How old is 'too old' for a child to be naked at a splash park?

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Sitting here with the 4yo niece charge at a splash park... 6/7 year old girl running round starkers! I'm a bit shocked tbh.

Now I have been "caught short" before, but she's just been sent in the water in her knickers, because she can always just go commando on the way home.

I think anything around 3+ is too old tbh.

Thank you for spelling it out loislovesstewie, and that's just the adults who were caught. It doesn't include those who haven't been caught.

How many times when safeguarding situations happen and people say "I'm totally surprised. He seemed like such a nice guy. Just a normal family man." The idea that harmful adults stand out physically is naive.

I'd struggle to get to the point of saying "the risk of a predatory adult isn't that bad, people in other countries don't seem bothered and letting DC play naked in public is something I feel so strongly about that the risks are worth it".

Mummaneedsabreak
Such a weird comment.

Why? You must know that she meant that it’s lovely to see kids without the self consciousness or shame about their bodies that tends to come / be imposed later?
To me the weirdness is in this obsession with the dangers of children’s nakedness.
have none of you heard of the idea of projection? or denial? Kids are infinitely more likely to be abused in a family setting.

@WinterDeWinter I don't presume anything in this world anymore and neither should you with the amount of weirdos in it in RL and online. I will protect my kids at all costs.

The job of a parent is to protect their children from danger, but also to make a realistic assessment of risk and to avoid allowing unrealistic fears to dominate the child’s life, with a resulting negative impact on their opportunities, development and mental health.

this level of paranoia - especially about something like a photo which would not impact the child directly - is a really bad atmosphere to grow up in. The child will absorb your anxiety and think of themselves as being constantly unsafe.

far better to understand grooming - both of children and parents - and be alert to its signs, and to have strong enough boundaries to call it out within a family and friends setting.

How can you know for sure that a naked photo of a child will not come back to haunt them later in life?
It may not matter to you if a photo of your child was circulating and you/child never knew about it, but that would matter to me.
This is nothing to do with grooming any particular naked child, it's having those images out there, which might then allow paedophiles access to others.
If you have teenagers, ask them how happy they would be to know there were naked pictures of them as young children available online.

this level of paranoia - especially about something like a photo which would not impact the child directly - is a really bad atmosphere to grow up in. The child will absorb your anxiety and think of themselves as being constantly unsafe.

I don't tell my son he needs to put clothes on because a pervert might take a photo of him, I just say that we wear clothes outside of the house, no fear, no shame.

The job of a parent is to protect their children from danger, but also to make a realistic assessment of risk and to avoid allowing unrealistic fears to dominate the child’s life, with a resulting negative impact on their opportunities, development and mental health.

this level of paranoia - especially about something like a photo which would not impact the child directly - is a really bad atmosphere to grow up in. The child will absorb your anxiety and think of themselves as being constantly unsafe.

far better to understand grooming - both of children and parents - and be alert to its signs, and to have strong enough boundaries to call it out within a family and friends setting.

You're assuming that parents sit down with their young children and tell young children that predators are everywhere and whip up paranoia.

Only speaking for myself, I certainly don't do that. Remaining clothed in the park is a rule, just like putting a helmet on at the skate park, or keeping their socks on in soft play.

I don't believe that saying to children "we wear swimwear or clothes at the splash pad" is going to make them anxious or paranoid. We don't go to the park naked, or the play area, and they see that most children are clothed. It's not an unusual thing to do.

To me it's much harder to teach children boundaries and how to protect themselves from grooming if the adults are sending messages like "pants area is private and if anyone wants to look there you must tell us" when at the weekend the same adult says "off you go, go run naked in front of all these people". It's mixed messages, is the pants area private or is it not? I never want my children to be in a position where an adult could manipulate them and their boundaries by taking advantage of their childhood brain saying things like "of course you can show me, you play at the beach/splash pad naked so it isn't that bad"

I see your point @LolaSmiles about possible confusion, though I think it’s unlikely. It’s a different thing, though, to what I described above. I think those posters will certainly be transmitting their unrealistic sense they their child is under constant potential attack, even if they are unaware that they’re doing so.

Right, so if your child wanted to strip naked in the middle of Primark and walk round naked you’d be happy with that, since you don’t want to give them any anxiety about ‘unrealistic potential attacks?’ Or do you just tell your child ‘of course not, we must keep our clothes on when we’re outside!’ I mean I also tell my children they have to wear shoes in the park and can’t poo on the grass. It doesn’t seem to have given them anxiety to know that in public you have to behave in normal fashions such as wearing clothing.

Well, no age of child naked would bother me, because I'm not a sexual predator of children.

However, beaches and splash parks attract people who are interested in children. Therefore, no child should be naked at any age, even babies.

I've sent my child into the splash park many times fully clothed - we always keep a clean towel in the car and can just wrap her up in it on the way home so she doesn't miss out.

They may not be on every corner - thanks for the hyperbole - but they are more likely to be at places where there are lots of children, particularly where there are likely to be naked children. Obviously they are.

