank goodness they didn’t get far but, it did teach me to get even more on guard. I had to fight with my land lord to get a chain lock on the front door. We had pressure gates over the windows,in doorways and even had one placed over the lock and handle.
Active children occasionally get away. My brother (at age 4) could open windows, remove screens, manipulate locks, and would from time to time) leave the house unnoticed.
Now all the 100% parents can criticize all they want, but the truth is that this happens. Luckily we lived in a close-nit neighborhood where everyone knew each other, and my brother was returned by the milkman, the package man, the pizza-guy, and several neighbors.
I sure am glad we didn’t live in this guy’s neighborhood.
Door and window alarms are very cheap, sold at home depot, the installation is quick and simple, they are built with 2 magnets and when the magnets are seperated when the door or window opens the alarm sounds…..just a suggestion…
Thank-you for suggesting this. I have suggested this many times in other posts. Odds are, if your kid, can slip away unnoticed, they can undo a chain lock, mine learned how in exactly three days. I used an alarm that had a motion sensor, if the door moved the alarm went off. It actually took me a few tries to be able to hold the alarm still enough to shut it off.
I will add again that these are useful for elderly wanderers too.
Makes one wonder why a child of 5 (and previously, the age of 4) is leaving the home. At that age, they are very able to communicate with others and provide some info about home life. DHS was called “again”?? There obviously are some concerns with this child’s home environment.
Sounds like you don’t know a lot of 4 to 5 year olds. Many are curious and driven to explore and being told something is forbidden is taken as an enticement because it sounds more exciting.
I raised four children. None of them wandered away like this child has……at least twice, according to this article.
So you know 4 children.
This child is not so unusual. I knew a hyperactive very, very intelligent 3 year old who climbed up by stacking books on a counter top to get a key from a hook no one thought he could possibly reach and then unlocked a closet where all the dangerous cleaning materials were stored.
It took him less than 5 minutes.
He would have found a chain lock amusingly simple.
The only thing I am saying is, that in THIS particular incident, something seems amiss, for the cops to be calling DHS. I know kids run off/sneak out, but the cops don’t always call DHS, either.
I raised two. My first NEVER went out alone, never wandered etc. Then came my second. I think he may be related to Houdini. He would wait for me to get in the shower and get ready for work, (I was a single Mom at the time and worked to support my kids.) and he would be gone. I am sad to admit he got out at least twice. First time, I installed a chain. Three days later he was gone again. I then bought a motion sensor door alarm.
And as mentioned above, these door alarms are useful if you have an elderly wanderer. I worked in a hospital in Mass. where the police brought an elderly woman to our ER. It was well below freezing outside and this woman was wearing only a light night gown, no shoes, coat, etc. She gave us her maiden name which made identifying her difficult. When she disclosed that she was off to visit her boyfriend, I asked for his name. We check the files again, to find the “boyfriend” had been her husband of 50 years and was deceased. When we placed that call to her family, they were horrified. This story had a happy ending, but so many do not.
By the way, my door alarm cost five dollars + tax. Best $5.25 I ever spent.
It takes a village to raise a child certainly seems apropos in this case. Children need discipline. Alarms are great and chains terrific, but they are only band-aids on the problem that this child needs to learn discipline.
I am not going to pass judgment as I don’t know the entire situation, but all I can say for sure is that if I had done this growing up, I would not have done it a second time.
If you discipline a child then your for sure going to have DHHS called…many parents today don’t dare to discipline their children for fear of DHHS.
Children learning discipline can take many forms that are not going to be scrutinized by DHHS. I’m not going to project my own opinion of what the “proper” way to teach discipline is, as I believe it can be as different as each child can be.
No matter how you teach discipline to your children, you should not to do it while you are angry or stressed out or while you could possibly be transferring frustration from some other situation onto your children, and most importantly you should do it with love.
What would you do? Or what would have happened to you?
Alarms and locks are NOT a band-aid solution. They are DETERRENTS, which can eliminate the chance of a tragedy, and eliminate the need to discipline a child for wanting to use his mind and explore. No, they don’t have the sense they need to make those judgments, that is why using a deterrent is a good idea. Even if a child gets out once, there can be a tragedy that would make one wish they had to worry about a second time. I know how lucky I am that my child was returned to me or came back on his own.
Locks are a band-aid solution. Sorry. Alarms could be used effectively to help a parent to remain aware, but they can only be a safety measure and not a deterrent in any way. The deterrent is what needs to happen when a child is learning discipline. Timeouts, spankings, taking away privileges, writing sentences on paper x number of times, being grounded or whatever you choose is not my decision or my business, but those are deterrents that my parents used effectively at different stages of my life. Locks however in my home were and are designed to keep people out, not to keep them in.
I can’t fathom the use of any lock or device to try to eliminate the need to discipline a child. Children absolutely need to learn discipline. They need rules, lines not to cross and guidance. It’s our job as parents. We should not discourage their imagination and their need to explore, but rather guide it in a way that is in accordance with the rules that are in place. At some point, they will learn that there are times to question authority, but that is not at age 5 obviously.
If your child continually walked out of school, would you support the school chaining the doors to keep them in? Think of the safety issues that could arise and understand that the same safety issues could occur in your home. Now, I would argue that a child that disobeyed the school rules to this degree would be a sign of a child who likely did not learn discipline in the home effectively, but that’s really kind of another discussion.
“the problem that this child needs to learn discipline. ”
“I am not going to pass judgment as I don’t know the entire situation”
Interesting thing to say — AFTER you already passed judgment.
An observation is far from a judgment of the parent in this case Tyke. All children need discipline and it is my observation that this child needs to learn discipline, unless it’s not against the rules for the child to walk around the neighborhood. Do you disagree with that observation?
All children need discipline. Despite what some seem to be reading in to what I wrote, that doesn’t entail beating your children. Discipline is not only the verb that some seem to understand it as.
Unless some are suggesting that the child in question has never been told that this is not acceptable behavior…
To help: dis·ci·pline [dis-uh-plin] noun
1.training to act in accordance with rules; drill: militarydiscipline.
2.activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves askill; training: A daily stint at the typewriter is excellentdiscipline for a writer.
3.punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.
4.the rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc.: theharsh discipline of poverty.
5.behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and ordermaintained by training and control: good discipline in an army.
Ok, so good article BDN. It’s been up for like 3 days now. Let’s say we move on. I keep reading the headline thinking “damn, how many times this week has this guy let his child wander around outside while unattended”. I’m sure there is other things to cover.
Yeah this happens but twice in a few months? I mean hello there are some solutions that you can try and make! What about next time when it is below zero outside and someone finds him frozen in a snow bank? Better yet the next time this happens (since its happened twice third times a charm) maybe someone should just keep the boy at the police station and see how long it takes for them to realize their FIVE year old is missing?! Oh, and for the chain on the door thought- why not?? If you put it up high enough he isnt going to be able to unlock it now is he since he is like 3 feet tall, just sayin’
Good, about time.