We've been asked by the charity Railway Children to find out how you feel about talking to your child about a variety of topics.
The survey should take a few minutes to complete and is open to all UK Mumsnetters with at least one child aged 6-19 years.
For every survey completed, £2 will be donated to Railway Children by Aviva, to support the work the charity does in the UK - please note you can only answer the survey once.
Everyone who takes part and adds their details at the end will also be entered into a prize draw to win VIP rugby tickets (for a family of 4) to attend the Aviva Premiership Final in May at Twickenham, courtesy of Aviva (these can be passed on to family or friends if you win but are unable to attend).
Mumsnet will be working with Railway Children over the next few months and we'll tell you more about our plans shortly.
If you have more than one child aged 6 to 19, for this survey we'd like you to please answer thinking about one of these children. It could be your boy, girl, oldest, youngest or middle child (if applicable) in this age band, please just pick one at random to answer the questions about. If you have older or younger children please answer thinking about your child aged 6 to 19.
Here's the survey link again
Railway Children and Aviva would also welcome any comments you have about the issues raised in the survey on this thread so do share what you think about running away and communicating with children here.
Thanks and good luck with the prize draw
MNHQ
This survey forum is for surveys run by Mumsnet. If you'd like to commission a survey of MN members email [email protected].
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NOW CLOSED: UK MNers: Child aged 6-19? Please please please complete a Railway Children survey about talking to your child
AnnMumsnet · 25/09/2012 16:47
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Message withdrawn at poster's request.
the questionnaire has been completed. i didn't have any assumptions about income level but do have some about abuse, substance use etc.
when i first started teaching i had this young man in my class and remember being heartbroken to discover that things had gotten so bad for him at home, there was no food, no heat, nothing and his dad was an addict, that he had packed a bag and taken himself to social services 
brave boy.
working in secondary schools has left me with no illusions as to how tough some young people's home lives are and how little support there really is for them from schools or social services - and that's those who are on their radar.
i used to run away as a teen but was lucky to have a friend's family who would take me in.
JaquelineHyde what a moving post. Thank you for sharing your experiences, that must have been incredibly hard for you to open up about.
And yes, it is very useful indeed thank you. I can identify with you when you said about how strict your family upbringing was. Mine was a very traditional catholic upbringing and there was this huge thing about never bringing any shame to the family.
I will most certainly do as you say and try to be as open as I can be with my two.
You are an amazing woman and very inspirational. You have a lot to offer a panel such as this one. Thanks again 
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AnnMN I would love to join the panel and will PM you to do that.
Rhubs I ran away in the middle of the night with 2 carrier bags of clothes and my wages from a waitressing job I had. No note left, nothing. I know the following morning my Mum sent my little brother up to get me up from school and he came back down and said I wasn't there My Mum and Dad were frantic I had just vanished. It was 2 days before I called the house to say I was ok.
The reason I left was purely out of embaressment and fear, my Mum had found out that I had stayed at my boyfriends house the weekend before and had had sex when I should have been away with the venture scouts on an away weekend.
I had been sat down and spoken to about it by my Mum on the evening I ran away, she had checked we had been safe and that it had been what I wanted etc etc. She had then moved on to my lies and not going to venture camp and how angry she was about that and dissapointed etc and I got sent to my room being told we would deal with it in the morning.
I suppose if I could give advice about how I felt looking back and what could have been different (what I am making sure I do differently) the main thing would be TALK. Open and honest conversations about everything, sex, drugs, alcohol everything. I was mortified that my parents knew I had had sex, we had never spoken about it I was embaressed and ashamed and couldn't face sitting across the breakfast table from my Dad!
I also think you need to allow children the room to grow and have freedom. I was never allowed out, I never, ever had sleep overs and wasn't allowed out past 9pm. It was this strictness that made me go behind my parents back to try and get some freedom which was the catalyst to me running away.
I never went back home, I was too scared (again I think this comes down to the lack of talking between me and my parents) my relationship was slowly re-built with my family but it took a long, long time. My Dad had a breakdown and had to give up work because he was worried sick about me Until I had children I couldn't even begin to imagine the pain, worry and strain I put them through.
The first 2 years were the hardest it was during these times I was sleeping rough and sofa surfing, I was arrested for shoplifting and was hanging around with the worst parts of society. I was offered and had access to every kind of drug you can imagine and then some. The other females in my social circle were either selling sex for favours like drugs or somewhere to stay or food etc (not straight up prostitution for money but sex got you what you needed) and the rest just gave it up for free as they were so desperate for love. Within the 2 years all of them were pregnant.
I resisted the drugs and sexual advances and put all of this down to my upbringing. I had very strong convictions about what I wanted from life, I had aspirations and knew drugs, drink and having a baby would not give me the life I wanted. I don't know where this strength came from to do this but I forged my own way. A drop in centre for young people opened when I had just turned 17 and they helped massively, showers, hot food, advice and they even out of their own budget put me up in a B&B to keep me off the streets.
Off the back of that I got a job at BT as a 999 operator and managed to rent myself a little 1 bed flat After a year at BT I applied for a job at the CSA and got it 
I stayed there for 4-5 years and have never looked back.
Now I'm a mum of 3 (7, 6 and 5) and I'm pg with dc4, married to a wonderful man and studying for my MA in social work. My relationship with my family is stronger than ever and my Mum and I are unbelievably close. I know I was one of the lucky ones, some of the people I used to know are dead, some in prison and many others living very chaotic lives. Only a few of us got out unscathed.
Sorry for the enourmous ramblings I hope this is of some help to someone. Always remember you may not be able to stop someone running away no matter what you do, but you can save them by the way you bring them up, instill a feeling of self worth, give children aspirations and the confidence to go there own way, to say NO that's not me and follow their own path.
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