More worried about abduction than obesity?

[CatherineHMumsnet]

There's a survey out this week because of Walk to School Week which has found that parents disproportionately fear their children being abducted or killed in a road accident over the more likely threat to their health from childhood obesity. (It was a YouGov of 1244 parents of primary school aged children.)

Parents were asked what they fear most for their children (from a given list) and 30% stated abduction or murder, with only 5% revealing a fear for their child's poor health in later life due to their child's current level of physical activity. The same survey found that 49% of parents under-estimated the amount of physical activity their children should get in a week.

The BBC are wondering what Mumsnetters think - are you worried about your child being knocked down on the way to school and does that fear make you more likely to drive to school or take kids by public transport than walk?

Not remotely worried about dd being knocked down. She knows how to cross roads and is careful. Nor am I worried about her being abducted.

She doesn't walk to school because we don't get up in time . There's a walking bus from down the road and we'd send her on that if we could get her out of the house 20mins earlier...

She spends over 1hr a day on the trampoline when the weather's fine. She swims for several hours at a time at least once a week. No idea how much exercise she's supposed to get, but she's a skinny little thing.

Not worries about either, but living in the country as we do, I do worry about DS3 and roads as he spends more time walking across fields than roads.
Secondary school next year and he will have one main road to cross to get the bus (having walked across fields first) and although we practice, I know it will concern me.

Last Sunday, in Fleetwood a 10 year old was abducted and raped a few streets way from where I live, so NOW this is also my greatest fear.

It happened in broad day light and Fleetwood is only a small fishing town (If that's at all relevant).

My primary aged children walk to school unaccompanied

I have no worries about abduction, murder or traffic accidents

[blithe]

BUT

I live in a very rural area, small village and only one road to cross without lollipop laydee

DS walks to school with his mates. It takes 20 minutes. He is 10. I do not worry about abduction but I always reming him to cross the roads carefully as I imagine they might chat too much to concentrate.

He has recently started ( on occasion) to walk home on his own. But in September he will be going with his sister on the train to secondary school.

Ds (Yr 5) walks from school on his own.

He likes me to walk with him there, but only because he enjoys the chat: if I am busy, he goes on his own.

I do not worry about abduction. I am aware that being knocked down is a real risk, but think it must be weighed against his need for independence.

My concerns are both!

I am concerned with the amount of inconsiderate drivers who pull up on pavements outside school on double yellows. Several near misses have occurred with cars doing this or parking inconsideratley on corners and road crossing places. We also have NO traffic calming measures by school and cars accelerate and speed pass our school so yes road accidents worry me. There have also been several attempts at abductions by schools, in daylight at peak times of day....so what am I to think....When I say several 3-4 in the last 4 years.

I worry about exercise.....we walk everywhere, but having 4 children I can't take them all swimming at once because of pool rules. We tend to spend a lot of time in the park running round like mad things and we walk everywhere as I don't drive. THey also have a climbing frame which they play on most days - climbing and hanging, making up games involving loads of chasing etc.

Not worried in the slightest about abduction - although ds (9) does know not to accept lifts from strangers or people we (ie his parents) don't know.

He has been walking to school since P3 (Y2) (followed surrepticiously by us), totally on his own in P4 and now in P5 he walks to and from school on his own - which includes times when he has had after-school clubs which means that he has to cross the one "big" road without a lollipop man.

It's a 10-15 minute walk in a leafy (yes!) inner city. We have "trained" him on roads since he could walk and he is very sensible about them. Some of his friends are not as "road aware" as he is and until recently, I would have been uncomfortable with him going anywhere unaccompanied with them - although other friends are fine.

We have just started letting him walk to Cubs on his own (which involves him crossing a busier road) but we do go and pick him up (walking of course )

He gets plenty of exercise: we have a large back garden and he spends his time playing football and rugby in it (you should see his one-man scrums! )

I see the risk of abduction as incredibly small - I am more concerned with bullying or mugging by other kids (in fact ds was attacked a few months ago by some other young boys when walking between our house and a friend's house). He now knows the value of running away as quickly as possible.

The BBC are wondering what Mumsnetters think:

Well, this MNer doesn't take much notice of surveys which are designed by interested parties to get the result that they want. Especially since she knows that, five years from now, some expert will come to some totally different conclusion e.g. I was brought up on 'drink a pinta milk a day' and 'go to work on an egg' but then was told to drink semi-skimmed because all that full-fat milk was bad for you. And don't eat too many eggs because they raise your cholesterol, except that I have just googled and apparently they have backtracked on that now.

