to think my SIL spoke inappropriately to my 5 year old

[susia]

My son and his cousin both 5 were playing in my parent's garden. My parents have a big garden about 200 foot but not enormous and it is surrounded by a hedge/fence all around. Anyway, they were playing outside alone which I think is completely fine.

Anyway, my son came in and said 'Is someone going to steal me?' and I said 'of course not! who said that to you?' My SIL said 'I did, because they were playing in the garden on their own, which I'm not happy about'.

I said I was fine with my DS playing outside on his own and I had to keep reassuring my DS that noone would steal him.

I think was really wrong of her to say, I have in the past had a chat with him about going off with strangers etc but have not felt it appropriate to worry him about abduction. I also feel that at 5 he is fine along/playing with his cousin in an enclosed garden!

Notforgirls, I have reported your post as offensive. Please try to remember that personal remarks directed at individual posters are not acceptable.

why is everyone getting at notforgirls in this OTT way can I ask? Seems to me she lets her kids off the lead in a fairly normal way. No handcuffs or locking in from what she says.

(Though I dislike the 'bogeyman' thing absolutely).

Oh, I see from your subsequent posts that I was quite wrong, and you are a really, really lovely person. Just delightful.

Have to agree with blackeyeddog. Saying that someone does not sound like a nice person and what was said before that (can't repeat) was very uncalled for and they should also be reported.

It's been an interesting discussion & think Notforgirls has put her pov well despite my having a different vp.

Why do MN threads have to go this way?

Anyway, I was meant to have an early night

I do feel that NFG has felt got at a bit. I feel that she is probably the mother of very young children and hasn't yet had to think through the issue of how to let go. However, she has thought it through and does genuinely feel that children should be cossested. In which case I feel for her children.

Night

Tbgp- TBH I think Notfor has been provoked.

when I grew up in the 70's there were flashers etc but we were allowed incredible freedom. Aged five I was given the woods and fields behind grannies house to roam around alone for a couple of hours. I would absolutely not send ds out like this now. Am I too paranoid? Perhaps, but times have also changed surely?

Actually, I think this hysterical and brutal way that people desperately seek to blame mothers for any appalling misfortune that may occur to their children (instead of feeling a normal human emotion such as sympathy or empathy) is responsible for much of the fear that is limiting children's lives.
I think it is cruel, heartless and bizarre in the extreme to heap blame upon a mother whose daughter was snatched and raped because she committed the hideous sin of leaving a door unlocked as she put out the rubbish at 7pm.
She could be reading this you know.

notforgirls: about 9 children each year are abducted by strangers in the UK. These are children of all ages, not just under a certain age. that means something like 9 children out of about what, 10 - 15 million (?) multiplied by the number of days in the year when they all play outside (and inside) - not just in a secure back garden.

I think you are being hysterical here.

notforgirls did sound like she was blaming the mother of the little girl because the back door was unlocked.

At 7 in the evening, it is acceptable to have you back door unlocked!

The man involved had a previous history sex crimes. He was on the prowl. If it wasn't that back door he entered, it was going to be another one! Why insinuate that it was the mother's fault.

I remember this case quite clearly because it happened just a few streets from where dh was working at the time.

I'm lost, what MsD say that was so offensive?? Was it just the bit about if one of her children was taken (then graphic)??? Why did nfg get upset about that? Unless she thought her kids were being spoken about

It is awful to blame the parents over that bath snatch case, I have never locked back doors until bedtime here, if truthful, I've always hated locking the house up when we are in, in case of fire.

I think she took offense at the graphic words about children being raped but I think got offended for the wrong reason and misunderstood. Nobody was being offensive to her - just suggesting that wrapping children in cotton wool is damaging to them. I also think, so many people disagreeing with you is upsetting.

We are going to end up with a generation of people who don't have a clue about the real world, how to evaluate risks, how to feel secure in themselves, who are afraid of doing anything (or who go the opposite way and launch into severe risky behaviours). People are worrying way too much now about their kids, it's a shame that the wonderful childhood days of wandering through woods, jumping in streams, climbing trees and walking to the shops are long gone for some Yes there may always be risks with everything but it's up to us as parents to teach children about how to deal with and evaluate such risks.

Oh dear, what a heated thread...
as for OP....I think it was silly of your sil to scare your child that way...nothing been achieved by that!
bh, if the Kids can't play alone in thegarden, then where could they play!

I think people often forget that it isn't strangers that we should be worried about...childabuse mostly happens within the close family/friendship circle....

YANBU

It seems that the UK has been driven to hysteria by the press about kids being snatched and paedophiles on every corner. We've recently moved to Montreal, and I take my son to the park where there is a fountain, that all the kids play in. They get in their swimmers and have a great time. I take photos of DS playing their and because of the general attitude in the UK, expected a tap on the shoulder and a request to stop, or delete the pics. No one is bothered over here. Yes, they do keep an eye on their kids, but they don't mind if people are videoing, photographing and not glued to the kids side the whole time.

