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?

disneystar, that's absolutely horrific and it is entirely understandable why you don't let your children play out. Although a far lesser example than yours, my fear is roads because I was run over. I've forced myself to let DS1 walk home across not busy roads by himself today because he needs to learn how to do this kind of thing.

Yours are still little - there's still plenty of time to relearn how to let them go.

Disneystar so sorry to hear that, that sounds very traumatic for you all and I think you're really brave to be even thinking about letting them go, it must be so hard for you {{hugs}}.

And Soupdragon, I know what you mean - I was always told never to run across the road, me and a friend did just that once on the way to school and to make it worse it was icy and I skidded over. I'm pretty sure looking back there's no way the car was anywhere near me, but at the time I was shaking all over and I never did tell my mum because I felt so guilty. It took me a while to get my confidence back though, and I have to admit that's the thing I'm most anxious about for my kids - just shows how sometimes we project our own fears onto them!

Disneystar - it is totally understandable why you have fears. Even if statisticually you knwo the risk is low, it has still apnneded to your family You do know that it wasn't your fault, right?

I am sure you will over time learn to let go for your younger kids - but even if you don't, they will still cope!

How is your dd now?

I am really unsure where I stand on this, in my rational mind I agree that children should be allowed more freedom, however when I consider the very real risks that this presents I shy away.

I had a friend at school whose 2 year old brother died in their pond.

I was allowed to play out in the woods, and given the freedom to explore as talked about in the article, this left me vulnerable to being groomed and abused by someone known to me.

I also remember doing some really stupid things that we were told not to do, like walking on frozen ponds, lighting fires etc.

I guess I just can't help 'looking at the world through the eyes of the most unlucky'

I don't know TBH. I think that is a risk for sure. But I think just as important is the sheer joy and excitement we take from children's lives when we stifle their desires for independence because of, largely IMO, groundless fears for their safety. A child shouldn't take all it's boundaries from it's parents - they should also come from peers. We have to trust them to use our teaching and example as a guide, but also to think and decide for themselves.

prettybird, i think you said the right thing there i do blame myself
my job was to protect my children and i failed ive carried this guilt for many years now.
my dd is 23 now and a very balanced person who allows so much freedom to her 3 yr old son,she allows him to go away with us and the other parents for the weekend and is very relaxed shes told me million of times its ok mum it was never your fault,and weve cried together and cuddled.
im so scared all the time even when i pick up my dc from school if one of them doesnt come out on time i instantly feel sick,my legs tremble and i feel faint.
i have to be rational and think logically.to get through the panic attacks.
im working hard to let my children go out even to a friends for dinner (even that is a threat to me i dont know who may come in)

as you can see this is only the tip of my worries, im a regular at the school making sure all helpers are crb checked for trips etc....
i am the community officer for my area, ensuring i am doing all i can at all times .

one event has led to years or worry and being over protective and me campaigning relentlessy for safety in schools
which has worked.
thanks for the nice comments but i do need to change for all of our sakes

You've every reason to be as you are Disneystar, I think we all would be in similar circumstances.

This is a very interesting thread and something I think about a lot as my childhood was very laid back with tons of freedom. I do think it does really depend on the child though. I have twin DDs who are just 8. One of them is incredibly switched on, sensible, mature and she does a bit of cooking, can make coffee/tea, and she is desperate to walk the 15 minute journey to school on her own and I'm sure she'd be fine. However, her sister couldn't be more different, vague, dreamy, trys to chop veg whilst gazing out the window, wanders across roads in a daze, would leave the front door open if allowed to go home alone .... I could go on . There's just no way she would be allowed to walk to school on her own, God only knows where she'd end up . So I do think personality is a big deciding factor in how much freedom you give them.

I chose not to contribute to this thread about things your parents did that you wouldn't dream of as I thought I would end up being flamed.

So many of the things on that thread I thought, "but I'm glad my parents did that and I will do/am already doing the same for my ds". It's all about putting real risks into perspective.

There were some exceptions though

Disneystar - how for you. Have you ever had any counselling for the impact that your daughter's rape had on you?