Or do you think the undercover police child protection social worker told me were sometimes at our local splash park precisely because it attracts paedophiles, were really just there eating sandwiches?

Presumably you don't put any controls on children's access to the internet either as 'there is not a paedophile in every internet chat room'. In which case, perhaps you want to tell that to the parents of the five year old in my estate who had a knock on the door from police telling them that their five year old was online right now talking a known paedophile.

No one is curtailing children's freedom by telling them to wear swimsuits in public. Its a pretty simple safeguarding measure.

Perhaps because the gutter press spoon feeds sensationalism to our electorate?

I see your point @LolaSmilesabout possible confusion, though I think it’s unlikely. It’s a different thing, though, to what I described above. I think those posters will certainly be transmitting their unrealistic sense they their child is under constant potential attack, even if they are unaware that they’re doing so
I'm not sure it is a different thing.

You're right, if people are drilling it into their child that every adult is a potential abuser and they need to always be looking over their shoulder, you can't be naked at the park just in case a pervert with a camera is there etc.

I don't think most people who choose to keep their children clothed in public do that though. I don't think people are telling their children they're under potential attack.

It's a simple "we're in public. We wear clothes or swimwear when we play in public". No different to me saying to DC "we're at the beach, it's sunny so you need your rash vests, sun hat and suncream on". It's simple, clear and practical. When they go to the park or the beach or the splash pad, they see that all the adult are clothed and the vast majority of children are too.

I longer I'm in safeguarding, the more I'm convinced that clear, simple boundaries are the approach I want to take with my children.

Some people on here could do with spending a week in my job , might give their heads a bit of a wobble

This is a desperate attack on a reasonable position. My children were the first to walk to school by themselves, the first to play out by themselves and have engaged in what others would call 'risky' play their whole life. They are still in swim wear in public places. Of course it is a mixed message to tell children their genitals are private but then tell them its ok to run naked in front of strangers. Just because you declare that is not confusing, doesn't mean it isn't. Children need clear, coherent rules and they are very good at identifying inconsistency. Any parent of young children will tell you this.

PP is right. Wearing swim wear is just a rule, like wearing a bike helmet, or sitting at the table to eat. Its ludicrous to claim that this will create anxious children who see danger everywhere.

And you are perfectly entitled to think its fine for strangers to have photos of your child to use for their own sexual purposes as long as you and your child don't know about it. Most people are not fine with that, and they are entitled to that view without being slurred as being anxious parents creating anxious children.

I wouldn't allow it or particularly like it.
But its hard to tell age of a dc

My 5year old is height and build of a 9 year old.

it really isn't hard to tell the age of most children - because that's how normal distribution works... Most children will be the same sort of height at the same age. its rare that children are exceptionally tall/short.

this level of paranoia - especially about something like a photo which would not impact the child directly

Oh I see, you're one of them. They can look but not touch, eh?

Who the fuck are you to decide that a photo of a naked child, which is potentially circulated around goodness knows where, has no impact on that child?!

You don't know what you're talking about. It's not harmless. It's not an acceptable risk. It has an impact. It ruins trust. It kills relationships. It destroys families.

I don't even put pictures of my DD online so you can probably guess my answer to this is there is no age when it's appropriate. Ever. Nappy and t-shirt for babies, swimsuit for toddlers (and none of this bikinis on little girls shit, I can't abide it. It's not necessary). I follow someone on Instagram who works in child protection and the amount of photos she posts of her DDs is mad. Swimming costumes, the lot. You'd think she'd know better 🤮

At no age should any child be naked in public

IME in Germany there is a romantic idea that nudity is fine because you shouldn't have any shame around your body, Frei Korpur Kultur etc. And some children are raised to believe that. But in reality i have seen time and again in places where people are swimming naked creeps hanging around, being creepy. As well as tourists from other cultures staring. And men happily lolling about near teenagers naked and exposing themselves.

Believe it or not and sure if anyone else has brought this up yet but Germany used to have a scheme which placed foster kids with paedophiles.

Yes, you read that right! They deliberately placed foster care kids with paedophiles. It wasn’t even that long ago. The government have since apologised and I think paid compensation but I’m sure the damage was severe.

It seems they are pretending to be naive and it was “a mistake” but no, I believe the people behind these policies in European countries know exactly what they’re doing. They can’t be that naive. It’s only a matter of time before paedophole rings are uncovered in many institutions worldwide.

I don’t know why people are using examples of European countries attitude towards child nudity to say that’s it’s ok and safe? And because “misoygnist cultures” (hello every country is misogynist) ask women and children to cover up that means Britain is on the wrong side. That is very poor logic indeed.

It is possible for Britain (and some other countries) to do better on some things compared to European countries and this is clearly one of them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Kentler#:~:text=Beginning%20in%20the%20late%201960s,while%20explicitly%20encouraging%20sexual%20contact

This made me feel a bit ill

wtf were they thinking

Yes it’s sickening. I was just reading more on it now but I’ve read more than enough for today 🤢 those poor kids.

If you put pics of your kids on SM then there’s just as much likelihood that their pics will be doctored for nefarious means surely.