Do you think our children will grow up unable to recognise/deal with danger?

[SoupDragon]

Filling in ponds, not letting them walk home from school, removing poisonous plants, safety this that and the other...

Now I am as guilty of some of these things as everyone else but I do wonder if we are doing or children a disservice to some extent. We had a small pond and knew how to be safe with it, we climbed trees, we went out on our bikes for hours and hours and went to the park alone (amongst other rather risky stuff).

Obviously there are more cars about etc than when I was young but do you think we've become too risk-averse in our parenting?

At junior school age I even had a penknife for whittling wood and managed not to stab anyone or chop my fingers off.

It is a gradual thing-if you have a small DC you need to get rid of a pond etc but as they get older they need to be away from you and be able to assess and deal with risks themselves. It is a very slow process but parents should be working on it.

This is a bit of a hobby horse of mine. I had so so much more independence than my DCs do now. Had a thread the other day about leaving DD (10, nearly 11) home alone during the daytime for 4 hours and letting her cook lunch. I was in the minority - possibly even a minority of one - of parents who would allow this.

Why not just equip them with the skills and leave them to it? So remove ponds but get them taught to swim properly. Teach them road safety and let them out on their bikes. Teach them how to cook and let them cook etc etc

im going to put on my hard hat before i say this.
i dont believe in getting rid of every danger. i have a stair gate at the top of the stairs and that is about it. my Ds ( age 2) helps me to cook, and with my help uses the knives, stirs the pans etc...yes i would never leave him alone in the kitchen, but he knos the boundries and will often tell off my cousin ( 2 years older than him) when she picks up knives off the table and messes around.
my mum was the same with me and my brothers. i think that otherwise he will not have anycommon sense when he gets older.

yes, i work in playwork and we are taught how to let the children take more risks. only a matter of time before it's standard in schools at playtime.

it's an interesting subject and there have been a few interesting books on the subject.

I admired you for it Quattrocento! Although I was too nervous to leave mine cooking at that age, but that was my fears -something to overcome.

I admire the Scour Association. They gave my DS a knife for something-he cut his hand and they took him to casualty-they gave him a knife again and he had learnt his lesson! It was much better than banning him from touching a knife.

Obviously Scout-sorry!

We have a pond. No one has fallen in it (well, dd's mate when he was a bit pissed and tripped, but I don't count that).

DH was gigging this afternoon, just down the road from us. DD and I walked down there a bit later. DD didn't want to stay. I gave her my keys and she went home. On her own. She's 9.

I stayed with a couple of friends, had another beer, helped dh stash his gear in the car, went home with him. Lo! DD was there! With a sandwich that she'd made herself.

doesn't help that most play parks have equipment that is unchallenging and 'safe' either. though tons of money is being ploughed into rectifying it this year.

this is a good article

I was reminiscing with a friend about some of the unsafe play equipment we used to play on (like the "witch's hat" thing which repersented a crush hazard for unwary children/limbs.

The pond in our garden was there from when I was a baby so I'm not convinced it's a gradual thing as such. We grew up knowing how to behave around a pond.

I am about to let DS1 (10) walk home from school alone tomorrow for the first time. To make it worse, I will not be home for another half an hour after he gets there. There are no major roads to cross and we walked the route together last week and I pointed out the safe crossing points. I'm still nervous though very aware that at the same age I was walking to and from school alone every day.

This summer, both DSs (10 & 8)will be spending a fair amount of time in the woods outside a friend's garden.

I do think they need some kind of risk/responsibility in their lives.

A very good article,southeatastra, and very true.

"it's a risk trade-off. All I'm saying is, you cannot protect your children for ever. And you might protect them now from something incredibly rare, albeit absolutely devastating. But if you do, you leave them much more vulnerable at a time when they're starting to make their own way in life.

"We seem to think that children don't need to learn how to look after themselves, because they'll never grow up. But the one certainty is, they will."

I think that sums it up.

No chance of me over protecting Flameboy Chance'd be a fine thing!

I have been told off many many times on here after posting about Flameboy's various scrapes that I should be watching him at all times.

I disagree - it is not healthy to watch him at all times (or possible tbh) - he does things, he learns the hard way. He has informed me that since gashing his stomach last year, he is not climbing the apple tree again until he is bigger. After cutting his hands on glass, he knows not to try and draw with glass.

I agree with the article-benign neglect is really good for DCs.

Lol Riven - you never know when these kids might leap up and do things when your back is turned

pmsl

DS: I ok mummy! I ok!