RISK you take with your children

[mylittleimps]

Xenia said: "Anything can be discussed. Start a risk thread. Namby pamby look after children all the time parents who don't let them go out alone, run in forests, ride horses and risk death damage their children hugely. ", she also said that the case of Madeleine McCann would not change her in as much she would still leave a similar age child alone and go out to dinner in similar circumstances. Xenia also said it was just the same as putting them to bed and going down stairs to have dinner.

i let my young children ride horses, play outside witha river at the bottom of the garden or at their grandparents with a lake. they have lived in a "construction site" since birth, i let them sleep on their fronts BUT i would never ever leave them alone and go out to dinnerb or even leave my rpoperty boundary. and it is not the same putting them to bed and going down stairs.

i believe now the McCanns have pubilically stated that the quilt will never leave them and the poor child is still missing this is a debate that should be had now as if some people can still say it's acceptable is worrying (to me) and I believe children are still at risk if this message is left unchecked

so where fdo you draw the line at risks wrt your children (we all know that as parents we have to take them)

I have left my children in exactly the same situation as the McCanns and did not feel bad about it at the time. We did it two years running at a hotel where the majority of other parents with children the same age (3 and under) did the same. It was a small hotel and you would see the parents taking it in turns to go up and check between courses. We also listened out for each other's children and let them know if we'd heard a baby crying (don't think it ever happened). The dining area was outside, directly under the rooms and within earshot, if not always in view. We made an assessment and thought it was a reasonable thing to do. I also know my own children and luckily they are both very consistent and good sleepers.

I am being honest about this but I believe there are plenty of parents (not just on MN) who have done the same and won't admit it now. I have always thought it's more risky when they get older, from maybe 2-3 when they can get out of a cot or a bed and wander about and for that reason and obviously the horror of the Madeleine case, I would not do it again.

IMO the McCann's actions are irrelevant. If someone wants to commit this sort of crime, they could have done it a number of ways. My parents were gassed and burgled while sleeping in their own beds - they woke up groggy and hadn't got a clue what had happened. It was very frightening. They could have taken Madeleine whilst the parents were sleeping next door. Some wonder why they didn't hear a noise - well, my dd is coma-like when she sleeps and can be carried from the car to her bedroom without even stirring.

What is not being discussed on these threads is the total outrage that something like this could happen in the first place! Instead of the lynch mob for the McCanns and other parents, save your energy for the sick bastard that did this, for whatever motive. This sort of thing should not happen, it is the stuff of nightmares and horror films. The only person to blame here (IMO) is the abductor.

Oh blimey, I wasn't going to post on these threads again. The whole situation is so upsetting. I just wish she would be found.

Mine are 6, 4 and 2.

They play downstairs while I'm upstairs doing stuff or vice versa.

They play in the garden (totally enclosed, no way out) while I'm in the kitchen but I don't feel comfortable going upstairs where I can't really see them.

I would never leave them in the house and leave the house myself, even if they were asleep. I also never leave them in the car.

There is no way on earth I'd go out for dinner and leave them asleep in a locked apartment - I can't get my head round it at all but y'know, everyone makes different assessments of risk.

I don't think I'm namby pamby at all but I am a bit morbid and I do see hazard where I think other people might not. And anyway, my youngest is 2 years old so really not an age that you leave unsupervised at all, surely?

I think there are two kinds of risk being discussed here. 1) the kind that we let our children take in order that they grow and learn and 2) the ones we take in order to facilitate something else in our lives eg quickly paying for petrol without waking three sleeping children and taking them into a garage.

The first is a matter of child's age and parental nervousness and the second rather more complicated. Partly due to our fears but also due to our sense of what other things in our life are important. For example it's clear that some people feel adult dinners are vital and others aren't so bothered.

Ditto GDG except that the back garden where we are moving backs onto a forest so I will have to keep a close eye on the wee ones whilst they are out there.

There is NO way on this Earth it would have ever crossed my mind to find it acceptable to leave my young children alone in a ground floor apartment whilst I swanned off to have dinner.

I also would never, ever leave them in a car alone for any amount of time. I come from a place where car jacking is less than occassional and most places are pay at the pump.

But why toomuchtodo? Very few children are actually taken from their beds, either at home or on holiday. In fact this is the first case I am aware of. I know that other little girl was taken from the bath. But after that I draw a blank.