Conclusion? I ignore surveys, unless they confirm what I already believe.

I am terrified about my daughters being abducted. I live in a large town that seems to be getting worse for violent crime.

There have been a few stories of children being taken in broad daylight, raped and then left. I know its rare but it does happen.

I would rather my girls are safe then walked to school.

I walk to school with my children. That should reduce the risk of them being involved in a road accident or abduction, and also help them stay active.

Its hardly surprising that parents would worry more about a catastrophic single events over which they have little or no control than a gradual pattern of behaviour that they do have some control over.

I think that, hard though it is, it is more important to let them do these things than to stop them because of your worries. Make sure that they are sensible with 'what if' scenarios, so that you empower them to deal with them. When they get to secondary school they have to do it alone so they need to have got to that stage gradually.

There was a high profile racially motivated abduction and murder of a teenager literally around the corner from ds' school (although the murder itself took place elsewhere ) Ds has commented, and we have chatted about, the memorial plaques that have been erected to the lad - so he knows the risks of being abducted.

However, in my view, the risk of him being involved in a RTA throguh not having become road aware (viz the spike in RTAs once kids are left to walk to secondary school on their own) or of not having learnt to judge (and avoid) a risky situation is far greater - hence our desire to give him some independence at this ealry age.

Maybe it is a function of being an older parent - I am determined to give him the freedom that I enjoyed as a child in the 60s. I haven't quite managed to achieve that, becasue there are certain things that modern society just won't accept (eg latch key kid for c. 1 hour at the age of aboout 10 with my borther who was 18 months younger than me before my mum got home from uni) - but I try.

What do they mean by fear 'most'? How likely you think it is, or how scared it makes you feel?

I think it's highly UNlikely that dd would be abducted, but how scared I would be should it happen would be huge.

I'd rather walk her places than drive, and when we were in the UK, small village school, would drive past school, park at my house, then walk back to collect her. She was only 5 at the time, so not relevant to let her do it alone.

She is 6 now & I am just thinking of letting her walk from our house, across a neighbour's & to a friend BUT she is v easily distracted (ADHD) & I can easily see her starting to gaze at a tree and not make it home for half an hour etc.

wrt traffic worries - when I did a bit of child development as part of teacher training, there were studies that showed children could not accurately judge the speed of cars until approx. 10 years of age. I therefore would use that as my guideline about letting dd cross any roads without other people there. having said that, back in the uk, there was a constant stream of people getting kids to school, so i let dd run on ahead with friends, but then EVERYONE stopped the kids at the roads, and made them cross together. i was usually vaguely about 100 or 200 yards behind, hoping to round her up before she headed into the wrong classroom (as I mentioned, easily distracted).

Well, speaking as a mother who managed to say to her son this week 'You know you were laughing at me for being fat? Well if you snack all day long the same thing will happen to you',which is wrong on SO many levels and a recipe for an eating disorder I would say that I am inappropriately obsessed with my 6-yr-old's weight (which is fine). I frequently exhaust him by overfacing his stamina (we dragged him 11 miles on his bike the other day, which he didn't much enjoy) and he appears to have discerned that I only love him if he is playing competitive sport.

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I am also obsessive about roads, although am now letting ds go to a couple of local friends' houses on his own, but then we live on a very quiet street. If I lived on the North Circular I would not allow a 10-year-old to cross it alone and IMo that would be entirely appropriate. Did you know that Roy Jenkins wasn't allowed to cross London roads alone when he visited at 13?

I never think much about abduction tbh, ds has a lot of freedom for the area and time, although that's not saying much.

I do fear abduction but I recognise it as highly unlikely to happen. It is the worst possible scenario (like home invasion) so I plan against it in terms of locking up the house & how I supervise my small children. It doesn't however rule my life or impinge on the childrens freedom or participation in activities...when they get older it's likely that I will need to alter my anti-abduction strategies to allow them to develop independence & proper risk assesment of their own.

I think of this in the same way that I used to think about my rape avoidance strategies tbh...I amend my behaviour, plan my movements and act in a way that mimimises risk if I end up in a questionable situation (on own, on foot, at night in big city).

Traffic: That's the big killer isn't it? So you can manage this risk by teaching road safety but also by being a big kill joy when friends and family drive too fast...

But generally surveys are just bullshit nonsense.