Not to subscribe to the view that "there's a paedophile on every corner" and "you never know who's driving about" and allow my children what I consider to be an appropriate amount of independence?

[MrsSchadenfreude]

I'll start by saying that we live in the country and I might be a little less relaxed if we lived in a town. My children are 10 and 7 and are allowed to:

Go to the post box (5 minute walk, no roads to cross)

Go to the shop (2 minute walk, no roads to cross)

Go to the park (4 minute walk, two roads to cross) and to play there on their own for half an hour

Play in the moat and fields that back onto our house for up to two hours at a time. (They can - mostly - be seen from the house.)

They have been allowed to do all this for the past 18 months since we moved here. We had some friends round recently whose children are older (12 & 13), and were horrified when I told DD1 and DD2 to take them into the fields and show them their "camp" they had made. These children are not allowed out of the parents' sight - we walked down to the river and one lagged behind and the mother went hysterical when she realised she couldn't see her DD (who is 13).

Surely unless we allow them a small amount of independence they will have difficulties adjusting to "real life" as they get older?

It's just as likely that Madeleine McCann got up, left the bedroom and fell into the harbour and drowned than that a peedafil got her (or her parents killed her and hid the body). The Mccann case is not a good example of 'stranger danger' because no one knows what happened to that kid.

I'll be letting DS out when he's bigger, lots of kids play in the street round here and there are (I am gleefully discovering) a few more anarchic parents round here with similar views, so the kids will be able to play together - the biggest problem with letting your DC out when everyone around you is a paranoid buckethead is that your DC will be lonely and bored and come straight back home....

Bloomingfedup, your attitude was not "Your kid your choice" your attitude was "Cop out if your choice is not the same as mine".

So when someone comes right back atcha with your own phrase ("cop out") you imply that the only reason they would allow their child to go for a sleepover, is because they are too lazy to look after them

I don't really understand why you feel the need to imply that.

But if I've misinterpreted your post, then by all means explain it.

I didnt let my daughter go to school by herself till she was in the last term of year 6. She really wanted to walk with her friend who lives at the top of the road and after speak with her mum (as anxious as me), we let them go as they'd be walking to secondary school in a few months anyway.

Anyhoo for the first 3 days it was fine. I had to go to school anyway to take her sister and brother so she and her friend just left 10 mins before us.

4th day comes and as i am crossing the road into school, the lollipop lady tells me that my daughter is upset and some little bitch child, had had a go at her.

I found my daughter in the playground with a cut on her hand, as this girl had teased her and her friend and then pushed my daughter over

This was on the friday, but by the following Monday she was happy to walk to school with her friend again.

I must admit that the greatest sound i hear in the afternoon is the sound of her key turning in the lock, but i'm trying to get over myself.

My lot (11, 8, 6) went to the park without me after school today. They came back with 623 conkers! Yes, they counted them.
They had so much more fun than if I had been there mooching around after them.
YANBU at all, Mrs S.

bloomongfed up - why no sleepovers?

You are more likely to be struck by lightening than abducted by a stranger. And the psychological damage being done to all these poor little hot housed, cotton wool wrapped WATCHED children is incalculable.

Like Damian Hirst I would like to walk in front of my children with a duvet, so when they fall over they are not hurt.

Of course we don't like the idea of them coming to any harm.

I have been allowing my dd1 9 much more freedom. I would worry more if I was turning her out at 18 with no experience.

And how do things like skiing or horseriding sit, when you are afraid to let your child walk and play?

lingle, this is exactly what my dd did this summer. recently moved here and all the kids get on their bikes/skates and go off for the whole day to the moor or the park and come back every so often when they are hungry or need a poo! all around 9/10. blissful, just like my childhood memories

I think this overprotectedness is doing kids no favours. Did most of us as children not get in some minor scrapes and have to learn how to 'save' ourselves?
When the overprotected children in teh OP grow up and are out on their own, they are going to have no idea how to look after themselves.

Since ds was 8 he has been allowed to walk to the shop on his own (two minutes one road to cross) and this summer (he was 9 in August) he spent a lot of time with a friend in the woods on their own riding a bike, looking for the big lake (which is not there anymore, it is a mere puddle, but the woods are still called after the lake) and building a den.
They would take a watch adn some sarnies and be out for hours. Then come back all muddy and exhausted, but exhilerated adn happy.
Proper childhood

OP - YANBU

Sounds like the childhood I had - we used to fuck off all day and play over the fields when I was a child. My parents would both be at work all day. We lived right on the edge of Birmingham and the countryside was less than a 10 min walk away. My parents were more concerned about farming machinery and canals.

thats second generation sun readers for you.