Though it sounds like you are getting a lot of support form, of all people, your dd, and I am sure with her help, you will be able to let go of the apropn strings little by little.

Have you though of giving yourself little targets of extra "freedoms" you could give your younger kids? SO that yuo can build up to the "bigger" freedoms/independence. Maybe your daought could help you with some ideas.

My dd fell in an ornamental pond at Chelsea Physic garden when she was 3 - she ran off and climbed up a rockery (before I could catch her) which transpired to have a small pond in it. A few moments before that, I'd skidded in one of the greenhouses and nearly went face first into an open water-filled trough... both incidents weren't intentional and I classed them as accidents. The difference is that I was blamed for dd in the pond but I wouldn't have been castigated for myself falling in the trough had that happened even though I'm big/mature enough to spot the hazard myself. Yet we were both equally culpable in that I took my eye off dd for long enough and the Physic Garden had 'allowed' enough water to slop on the floor as to turn it into a slipping hazard (no warning signs). I'm still wondering about that sometimes.

My father makes an interesting point that in days gone by, if a kid were knocked down/abducted/abused, the person who perpetrated th eoffence would be blameed. Nowaydays somehow some of that "blame" is transferred on to the parent who are deemed to be culpable by negligence.

It's the same with accidents: people are so keen to blame someone that they forget that accidents happen. (like the parents who want us to sue the school for ds' broken leg)

We live in such a risk averse society that we are paralysing ourselves with risk avoidence.

We never had stari gates as we decided to teach ds to go up and down stairs safely. The only kid I know who has fallen down stairs had parents who were paranoid about stair gates so when they were on holiday in place where there were no stair gates and onehow the kid got out the living room.......

Not sure I agree with your dad Prettybird, I think it was more like children were blamed/took responsibility.

It is also possible to do both things, i.e. have stair gates and teach your child to use the stairs.

I don't want to be inflammatory, but do think that we need to find a balance.

I accept that stair gates are a personal choice!

But on my dad's point: if a 7 year old were knocked over while on an errand to the local shop, who would be blamed "by society"? The driver for driving too fast or the parents for having encouraged the child to go?

I would suspect the answer would be "both" - yet if the parents had taught the child road safety and it was down to the driver (ie not 'cos the child ran out into the street), why should the parents bear any culpability?

I am not saying they wouldn't feel any guilt and remorse: like Disneystar, that is pre-programmed in to us.

It surely depends a lot on age as well. I mean, obviously as children get older you can teach/allow them to do more things safely and build up from small to larger risks; but I do think that for VERY young children, you just can't teach them anything reliably enough for that teaching alone to keep them safe.

So while I would agree wholeheartedly with things like letting DCs walk to school, cook or play outside when they get to a suitable age, I think that's a whole different discussion from having uncovered ponds when you have toddlers. Learning to manage risks is a good thing, but only once you are old enough to learn.

We have a town house with 3 floors and, as a consequence we have stairs EVERYWHERE!

My DS has lived in the house since birth. We only had stair gates for about 6 months then concentrated on teaching him to come down stairs safely. He has never had a fall on the stairs.

We have a set of stairs from our sitting room on the 1st floor down to the garden. During one of our older DDs birthday parties (he was 3 at the time), I can very clearly remember his outrage when the mother of one of the guests insisted on helping him down the stairs. "I can do it MYSELF!" he shouted. And he could, very competently. But she wouldn't let him, poor thing!

I agree about the ponds if these are gardens that children can get into "unsupervised". You need to fence them in/cover them up/put a grill over them for peace of mind.

I've not had stair gates, someone lent me one and it kept falling off so i got rid.

The only serious (ish) accident dd has ever had was when she broke her arm in two places whilst chasing some boys at school!

I think that now we suffer from over reporting if you see what i mean. Years ago the main news was regional and there was no widespread internet scaremongering as there is now.
Also, health and safety became more about money spinning than actual real health and safety in the end which is why we have a wooden play gym at dd's school which all children are banned from playing on.

Finally, i agree that traffic now is faster and more of it. Cars have got faster and there are more people driving, including a lot more young people with less experience/common sense perhaps.

