I am disgusted at the Madeleine McCann/Shrek debate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bigmamie]

I have joined this site solely to remind all you thoughtless, forgetful, selfish ba#@ards that Madeleine McCann is missing!!!!!!!! I cannot understand how anyone can sit with their arms around their own children, in the comfort of a cinema whilst feeding their children popcorn and Coke that there are lots of mothers in this world who cannot do this. Their children have been taken from them and I wonder if any of you had the money or the resources available to them, I wonder if you would have campaigned this long or this hard for their daughters return. I wish the McCanns every success and only wish I could physically find their daughter for them. I am taking my 6 kids to see Shrek tomorrow and I hope my cinema is still showing the Madeleine film. I hope the publicity generated stays in your faces for a long time to come. Tell me, if she passed in front of you down at the shops or at the park could any of you be bothered to actually tell someone. Or are you all just to happy in the knowledge that its not one of your children. There but for the grace of God............

i dont want my kdis to know a little girl was snatched from her bed. they know a little girl is missing, but not that one fact. bedtime should be a safe place, not having them scared to go to sleep in case someone snatches them.

how about a picture of madeleine with a number to call, thats non-scary, and reaches those they want to know.

btw pagwatch, my dd3 is a small 2year old. with blond/brown hair similar style to madeleines. I had some woman in ikea wembley questioning me about madeleine,k asking my daughters age 'is she the same age as the girl who is missing' 'no she is 2' 'oh she is big for 2' (no she not she is in 12-24month clothes, she is small) and peering into my daughters eyes, which are black, not the same colour as madeleine. at thought maybe she was just being friendly and chatty at first till she did the eye peering thing. i had to ask my friend what she thought of what just happened, and was she really checking to see if my dd3 was madeleine. friend said, yes she was. makes me a bit anxious when i go out with her out of the area (small community, a lot of people know us from media campaign due to dh illness).

"If Madeleine Mccann had been taken from the playground of the resort she was staying at, or snatched from the beach, or from by the pool when her parents had turned their backs for a split second there would have been a far greater argument for this sudden need to tell our children about stranger danger"

No, there wouldn't. It would still have been an extraordinarily rare, bad stroke of luck.

LOL at the pink panther thing.

I'm sorry, but humming it is the least offensive thing I would manage in your circumstances! You are extremely tolerant.

to all of you who think i dont listen
I DO and I HAVE!

Is 60+ days not enough time to have told your kids something? There should not be the need for a prewarning that the ad was going to be shown on the big screen, because you all have had sufficient time to have already discussed it with your kids.

The reason i "have not yet replied" to your backlash is because i have had to take our dog into the vets for removal of a possible tumour. I had no choice but to take along my youngest child who is 4. I have had to explain to her about the situation. Of course i could always say that the dog had to go in there for play! Which im sure some of you would tell your kids, but what if she doesnt come home after the op, what if the worst happened?? What would i then tell my daughter? How will i also explain to my daughter that the dog now has a wound and she must be left to rest when she comes home?

I repeat, KIDS OF CERTAIN AGES CANNOT BE TOTALLY SHIELDED FROM THE GRIM REALITY OF LIFE!!!

I DO AGREE THE WORDING OF MADELEIENES AD SHOULD BE ALTERED TO SUIT A CHILD but for gods sake stop slating me for my opinions! Im not attacking those of you who have told their kids something, but comments are ONLY directed at those who think they can hide all this type of information from their children until they decide! My worry is that they will find out on their own (this is mostly related to school age children).

yes of course it would still have been incredibly rare, but people would still have felt a greater need to reinforce to their children the importance of staying close at all time/not wandering off with strangers etc.

The reality is that having a child snatched from a park could happen to anyone, it's highly unlikely that it would, but it could, but having a child snatched from its bed is almost unheard of and is only likely to happen to those who feel it appropriate to leave their children unsupervised while they go out to dinner.

and bloody hell scc people seriously have lost the plot haven't they? Am baffled that people would seriously think an abductor would be shopping with Madeleine in Ikea.

how is your dh btw?

haychee, try explaining to a toddler what a heart pump is.

[walks off whistling]

why would i want to do that? and i think if i had to for some bizarre reason , i would!
Your question is bizarre!

i know wannabe, what the hell would madelein be doing in ikea wembley, madness.

dh is still with us, thank goodness. no calls yet.

But still Haychee, it's nothing to do with you is it, how and what parents decided to tell their children? Every parent has the right to decide when to inform their children about this sort of thing and it should be on their own terms. I don't think school age children should necessarily be told that Madeleine was snatched from her bed, not the younger ones.

As a KS1 teacher I am not allowed to teach the facts of life to my class - even when they ask - I have to say "if you want to know about that you should ask your Mummy and Daddy". This is because I have to respect parental rights. This advert didn't do that I'm afraid.

because haychee that is what my kids are dealing with, and they have enough nightmares about that, without telling them a little girl was snatched from her bed when she was asleep.

