Is she too protective or am I too liberal?

[snakkyjakk]

My friend seems REALLY over protective with her DD to me but I think she thinks I'm too lacks on the subject.

One example was one day she asked me what I was having for tea. I said "steak and chips" so she said "oh, what are the kids having?" ]hmm] so I said "steak and chips..." so she looked a bit shocked and just said "Oh right". I said "why, doesn't Helena (her DD) like steak?" so she said "I don't know, I've never tried her with it, I think she's too young for proper meat, I darnt..." her daughter is 8!!! she also went on to say that her eldest daughter didn't start eating stuff like that until she was about 12.

Anyway another episode we had was that we were discussing letting out kids (now 9, almost 10) walk to school on their own after summer. The walk is a straight road through a residential street with only one road and they would all be walking together. Needless to say she said "no, I think they're too young".

And during the summer holidays the kids joined a sports club and she wouldn't let her daughter do the swimming session as she "darnt" let her go into a pool without her. It was a supervised session and her daughter has recently learnt to swim.

When we were having dinner once the girl needed her mum to "mix" up her spagetti bolognese for her. Even DS said "can't you do that yourself?".

So is she over-protective or is she normal and I'm just out of touch?

Overprotective.

sounds like a classic case of cotton wool kids to me.

She's mad.

DD has been enjoying steak and chips since she was 2! She loves her meat.

totally bonkers.

Gawd knows what she'd have thought of me letting DS1 (nearly 8) go off to the bottom play area in the park today with my BF's DD (already 8 - a school year above him) while we stayed at the top of the park with the younger ones!!!

does she dettol everything as well??

'proper meat'? What does she feed them? Pretend meat?

What is her daughter allowed to eat then? Steak is just food.
How very odd.

at 8 i took myself off to go scrumping......4miles a way on a bike with my 3 friends!!!mum none the wiser at the time at not worried when i told her over tea. but that was 20+ yrs ago!!!! would like to be that chilled with my DS's when they are older, but things diff now. will not over power them like your friend does though. think we can give our kids freedom if we educate them.otherwise they wont grow and learn how to recognise danger... the real world!!

She believes she is doing the best by her children but being over-protective does them no favours in the long run. Children need to encounter risk and be allowed to make decisions.

well I've told DS1 that once he's been at his new school (top of the road - as opposed to the infants which is next door ) a while and has done the walk up/down on his own for a bit I'll let him go to the shop for me occasionally.

Told him that wouldn't happen until after Christmas (the shop thing) though.

Used to go home from school on a London bus from the age of 10 and from 11 my brother used the underground to go to school. Holidays were spent wherever we wandered. My gt aunt used to say to my policeman uncle we were street savvy & knew things beyond our years which he thought was terrible, but unlike my cousins, we've never, touch wood, been the victims of street crime.

overprotective