I don't think twice about leaving my children in the car when I buy petrol or nip into the local shop. And sometimes DS even asks to be left in the car with the music on. Sometimes I won't let him. I wouldn't leave them in their beds and go across the road to dinner. I would though go across the road for a quick 10 min chat on the doorstep. And I would go in the garden for longer than that. I won't let DS play out on his own yet because he really does not have enough road sense even for our cul-de-sac. But he is allowed to go out of our garden and into next door's garden to retrieve his football. This means that I trust him to go out of the gate at the side and then round onto the drive, across onto next door's drive and then through her side gate and back again.

You getting out of your flat Expat?

We don't and wouldn't leave or children alone, especially young ones who could wake up and be scared. I don't know why it's acceptable to do this. Would it be ok for us to go down the pub now that our children are asleep and check in now and again? I very much doubt it. The thought of leaving our children alone has never crossed either of our minds.

I intend to take them horse riding, I loved it as a child and other activities but these aren't risks the same as being left alone are. You learn to ride and be in control on a horse with your riding skills, not the same as being alone in a house if say a fire broke out or something else happened and you're alone.

The fact that awful things can happen to you when you could not have avoided them is irrelevant. What they took was an avoidable and unnecessary risk, imo.

Things can happen upstairs in your house when you are downstairs but there is nothing you can do about that. Your child could be hurt crossing the road and there would be little you could to avoid that. But, imo, leaving small children alone in a locked room is not a reasonable thing to do and nobody could convince me otherwise.

How many people would pull up to a supermarket, find their 2 or 3 year old had fallen asleep and decide to leave them in the locked car while they did a half hour shop? I don't really see any difference.

Plus, it's perfectly possible that any number of other things could have happened that would distress, frighten or even harm a 2 or 3 year old child - abduction would not be my first concern tbh.

fucking hell, mumemma, gassed? that is amazingly bad. they must have been utterly traumatised.

Totally agree GDG, avoidable risks are the ones to, well, avoid.

Yep, DG, we're house sitting - for 2 years - whilst some good friends head to Africa working for VSO.

We were just there this weekend going over things in the house, which is not small, and garden, talking about what they could leave out and/or put away, etc.

I totally agree with Gobbledigook and expat on this.

ANY reservations we had about making this move are now completely and utterly quashed.

I do also go upstairs and leave them playing in the garden. But our bedroom and bathroom and DD's bedroom are all on the back of the house and this is where I am most likely to be. The only feasible access to our garden is by the side gate. We have a hook that we can use on the top of the gate but no longer use. We also have another smaller gate at the corner of the house that we used to use when the children were smaller - up until this summer really. I still do close it if we have younger children here, as much because of the steps as anything.

Hey expat - sounds fabbo!!

That is lovely news. I am happy for you. You always seem a bit penned in in your flat!

I feel I've heard and joined this debate a fair few times. There's only one thing I'd like to know now. People who wouldn't do it (appartment, dinner, unlocked room etc) are, I think, pretty amazed that anyone would. People who would do it think what? That the others are silly? Over protective? Unecessarily fearful? Or something else entirely?

Also the point is that if you're there with your children you do everything you can for them even if you happened not to hear something, at least you were there. If you're not with them then there's nothing you can do is there? No chance of being able to help at all.

but going near a busy road is an avoidable risk a lot of the time, unless your child's school is beside one. Letting small children play unsupervised upstairs is definately an avoidable risk.

I can listen to them and shout out of the bedroom window when they are in the garden.

congrats expat, that's great. (ho ho, we'll be down for weekends...)

Not really avoidable - if you've got a 6, 4 and 2 year old do you pin them to your side as you go up and down the stairs to put clothes away or take them into the bathroom with you while you go to the loo or follow you into another room if the telephone rings?

It's a little bit different to locking them in a room and going out.

if you're going to start another crappy thread about the mccanns can you at least make it clear in the title that that's what it is so the rest of us can steer well clear of all the holier than thou crap.
much obliged

Aitch - yes, I know, absolutely terrifying. They sprayed gas into the house and then went into my parents' bedroom and took money out of a wallet in a pair of trousers which were at the end of the bed! They used gas to knock my parents out and poisoned her dogs - two rottweilers! Luckily they recovered. Incredible how determined and audacious some people are.

Actually, I think the risk they took was acceptable in that it was a closed holiday complex which would give a resonable feeling of safety - and, as anyone who pauses for a moment's thought would know, it is incredibly rare for children to be taken away by strangers. As to fire, etc, they could see the apartment from where they were.

A couple of years ago I left my DS asleep in a hotel room and went downstairs to the bar for a drink, taking the baby monitor with me. Of course, he slept just fine till I returned.