are we over protective?

[ourdarling]

Would you leave your young children to play in a public/pub playground unattended?

Our dd is 4.6 and on 2 recent occasions we have been out with older family members to a pub with a adjoining playground. dd of course wanted to go to the playground so my husband and l took it in turns to go with her as we always do. We were lectured in both cases to let her go by herself. For one of the occasions l agreed, but l kept looking out the window to check on her and l was told off again for being over protective. When we got home l told my husband how uncomfortable l felt. He did too. When l was a very young child my sister, brother and me would just go off to the park by ourselves, quite frankly my mother very young herself and did'nt seem to worry. l told my husband l would never again allow anyone to stop me doing what l think is right. Sometimes when we are in a playground with dd, we come across young ones on their own. Sometimes they will ask me or my husband to help them on various playground equipment. Always we ask where are your mummy & daddy. It makes my blood run cold. What do you think?

Glad I'm not alone in this - was beginning to think that dh and I were overly protective. Our ds (5 - just) does not get to play outside on his own - playpark at end of road, but he is always accompanied! He also does not get left in the school playground on his own in the mornings as there is no supervision. At some point we will need to let him out alone - but don't know when!

the statitstics for children being killed or abducted by strangers are roughly the same now as they were in the 1950s. i'm not saying that this makes it ok, but i spose i'm saying it hasn't gotten worse, which many parents maybe think it has. the media has caused the perception of numbers of abductions to rise. however, accidents cause by traffic have obviously risen sharply due to colume of traffic and i'm much more scared of dd's road awareness when we go out. she's only 3 so we haven't had to worry about the playing out on her own thing yet but i know she'll have a different time than i did as a child.

i meant volume

I would'nt dream of letting my 3 and half year old play anywhere without me, when we go to he playground i can't sit and relax i have to be there running round with him. I had a brilliant childhood growing up on a council estate in the seventies and i am really sad that my son will miss out on this. I don't know why on the whole we have become more protective, because in those days everyone i knew used to drive home from the pub so there where loads of drunk drivers, big alsation dogs used to roam free on there own. I used to babysit my sisters baby when i was 11. but nobody seemed to see any danger in anything in those days, now every where we look we see danger in everything, it's a very sad change of the times. and i am very over protective of my son but i put it down to being a older mother, i'm 39, it seems older mothers seem to worry more than younger ones in my experience of talking to other mums.