Im truly sorry to hear that choccycake! I really am! Speechless for a mo!
There are also alot of sick kids in the world who have to go through terrible operations and repeated attempts at rectifying their health. They have to have some kind of understanding as to what is happening to them, so what would be the best approach? to tell them nothing or to try and explain? You must of had to of tried to explain to your kids what has happened to their dad? They must ask questions? I understand that it must be very difficult, i never said it would be easy to explain, but it has to be tried surely?

I can see both sides to the argument, yes this publicity can put the fear of god into chidren, children often dont understand statistics and believe that it will happen to them, but at the same time, a little girl is missing (along with thousands more) If I was in the parents position, I too would want as much awareness as possible, I think they can be forgiven for thier thought being solely on trying to find thier daughter, and not everyone elses children.

haychee. have you actually used the words snatched from her bed to your children?

yes they know a watered down kiddy version of what is wrong with dh, adults know that dh has a heart condiotion dilated cardiomyopathy and without a transplant he will die. my kids know that daddy has a poorly heart, he has a pump and is waiting for a new one.

adults know that madeleine was almost certainly snatched from her bed whilst asleep. children dont need to know that, my kis know a girl is missing and people are looking for her.

can you see it yet?

JACANNE
how do you explain the fact that my daughter attended a school assembly which was dedicated in focused on Madeleine McCann? I am most definitely adamant that im glad i got in there first!

Guys, please, no more Madeleine arguments. There are varying opinions on the whole case, this could just run and run.

I have just happened upon these Madeleine/Shrek threads, so may be repeating a lot of what's been said, as I haven't read much of the threads, but would like to add my opinion. I was surprised too at the Madeleine film in the trailers for Shrek. If I'd been given a choice, I wouldn't have wanted it to be shown. I wouldn't want it thrust in mine or my DC's faces. My DC's however, are aware of the Madeleine case, they're not that freaked out by it, and I think a lot of children won't be, although there are of course those that are. Most children, dependant on age, will in some way understand that occasionally bad things happen in the world, but hopefully they feel secure enough not to be threatened by things like that themselves. Basically, I think a lot of kids don't spend a huge amount of time thinking about such things, and that can only be a good thing.

I do strongly agree that the Madeleine film in the cinema was highly inappropriate and Odeon (is it only Odeon that have done it?) shouldn't have shown it.

haychee did they do that without informing the parents? How old were the children involved?

haychee - your school should not have held that assembly. It is up to the parents, not the school to tell children these things!

Luckily round here schools and nurseries have retained a modicum of commons sense - not once have they mentioned MMC, and none of the children have asked anything.

That is the way I want to keep it!

Yes choccycake i see it! Ive seen it for a couple of days! The wording should be changed but the ad should not be withdrawn from the cinema!
Ive said that over and over again but your not listening!
MY issue is with those parents who want their kids not to have to worry about any bad stuff that goes on the world. My issue is that it would be impossible to shield children of school age form the grim reality of life!
Just recently, a man approached some junior school children as they left for home. A letter went round to all the parents and the children were warned and reinforced the dangers of talking to strangers by the school! What a shock that would be for those kids who have NO IDEA that there is such a thing as a dangerous stranger!

choccy was it near you that the yellow ribbons were outside someone's house?

I personally feel that whole school assembleys devoted to one child are totally ott. What does it achieve? Children of certain ages do need to know to be aware, but they don't need to know about this case - it's not as if 4 year olds are going to be vidulant and looking out for Madeleine is it?

The ad has to withdrawn in the short term so the wording can be changed.

How can you not agree with the wording but let the ad run???

Don't you see that?

HAYCHEE I think that your school shouldn't have done that, it was innapropriate - if they did I would hope that they kept the details hazy. I don't think you are wrong to have told your child about it, I don't think the people that chose not to tell their children about it are wrong. It is your/their right to choose as a parent what to tell your/their children.

Erm, what's a dog with a tumour got to do with it (I'm very sorry about that btw, it must really upsetting for you and your family, hope everything is OK) My children know about the 'harsher' things in life when I feel that knowing about them when they need to know about them.

They know lots of potentially upsetting things that many parents (understandably) balk at telling their kids like where meat comes from - we keep our own chickens, ducks, pigs and they know that we eat them. I think it is important that they know this, but not important that they know about little girls being snatched from their beds.

the children who attended this assembly were infans reception- year2. Not one parent complained! The most complaints are to do with the fact that the children were made to pray! Most of the parents are not religious- and this was and is the issue at the forefront not the fact theat they had mentioned the madleine case!

Flipping heck - reception classes - 4 and 5 year olds??

Give me strengh - the head of that school is insane!
How are the parents going to deal with the fall out from that one?
(never mind making children in a non-religious school pray)

See that is what is wrong with the media circus surrounding MMC, children are told too much and made to do things they never normally do (pray) and then adults are surprised their little ones are unable to keep this danger in perspective.

Hippi clasp nork and walks off, vowing to find a saner place...