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?

Today I heard a mum, as she said goodbye to her DS of about 9/10 about 10-15 metres away from the school gate, say ........"Don't talk to strangers"

He had to walk 10-15 metres on a cul-de-sac which led to the school.

FFS!

I don't have a problem wity sleepovers at friends hpouses at all.
But I am your unsuspecting type, I think the good in the world outweighs the bad

I am with Abbey A on this

YANBU.

Out of curiousity, how much publicity do people here think abduction/kidnap and rape of a 12yr old would receive?

I ask because after this happened to a 12 yr old boy in our village recently I was amazed that it got a 2" column in our local rag and nothing else. Did slightly shake my confidence in how safe I assume the world to be.

Alienbump, To be fair I wouldn't want any publicity about my child in those circumstances. At last a sensitive journalist. In a small village that would be terrible. Poor lad would think everyone was staring at him when they weren't. Most abductions happen by the really parent of the child (non sexual) Most kidnapping are not publicied as they are gang related. (My friend works in that dept in NSY)It also may damage the court case. We don't need newspapers terrifing us.

OK I'll go for this. I was a 16 year old stood in a bus stop with some down and out getting his dick out to masterbate in front of us. We just laughed and said it looked like button mushroom. This was around 1976. Didn't do us much harm.

Witty,

Exactly I don't know any of the parents at my children's school really well and certainly not well enough to leave my child with them overnight.

So does that mean it is as rare occurence as I have always assumed it to be? The fact that it happened about 500m from my house and most of my neighbours/friends knew nothing about it did make me question myself.

Stewie

We do this all the time.

MY DD has had sleepovers from the age of 8 (one time I had 5 of her friends - never again!) and I have no problem with picking up/dropping off at other kids houses but as to letting them out on their own - I think between the ages of 12-16 years is plenty enough time to gradually build up kids independence/confidence. Why should (lazy, lazy, lazy) parents feel the need to let their kids roam the streets at 7 yrs old, then (hypothetically) blame the car driver who knocks them down? Take them out and occupy them yourselves FGS! I work for a housing org and we had a complaint from a resident who wanted to be rehoused as her 6 year old was being bullied by older kids and had been whacked on the head with a piece of wood, as she was letting him out on his own while she sat on her arse indoors. Her solicitor said his life was in danger and it would be on our conscience - go figure! Not all 'cottonwool' kids are obese and hooked on computer games either. TOGETHER we use the local tennis/basketball courts, go cycling and probably use up more energy than the (unsupervised) kids hanging round the park scratching swear words into the play equipment.

Ok, that makes sense. In this case, they gave the names of the two men charged, I presume that means they weren't connected to the boy then?

lonleymum

Thank the lord, somebody who does it in a very similar fashion to me! (except the sleepover bit)

Stewie

It took me along time to allow my children to stay at their GP's so it will be along time before I will allow them to stay at friend's houses. My Ds was invited to a very good friend's house to stay - i know the family pretty well and I'm sure he would be safe and well looked after BUT i don't feel that he would be happy staying away and it opens the floodgates to him staying at other friend's houses.

I am not keen on sleepovers purely because they don't sleep so I don't encourage them ,but when I know the families I would have no hesitation in letting them go. I think that they are a good thing-I just don't like them!
You have to trust -my DS did a French exchange-I trusted the school to vet the family (I never met them)the French boys family trusted his school to sort it out. If we had all been paranoid about the risk a very valuable experience would have been lost.

wastingmyeducation, indeed you can teach them about cars as well as not talking to strangers, or what to do if approached by a pervert. My point is...you cannot know (I still don't know what the benchmarks are for a pervert) what a dangerous person looks like.
If you lived in Texas then you are familiar with the point of a couple of teachers inappropriately touching students?
Nothing stunts a childs growth of person like a person in a position where they have authority.
A real classic is the case of the McDonalds manager that was convinced on the phone that one of the teenager workers was a shoplifter. The manager had her strip and wait for the police (the person on the phone was representing themselves as a policeman) in the office. The girl was molested by the managers then fiance' and held for hours with nothing but an apron on.
You can teach a child what a car looks like but you cannot stress enough that good people and bad people don't have a face.
I do want my children to grow up and be self assured enough to make good decisions so I try (age appropriately) to let them know that there are dangers out there whether crossing a highway or just being aware of dangerous strangers. I also want them to know there are places you don't want to be as well as safe ones...safety in numbers etc.

I think if I had to rank fears I would start with school shootings as highest on my list and traffic last. BTW I just witnessed a traffic accident and was very thankful there were no pedestrians at the intersection at that time.
I also think that if the number of tow trucks was equal to the number of policemen we would have less crime...at least it would be addressed quicker.

Ah. The old playing in the moat thing. Mine do that all the time. Occasionally I allow them to shoot from the battlements as well. Sometimes they get to lower the portcullis as well.

wehaveallbeenthere, don't remember anything specific about incidents involving teachers, don't know timeframe for that, but I did learn about not being able to tell a bad person by their outward appearance, from a Bearenstein Bears book.
Your point about ranking fears - they are your fears, not probable dangers. Perhaps you should be more afraid of traffic accidents, as that is much more likely to happen. Thats the point that the majority on this thread are making, the emphasis on stranger danger etc. to the point that it prevents children exploring the world is irrational.

xx

Re lazy parenting: Where is it written that parenthood has to be one long, unremitting slog?

I think it makes sense for kids to have self-defence lessons at school, so they learn to punch men in the willies if they try to take them away, etc. Or to practise with your child what to do if they get lost - eg, for the child to choose a woman and ask her to help (you are unlikely to choose to talk to a nutter; a nutter will choose to talk to you).

I wouldn't send my kids out into the world and just hope for the best. But after I'd done all the above, I'd let them go out without me, at that age.

I walked over a mile to school aged 9. Across a park and along a very busy main road. Never any problems. Oh. I fell off my bike once, but a nice man stopped and helped me up.

I know of two paedophiles from my childhood, a vicar and a priest. Both were very well respected, worked exclusively with children and were universally admired and trusted by parents. Oh, actually, three - a music teacher too. All three eventually arrested. I'm pretty sure they would have passed a CRB check too.

I think locking up your kids incase a bad-man gets them is crazy. As people have said, the roads are far more dangerous. Teach them road-sense and to be aware of their surroundings. And give them some freedom to become confident people.