Star: Hello,I live in a city,my kids are aboy who will be 7 in sept and a girl who will be 4 in oct.We live 10 minutes walk to the school through a fairly quiet estate.When in your opinion do you think I should let them walk to and from school alone?

Frank: Usually kids give off some signal that they are ready for a new challenge - like walking to school on their own. That is the time to start preparing them. You probably know better then anyone else whether the time has come. And if you think it makes sense, after a few dry runs... yes!

Croppy: IHow can you be sure that the statistics for the physical safety of children these days would not be materially worse than previously if parents today weren't so protective of their offspring?

Frank: There are many societies -for example in Scandinavia, where parents are quite laid back about giving children their freedom - and yet children are as physically safe as in Britain.

Hmonty: With all the conflicting advice handed out by childcare experts how do parents decide which is the safest course of action from the differing suggestions offered to every situation? And if you answer this question as a 'childcare expert' yourself how will I know to believe you rather than another 'expert' who suggests the opposite? Sorry, I'm being awkward, but I hope you can see what I mean!

Frank: Follow you're instincts. Don't trust the experts - that's the point. You know more about your kids than they do!

Caznay: I agree with your basic premise that most parents are made completely paranoid by all the doom and gloom advice and instruction handed out by the 'powers that be'. In the past, there were 'old wives tales' that did the same kind of job. Do you think that we have a need in society to demonise parents who don't play by the rules? And who makes those rules? I'm sure your book answers these questions - I guess I'll have to buy it!

Frank: Nobody benefits from this. There are no cler rules that's why it's so easy to scare parents.

Embla: Do you think that by parents becoming more paranoid, and protective of their kids, that they actually isolate their children from the society in a negative way?
I read an article that suggested that a fragmented society leads to more crime, teenage pregnancies, and drug use among children. Could it be that letting our children 'go' a bit more, letting them discover the world on their own, at their own pace, could actually make them stronger and happier individuals in the long run?
Also, more and more children are suffering from depression, that in some tragic cases leads to suicide even among children as young as ten.
Do you think that these horrible truths about our society today could be a consequence of over-paranoid parenting, and too much digging into the child's psyche in general?
By being paranoid in our parenting aren't we actually constantly reminding our children of how dangerous and bad the world is, even if we are doing it with a good heart? Is it better to let down our guard and let them learn from their own mistakes (as we ourselves have done)?

Frank: The main problem with paranoid parenting is that it becomes difficult to distinguish our anxieties from the needs of our children. Consequently, we often prevent them from engaging with the real world on their terms and that's not good for them.

Cherrian: Can I offer a little vignette which has got me thinking about how children deal with certain anxieties - especially separation anxiety.

I normally live in inner city London with my 5 year old daughter. She is allowed to visit our neighbours on this side of the street alone, (I watch at the gate to see she gets there), but not to cross the road alone, so she can't get to the playground on her own. This rather irks her.

Last week we visited friends with a daughter of the same age who live half way up a mountain in the middle of an olive grove in Tuscany. There is a road some 100 yards down the hill below them and a small village about 10 minutes walk away. It is hard to imagine a safer place in terms of one's usual worries about cars, strangers etc.

My daughter was delighted by all this freedom and she and her little friend spent hours in the orchard making up magical stories. They roamed freely within the bounds of the orchard.

I was therefore surprised to discover that her little friend never strays far from the house and her mother, when on her own. This appears to be self motivated rather than parentally reinforced.

It leaves me wondering whether the issue of parental protectiveness and its relation to children's anxiety is perhaps rather complex and linked perhaps, amongst other things, to broader anxieties around separation.


Frank: I agree that parents can be anxious for all kinds of reasons. There is nothing wrong with being anxious. However being paranoid is more than just healthy anxiety. It means not being able to trust and to cultivate your instincts -- which is the precondition for effective childrearing

Kmg: I have recently bought your book, but not yet read it. Do you comment on the difference in 'blame' culture between the UK and other countries, say Germany, where this simply does not exist? Children there seem to have much more freedom. In our small village there was a tragic incident three years ago in which a 10 yr-old was drowned in a freak accident, whilst out playing alone. Although I have not noticed any sense of anyone blaming the parents in this instance, there does still seem to be as a consequence a massive reluctance to let children play out of sight, even older children, and you do hear mutterings and murmurings when children are seen out unaccompanied.

Frank: I agree with your thoughts about blame culture and its impact on parenting. I am always jealous of mothers and fathers in Spain or Greece - where the absence of blame culture leads to a relaxed attitude towards giving kids the freedom of the outdoors.

Sharli:I have just hear on the radio the latest bit of research which says that children who go to nursery are more likely to be disruptive, badly behaved and have relationship problems with their parents and in later life. Do you think that A) this is an insult to the many nurseries who work very hard to instil discipline into children and b) this is yet another example of paranoid parenting?

Frank: You are absolutely right. Contrary to common prejudice, nurseries are a wonderful place for children to acquire social skills and for exploring the world. The only problem with nurseries is that they are not available to everyone who needs them

Debsb: My daughters school is only 10 mins walk away, but we have to cross a really busy road to get there. I sometimes find myself just holding tight & running after having stood there for 10 minutes. I don't feel that there is a safe way to teach my daughter to cross this road, and as such, can't envisage letting her go to school on her own. (she is only 5 at the moment). I believe that traffic is a much greater problem than 'stranger danger', and this was reinforced by a recent case where the defence in an insurance case against a brain-damaged child was that his parents should not have let him out alone, without a helmet on. I believe the boy was 8 at the time of the accident. I want my children to have the freedom I had as a child, but the traffic risks now are a lot greater than they were then. Is this 'paranoid parenting' or an assessment of risk vs reward?