The sun and the NOTW have a lot to answer for imho.

too right - we need to start a campaign " trash the tabloid trash"

I hate those "Paedo's Christmas Meal" type articles.

"Fucking disgusting, it is," says Dave from Dagenham, who then has to calm it down because of high bp, brought on by the fact that "he pays his taxes to keep them" and the excitement of possible vigilante action, as a paediatrician has moved into the next street.

But what can you do? If you let your DC have some freedoms (exactly as people describe here) you run the risk of getting reported to Social Services, and they will advise that a child under 11 should never be out of your sight. I'm very scared of getting reported to SS (it's happened to me once already for the types of things mentioned here).

I think the traffic is what worries me the most, not paedophiles. Is it not trie that a child cannot judge the speed of traffic before around 8/9?

DD is almost 8, we have just moved from a village where I would send her to the shop as I was too lazy allow her to go to the shop. There were no roads.

We have just moved and there is a complicated bend near the shop (same distance as before) so I won't allow her to go. She is dyspraxic and finds doing more than one thing at a time hard so wouldn't be safe judging if a car was coming from 3 different directions. A long single road where there would be no surprises, or even the walkways we have going round the estate, no problem.

The only reason I collect her from school is because it's sociable, I like talking to friends at the gates or I'd probably allow her home by herself.

Most sensible folk are unlikely to report you though. If I saw an 8 year old on his/her own I wouldn't think anything of it. If I saw a 3 year old roaming the streets alone, 'twould be a different matter of course.

I had a friend nearby who lived on a 50-acre farm and it's only now that I realise what a lucky childhood I had, going to visit him and disappearing into the fields to make camps, construct rudimentary bridges across streams and smack cowpats with sticks. My children have never done anything like that.

i agree. i remember spending most of my summer days as a young child playing in the street and alley with a gaggle of friends. all the kids on the street wouild play togther. apparently there was a peadophile in the next street. we cant have been very actractive children as he never approached us. or maybe that was because they generally dont just snatch children off the street. particulalry children in large groups?

my dd1 is nearly five i allow her to play out on the front street in front of my window only. im not out there with her but leave the window open so i can see and hear her. she feels very grown up. she is the only child over the age of 11 on our street allowed to do this. im expecting SS anyday

my dds are 6 and 4 and i let them play outside in the culdesac with the other neighbours children on bikes etc

What do you do when your kids won't go out and do stuff?

We moved to the country, have our own bloody field with a two spinneys full of trees, a bit of river, ponies, the works. They could wander about all day among it all for me.

But will they? Will they hell.

I'm hoping that the time will come when they want to spread their wings, but no sign as of yet.

We might as well live in a block of flats as things are.

Added to that, my ds2 is visually impaired, so I am more protective, though I try not to show it.

my dad told me something that i found quite sad. he regularly takes my ds(7) and neice (6) to the park, he told me that sometimes he feels mums are looking at him strangely, wondering why he's there at all, until they realise that he's with his grandchildren.

not sure what this has to do with this thread but had to post it somewhere.

KerryMum, yes, there are dangers, but as a child I was allowed to run around all over the place, we had dens and played stoney,stoney, had whole street water fights etc, it was great.

The point when I stopped being safe was when my mother had gone to work and I was in ym bedroom.

Statistically it is much safer for your child to be playing out with a group of friends than with family.

Littlebella,

I was trying to say - lets agree to disagree actually. But I was also making the point that some parents (possibly a small monority) allow their children lots of freedom as they simply finder it easier for themselves. I am not saying that is the case most of the time but IS some of the time. lazy parenting.

Agree its the traffic for me that limts ds3, we're on a one way road and the cars hurtle down the wrong way. No pavement to speak of.

Had a bizarre convo once similar to this thread. I could see ds3 on the campsite but BIL couldn't(ad back to me).

BIL: 'Where's ds3'

Me: 'Oh he's fine'

@You want to watch it, someone could take him'

Ipersonally i'd be more worrie about cars'

@you wouldn't say that to Maddy McCann's Mum'

Er no I wouldn't. And?

not convinced his kids will be allowed out at 37!

not an issue for forseable future due to ds1's sn, but I do wonder about ds2 (7): do I delay his freedom not to cause rifts with ds1 (DS1 thinks he is omnipotent and cannot be ahrmed)? or do I let him go for it when ready ad potentially damage ds1's self esteem?