I have started letting my dd play out in the last 6 months or so, she is 8 and we are lucky enough to live in a cul de sac.
Unfortunately i still can't let her go to the park on her own as it's a 1o min walk with two busy roads to cross and she doesn't have enough road sense to do it on her own yet.
She has been cooking with me for years though, no worries on that score.

Prettybird - I agree about the blame thing. My mum is much more worried about letting my DC out of her sight than I am, and she has said many times that there are always stories in the papers about terrible accidents when the "stupid grandmother" character is in charge, she lives in fear of something happening to them and her turning into that evil grandmother person rather than just an accident

Not sure if this has been mentioned already but I read an article recently about soft play areas and how they make children feel like there is NO risk, and that there's always a net to catch them or whatever.

I remember jumping off walls etc when I was a kid and judging which ones were too high and thinking I could break a bone. Don't remember my mum being anywhere nearby when i was making those decisions either!

We lived in Holland with small children for a few years and it struck me how much more freedom kids have there. The zoo we sometimes went to had nothing to stop kids falling into the water with the crocodiles. However there is so much water in Holland that there is a MASSIVE effort to gets kids swimming as young as possible, rather than cordoning off every bit of water. Not that that stops them being eeten by crocodiles, but you get my drift....

Despite - or perhaps because of - our benign neglect, ds has only been to A&E 4 times - and he was not in our care on any of the occasions something happened to him. Twice he was with his aunt when he fell and cut his forehead (once on the edge of a table, the other on a low garden wall), once when he fell and cut his head (at the hairline, so failing to connect the previous two scars to create a Harry Potter zigzap ) on the stairs at Glasgow Cathedral while on an outing with the Out of School Club. And finally breaking his leg at school, first day back after 8 days away skiing

These are accidents that could happen anywhere.

This summer we will be letting him go tot he local park with a friend. He'll have to go the slightly longer way, so that he crosses the one busy road where there are traffic lights. There is a pond in that park - but I trust that he now knows how to play near it safely. TBH - he'll probably just go there to play football.

He is starting to hassle me for a mobile phone "just for safety". I want to resist - but may end up letting him have an old one of ours just to give him peace of mind to encourage his sense of independence.

That's a good point re water alwaysmoving. My uncle in SOuth Africa was teaching my cousins to swim from the age of 12 months 'cos so many houses had swimming pools and he wanted them to be safe.

I never had a stairgate for my dd2, taught her to go downstairs backwards as soon as she walked (she never crawled so not a problem)

I was in a campsite getting tutted due to the fact I let my dd of 8 walk around with her ds in a buggy and she was out of my sight, although you could her all the giggling. The mother that was particularly concerned wouldn't let her dc go to the loo on there own - it was 30 meters from her tent and you could see the female door.

dd has just gone to the shop to get some sweets, and a mars bar for me she has my mobile phone.

I think that this is the first thread on mumsnet that has had a refreshingly, sensible approach to risk taking. Generally you get children who have lots of material possessions but no freedom.
I am so sorry about your DD disneystar, but admire you for still thinking that DCs need freedom, I can appreciate that it is more difficult.
Accidents will happen, they are just that-accidents. I think it is worse to wrap in cotton wool. People learn by their mistakes, they don't learn as well by other people's mistakes.I have been to A&E with all three of my DSs but I think the benefits of taking risks has outweighed the accidents.

I think controlled risk is really good for children, they have to learn how to protect themselves. They also have to learn what to do when and accident happens because they will have to deal with it at some point. You can't always protect them. My son has only been to A&E once, he fell off a chair and bumped his head on the corner of a skirting board. That was at a story club! How dangerous can a story club be?!

This accident happened at a children's centre. I felt the staff dealt with it really well (I bought them a box of chocs and a thankyou card) but when I went back they were really apologetic, discussing what to do about this 'dangerous skirting board'.
I was totally shocked. IT'S A SKIRTING BOARD! What are we going to do, remove every corner from every building, every room, every peice of furniture? It's impossible to stop accidents from happening. Thats why they are called accidents.