Frank: Traffic is a difficult issue. Some of my friends try to tackle the proble by training their kids to cross the road is an area, where there is virtually no traffic. Then move up to a a road with a bit of traffic....They tell me that a point comes when both they and and their kids know that the time crossing a busy road has come. There is no one solution to this problem - but we all need to prepare the way for the time when we ler go.

Tigermoth: I'd be very intersted to hear your comments on the following two issues:

1. What ground rules would you lay down for a 5 year old,7 year old, 9 year old, and 11 year old regarding playing out? We live in London and our son has, to varying extents, played out in our neighbourhood since he was 4-ish. Closely watched and monitored by us to begin with. By the age of 5, he was not always within easy sight, although we knew the children he was with and we had set rules about the places he could go with them. He is now approaching 7 years old, and I would like to think that he gets progressively more freedom as he gets older. So far,in his case, he has gained a lot from this freedom. How should we progress?

2. How would you instil a sense of road-awareness in a child? We do lots of necessary but negative things eg: no skates or bikes on the road, no crossing the road, no running after a ball, dire warnings about the importance of judging speed and distance and the dangers of traffic. Tellings off and grounding if our rules are ignored. Have you any suggestions about positive ways of teaching him road safety, apart from him attending a road safety course?

Frank: Your approach seems to be fine. It is difficult to give specific advice because every thing depends on your relationship to your child, how much can you trust your child and how seriously your child takes your words. That relationship will determine what's appropriate for your child. And since every parent-child relationship is a bit different, what works for you might not work for me and vice-versa.

Fairynuff: Do you think us middle class foodie mums are over-protective of our children when it comes to trying to ensure a good balanced diet?

Frank: Probably, yes. Kids need good food. And I give my son a weekly lecture on the virtue of vegetables. (which he promptly ignores) But I am worried about the way that eating has become complicated by professionals who turn every bite of a cheeseburger into a major health issues

Jraven: It's all very well saying follow your instincts, but I think a lot of people's instincts are conditioned by their own upbringing. In my case, whilst I was very loved, my parents were very critical (of the "don't want her to get big-headed school of parenting"). I can see myself heading down that road with my kids, but having read a lot about positive parenting, I'm able to make a conscious effort to alter my behaviour. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that parents' instincts are always correct.

Frank: I agree that instincts are not naturally perfect. However, as mothers and fathers learn and interact with their child they gain important insights about parenting. They develop almost a new sense of what the kids needs. Unfortunately, often experts step in and tell parents that the professional knows best. As a result parents stop cultivating, developing - and most important of all - believing in their instincts. Learning to cultivate and to trust your instincts in the most important key to effective parenting.

Ra: If he was subjected to it, how would you advise your own son to deal with bullying at school?

Frank: It very much depends on your son, his school, and general circumstances - such as whether he is isolated or has a group of friends. The most important first step is to always bring it out into the open

Alex2: Please excuse me because I haven't read your book yet but I did read an interview with you in the Guardian. You seemed to be urging parents to ignore the information about risks faced by their children presented in the media and to make their own minds up about what risks they face, but what I wondered is: how? How can I decide whether my two year old daughter faces a significant risk of abduction, or death at the hands of a speeding driver, if I can't trust what I read in the papers? Where do I go for objective information on what I really should be worrying about?

Frank: There is plenty of objective information around. Even experts who promote a paranoid style of parenting agree about most of the basic facts. The real problem is not information but the pressure that parents face to treat even an insignificant risk as a routine problem to their child. The 'what if' question means that even if only a handfull of children are abducted by strangers - we are forced to reorganise our life around a risk that is statistically insignificant

Nancy: Your answer to Croppy seems a bit dismissive of a good point. Couldn't it be that in some countries kids can enjoy greater freedom because they are safer countries? Surely it doesn't follow that if kids in country X enjoy more freedom than ours without suffering any apparent ill consequences, that affording our kids the same freedom would not involve exposing them to new risks. Do you really believe that if we all chilled out and stopped worrying about where our kids are, that more kids wouldn't get hurt and even killed?

Frank: Other countries are 'safer' because parents believe them to be safe. If you walk around Madrid at night - you will see massive traffic and yet the kids are playing out on the streets. Many British parents would not allow a 14 year old out under such circumstances. And yet there are 7-8 years old Spanish children having a great time in circumstances that would be denounced as dangerous by British safety experts. There is also one other big difference. In Spain adults intervene to prevent children from getting into trouble - in Britain adults are too embarassed to get involved.

Robbie: I heard you on the radio and told a friend about what good sense you seemed to be talking and she seemed horrified and told me that you'd been involved in Living Marxism, the magazine that tried to prove the Bosnian concentration camps didn't exist and how could I take you seriously? Is that true and, if so, how do you expect to be taken seriously as a parenting expert?

Frank: I am not actually a parenting expert. I don't think that anyone can know more about your kids than you do. So I am not worried about whether I am taken seriously as a parenting expert. I hope that my analysis of the parenting crisis will be taken seriously. My views on child rearing are based on my work as a sociologist and through my experience as a father. They have little to do with with any of my alleged views on Bosnia, the theory of relativity or the British monarchy. You will have to judge me on what I say about child rearing rather than on any issues extraneous to child-rearing