to think that age 9 is too young to go the cinema in the evening without an adult ....?

[dicksbird]

Just collected DD from a sleepover. She is 9 but friend she stayed with is 10 and another girl also sleeping over is just 10. They are all in year 5.

I knew there was some mention that a cinema trip may be involved but I wasnt specifically told beforehand.

Now I find out they were dropped outside the cinema at 6.30pm amd picked up at 8.30 from outside. None of them had a mobile phone !!

Mumsney jury what do you think ??? Am i just being silly ???

I'm amazed by all the horrific ideas that people have of things that might happen in a cinema. Nothing like that has ever happened to me in a cinema.

Though actually, DS2 did injure himself at the age of 4 in the cinema (when with adults) because he climbed up onto a ledge at the front at the end of the film and fell off straight onto his upper lip! Is this the only cinema-related injury anyone has to report?

their are good points about giving your child freedom and bad points too just as their is with not giving your child freedom we all think we are doing right by our children so think we have to agree to disagree.

Boringly I am going to re-post my risks encountered while at Pony Club v.risks encountered at the cinema evaluation.

" Car backfires - horse spooks.
Dc walks behind horse - horse kicks out.
Pheasant goes up - horse spooks
Girth breaks dc falls off
Horse has heart attack and falls on rider
Bridle breaks - horse bolts, dd falls off
Horse swings round, crushes dd against the wall
Horse misjudges jump - falls on top of rider
Lunatic driver runs into horse on road
Dc puts muck fork through foot
Dc gets Lyme disease from tick in horse field

All these things have happened to me or people that I have known over my life. 2 of these people died.

In 45 years I have not known a single person come to any harm while at the cinema. Apart from Singersgirl's ds, obviously!

seeker, it is simply not true that people don't come to any harm at the cinema
I once dropped half a magnum on my new white t-shirt
It was dark (obviously) and I just didn't know how bad it was.
Oh, the shame!

seeker- i dont get your post

i dont see the point in that comment purepurple would you care to explain? its about children being at risk not weather you can find your mouth or not

pinklace - people have posted several times on here that they are happy for their children to take part in dangerous sports - riding and skiing were mentioned several times -but would not be happy for the same child to be dropped off at a cinema, to watch an age appropriate film and be picked up afterwards. I was trying to illustrate why this is completely bonkers in terms of risk assessment!

pinklace, 15 pages of the same old crap does tend to bring out the wicked side in me

sorry i dont mean to be rude but why are you reading it if its the same old boring crap

When we went skiing last month I was struck by the realisation that we spend so much time '(over)protecting' our DCs in some situations, but then seemingly unthinkingly putting them in quite dangerously 'unknown' situations at other times?

DS2 is 6, and having skiied a few times now, was moved into a group with 6-8 year olds. After the first couple of days I discovered that this meant that he was going up on the chairlift with his ski class. The ski school send one child at a time up on the end of the chair with a bunch of complete strangers:

• many non-english speaking
• many groups of young men/teenagers (would they think to help him in an emergency?)
• no accompanying adult known to him

I tried not to think about it too much - there were too many 'what if' s...

• what if the chair got stuck and he got panicky, all alone up there?
• what if he dropped his gloves/poles etc?
• what if they pushed the bar up too early and he panicked and fell off?
• what if they were rude, swearing or offensive to him?

He was fine BTW, but it struck me that I panic if he's out of sight in the park, but let him disappear up a mountain on his own

yes good point hopfully next time you go skiing you will make the right choice and not let him go alone

It's a funny thing I've noticed, but when people say 'I don't mean to be rude' they almost always go on to be outstandingly rude. Why is that?

pinklace - "yes good point hopfully next time you go skiing you will make the right choice and not let him go alone"

No, you misunderstand my post - he was perfectly fine, and in real terms the 'risk' was exceptionally low, and if you've ever been skiing (and I suspect from you post you haven't...)then you'll know that everyone helps the kids out etc

BUT

for any given situation, if you let yourself dwell on all the 'this might happens' then you're bound to whip yourself into a frenzy of anxiety...

