Cogent and Fallacious Reasoning #1

I read a news story titled "You Won't Believe Why a Neighbor Called the Police on this Parent". I found this story through a link that was posted on facebook. I found it intriguing because the title already sounded like it could have fallacious reasonings within the story. The story is about a mom who was watching her kids play outside, and apparently so was the neighbor. The daughter and son were out playing with the dog 150 feet away and when the daughter brought the dog inside the boy stayed outside alone. The neighbor took it on as their responsibility to take the boy into their house where there was adult supervision. The neighbor then called the police and child protective services. I would say that the neighbor had fallacious reasoning thinking that it was okay to bring the child into their home and that it was bad that the boy was playing outside when they didn't check to see if he was being supervised.

There is so much fear in people now days about playing outside that it has stopped kids from getting the physical exercise they need. Many parents would rather have their kids sitting down playing, occasionally violent, video games than having the risk of them being outside. As obesity continues to become a large problem in our society, young kids are being stopped from playing outside by nosey neighbors. Other than the problem of obesity, I found it very problemsome that the neighbor brought someone elses child into their home with no permission. The parent of the children was furious that their privacy was taken from them and that they had to be interviewed by child protected services for simply letting her kids play outside.