I find it sad that a lot of parents in the UK put such restraint on their children for a very small chance of what might happen, due to the media over there.

I am acknowledging that bad things do happen, and yes we do have to be careful, but I'd like to let my child have a somewhat carefree childhood with me in the shadows watching him, rather than stopping him from enjoying things kids shoud.

ALERT but not ALARMED.

notforgirls: I'd really recommend that you have a read of one of Frank Furedi's books, either Paranoid Parenting or Culture of Fear. I don't agree with everything he says, but he makes some very interesting points about parental worries and why we see danger lurking round every corner.

Kiskidee - I don't think anybody in their right mind could blame the mother when her child was snatched from her bath and I don't think notforgirls was either.

She was underlining the possible threat to children in apparently harmless situations - having a bath at home with mum around. She wondered why the child wasn't supervised because she thought the child was 3 - tho actually the child was 6.

I am curious to know if things are actually different these days. Or not. I worry about this. I got run over by a car aged 6 attempting to cross the high street. Should I have been there without mum? Now there are a million more cars, are these driven statistically by younger madder drivers? Probably.

If I had been snatched playing in the woods alone beyond granny's house would my mother face tabloid slander about her neglect? Or threads here?

notforgirls:
"I thought the child was 3. I was not implying it was the parent's fault. But I do not have alot of sympathy for people who take stupid risks - there door was unlocked - was it not? I feel sorry for the poor child."

Event hough she got the age wrong, she is implying that because the door was unlocked it was a stupid risk. Her contradiction by her previous sentence notwithstanding.

I am about to have a baby and will have a 3yo dd too. Sometimes my 3yo will be in a different room from me and the baby and the back or front door may be unlocked. Why will that be 'a stupid risk'?

'But i also think that for some parents it is easier to chuck their kids in the street to play than to have them under their feet.'

Yes it certainly is. That's what I do, when I can. Unfortunately there are rarely enough older children out there for it to be reasonably safe for my ds to go and hang out. I know that I am very lax on parenting safety, and I do put my son at some risk sometimes - i believe those risks to be manageable by me or him. So be it. Mostly I think what will happen to him is the development of competence and independence.

Your SIL was out of order IMO and I think you should challenge her when you are alone, and then have a talk about it with both of you and the children.

I have read through most of this thread and it does seem to have turned into an argument about potential danger situations for children and whether you can over-protect them or not.

I can kind of see both sides to that particular argument - I don't want to stiffle(sp?) my dd's enjoyment of play and life but I would also want to prevent the preventable rather than live to regret it.

BUT I got the impression that the OP was asking whether her SIL was out of order in what she said to her ds and I would say YES she was out of order to put the shits up him when he was just out having fun in the garden, poor kid.

Much more appropriate to voice any concerns she had to you rather than frightening ds unnecessarily IMHO.

Reading through the thread I see that it got very heated after I went to bed!
The risks are very small and IMO they have to be taken for the mental health of the DC. It isn't healthy to bring them up in an atmosphere of fear.
There is a fine line between being aware of stranger danger and being over protected. As a DC I felt perfectly safe but I knew that you never got into a car with strangers etc. You have to gradually let them have independence and assess the risk for themselves.
It can be very rude if they just have a blanket rule. A few years ago, I remember that we were looking for a road in a strange town. We stopped to ask directions from 2 girls, aged about 12 on bikes, one of them just said 'I'm not allowed to talk to strangers'. We had to respect that but I thought it totally unnecessary and very abrupt. They could have worked out that they were perfectly safe! The car was full, we had 3 children in the back,one of them a baby. They were on bikes, if we had as much as looked threatening they could have been at the end of the road before I got out of the car. As it turned out all they needed to have said was 'the next turning on the left' which is actually a shorter sentence than the one she gave!
Viewing everyone as a potential child snatcher stops a lot of friendly interaction. My grandfather loved small children, there was nothing unhealthy about it. When he came to stay with us and my brother was 5, his little friend, the girl next door used to bring her chair round to our garden to 'talk to xxx's Grandpa'. He was about 80 and it made him very happy to solemnly chat to two 5 yr old. I can see that the SIL in OP wouldn't have allowed this!
I was very proud of my DS when he was 5 and I lost him in Hamley's Toyshop. One minute he was there and the next he was gone! Before I really had time to panic there was an announcement 'would Mrs xxx meet her son at xxx'. He had assessed the options and gone up to a security guard and told him he had lost his mother. He hadn't been left a shivering wreck because he had been fed stories of 'bogey men'.
The risks are very slight, unfortunately I can't find an article in The Times recently but I think that it said that the odds were such that if you left your DC outside -deliberately to be snatched by a stranger-you would have to wait something like 240years! It was ridiculous but it was pointing out that it is very unlikely! Most DCs are abused by someone they know.
Everything in life is a risk. You can injure yourself getting out of bed!