As it happens, DS2 loved the fact that he had this little bit of 'independence'.
The right choice is to give them these opportunities...

I don't expect that a single child has fallen off the lift when on with a stranger-it would be in the news. It is standard practice when you are queuing in the same queue as a young class. There are 2 teachers and a whole group of DCs who need to go up in the chair lift-nothing else is possible. I have several times been paired with a French infant age DC, you make sure they are on, make sure that the bar is down and get the bar up at the other end and make sure they ski off. I try a few words of French to appear friendly! My DS was 6 yrs when he first had lessons, he knew no one else and it was a mixed nationality group. He got safely up and down the mountain-the teachers aim to come back with the same number they set off with! He had a great time. He had to be helped on and off lifts and had his fair share of falling off drag lifts.
If you let a nine year old go off skiing you can't do the lesson with them. There may be a power cut, in which case they are stuck on a lift! They may need to go to the toilet. I wouldn't stop my 9 yr old joining a ski class because of all of the things that might happen.
In comparison seeing through the door of the cinema and meeting them at the door at the end is a doddle! Plus the fact that the staff speak good English.

I take it then pinklace that you wouldn't let your DC ski, if they had the chance?! If so I think that is really sad. You can go to a film with them so they can still see it-you can't join a ski class of 9 yr olds.

Pisces - I'm violently agreeing with you

I didn't express my first post very well...

I knew exactly what you meant Legacy-I was supporting you. I thought it was an excellent comparison and puts the cinema into perspective.
I think it is Flaine where there is a very short chair lift on the nursery slope. I have been asked to take what looked like a 3/4 year old on it-everyone in the queue was asked to take one, you had the option of refusing but they needed to get the class up.
Any DCs class has too many DCs to sit next to a teacher-they use the adults in the queue.
All the worries that you had went through my mind, Legacy when mine was 6yrs but you keep them to yourself. He didn't have them.

Bizarrely, this thread has reminded me of one of my favourite bits of the Pooh stories!

"Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?"
"Supposing it didn't," said Pooh after careful thought.
Piglet was comforted by this.

It would be interesting to know how those of you who wouldn't let your DCs sit in the cinema for the length of a film would feel about them joining a ski class? Bearing in mind that a 9yr old beginner gets quite good fairly quickly and needs to use lifts away from the nursery slopes. Lifts do break down, often for short periods (you sit and wait, or stand and wait for it to move), there is a lack of toilets, they may fall badly and break bones, they may lose their poles or their lift pass or their gloves.
The weather might change-a sunny day may become a whiteout fairly quickly.
When my DS was 10 his class were high up the mountain, conditions suddenly changed, some of the DCs were frightened and most were cold. The teacher got them to a hut and got transport sent up and they left their skis in the hut until the next day and got a lift down and all had hot chocolate. They were fine by the time I picked him up.
It is all about controlled risk. In my mind the benefits outweighed the risks, and the risks were considerably more than the risk of a power cut in the cinema!

On the subject of skiing (we are going well off topic now but never mind!), my sister has recently come back from Meribel and all the children have magnetic blobs on the back of the bibs they wear to ski school which effectively stick them to the back of the chairs on chair lifts to stop them sliding out. I think that's an excellent idea

Pisces - yes, if I try to rationalise it, skiing (and ski lessons) are probably one of the most dangerous, out of my control, things I let my kids do. However because in that environment that is what everyone lets their kids do, there is sort of social proof that it's actually fine and acceptable.

The problem with the media these days is that the extraordinary is given such prominence that people begin to believe that it is the norm.

I remember reading a really interesting behavioural theory book which pointed out that we need to turn this on its head. The 'news' should be that 2,000 9-year-olds went to the cinema alone today and returned safely home...

Legacy perfect summary