Myself and partner in disagreement over sons London trip on thursday

[cazsmith1982]

Hi
My son has got a trip to London for one night on thursday, my partner doesnt want him to go but i have said i feel he can. My son who is 11 really wants to go even after iv explained everything thats going on at the moment, but he still wants to go. School has put extra safty measure in place for example they are no longer doing the tour of London. Just going to the globe theatre and then west end to watch matilda.
I just want peoples views on how do you decide if we both have different view.
Thanks in advance xx

I understand your partner's POV but we can't live in fear of 'what if' otherwise we'd never do anything, and after Manchester at a concert aimed towards children, it really does show that if these extremists are going to hit again then it could literally be anywhere, not just London.

FWIW my 10 year old sister was on a school trip in London when the Westminster Abbey attack happened the other month, they'd literally just got off the coach and were about to walk across the bridge to take photos when they were being shuttled straight back on the coach because the teachers thought it was a car accident. My stepdad, along with a fair few other parents were wanting to travel to London right then to collect their children but my mum and a few others wouldn't go along and eventually calmed the panicking parents down enough for them to drop the idea.
My sister loved the entire trip, and later that day the teachers explained to the children what had happened on the bridge (in as honest and gentle a way as possible) and asked if they were happy to stay, sister said the whole class wanted to stay for the two more days as planned.

I know that people are notoriously bad at understanding probability but he just needs to look at the facts.

There are about 4 million public transport journeys everyday in London and 8.6 million residents plus all the tourists at this time of year. If your DH screws his rational/probability head on what are the chances of anything happening to DS? Compared with crossing a road, having a car accident, slipping on a wet bathroom floor, falling down stairs, having a sports injury, falling over in a playground.....

In the UK there have been an average of 1.4 deaths per year from terrorism in the past 10 years (including this year). Even within the last 3 months the death toll is 34 people. Much less than it was in the 1970s - at the height there were 350 deaths a year!

By contrast, every year there are approximately 6,000 deaths as the result of a home accident.

So on that basis - he's safer on the streets of London than in your living room! (Source: Office of National Statistics; ROSPA)

See this article: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/many-people-killed-terrorist-attacks-uk/

More from ROSPA:

More than two million children under the age of 15 experience accidents in and around the home every year, for which they are taken to accident and emergency units
Over 76,000 children under the age of 14 are admitted for treatment of which over 40% are under 5 years of age
Every year over 62 children under 14 die as a result of an accident in the home
More accidents happen in the lounge/living room than anywhere else in the home.
Every year more than 4,200 children are involved in falls on the stairs and 4,000 children under the age of 15 are injured falling from windows
Boys have more accidents than girls
The cost to society of UK home accident injuries has been estimated at £45.63billion (£45,630million) annually.

2 million children and teenagers live here in London, quite safely except for the traffic and the air pollution.

There is very little risk of getting caught up in a terrorist incident. It only seems that way because of the extensive news coverage. How long would your partner want to avoid London for? There have been very occasional incidents there (and other cities) for decades so, unless he plans to avoid it forever, there's not much point in putting your child's life on hold for a couple of weeks/months.

In terms of settling disagreements, my partner and I usually go with whoever has the strongest emotions on the matter. But in this case, you conveniently have three people to decide so you could just go with the majority view to settle it.

Thanks everyone for your replys.
My DS has gone and was very excoted this morning

Excited even lol