Naked kids on the beach - would you let them?

[ssd]

I mean would you let your say 6 year old play naked on the beach?

Today thanks to the sun at last we went to the beach, it was fairly busy. A family next to us let their approx. 6 year old boy play around the waters edge naked for a while before the cold got to him and he put on pants as in underpants. The other kids ages about 3 - 9 years old were playing in their underpants (all boys).

Now I'm not prudish but I don't think its acceptable to let a child play on a beach naked, nor would I want an older child playing in his pants. My ds1 would never play and run around in front of strangers in only his pants and he's 7, the other kids I mean were older than him.

I don't care what anyone does at home or in their garden, but I'd want them dressed more appropriately at a beach.

What do you think?

Actually earthquakes happen quite a lot! And as for car crashes....

child falls down stairs do you carry them from then on, falls off climbing frame breaks arm do you ban them? falls off bike big cut on head even everyday things kids do pose dangers you cant wrap them up in cotton wool kids have broken necks on trampolines and bouncy castles you cant stop everything but as long as no one is touching or hurting my children in anyway im doing my job as there mum

It's whatever you're happy with.

Actually this is getting off the point. Child sex abuse is a very serious and tragic issue. And as Gwenick pointed out the victims of paedophiles tend to be known to them or 'groomed' by them, and images taken of them very deliberately and pointedly in poses or acts which are staged by the paedophile. The chance of your child, playing naked on the beach, being harmed by a paedophile while you are there watching out for him or her is so infinitely miniscule as to be be statistically irrelevant. And if some dirty old man does get a cheap thrill from watching them, well I'm sure you as a parent would be able to spot him. I haven't read or heard about any strage men lurking in the sand dunes (well not until Gwenick mentioned her dad). But the likelihood of children being affected by not being able to play freely and enjoy their childhood as you are I did are many many times greater.

Have just realised the time. Must go to bed!

no its common sense playing on the beach properly supervised isnt a threat to any child theres more chance of them getting glass in there little feet than attackted in anyway

well not until Gwenick mentioned her dad)

aww my poor dad - we're always poking fun at him -

No not naked on a public beach, would you take your kids for a walk up a High Street naked? No, so what's the difference with a beach? Home and in public is different, we are trying to teach our kids to be safe around strangers.

what a totally dumb analogy that is

That's the whole point SHR - they are safe, because they're with you! And the difference with the beach is sun, sand and sea, therefore it is appropriate to strip off and enjoy! It is not appropriate on the high street! Let's have some common sense fgs!!

Gwenick,

I think you've misread the child porn issue - as I understand it, it is because of the move away from commercially produced child porn in the 70's to a cottage industry of porn that it has proliferated:

"From the late 1970's to the late 1990's the production and distribution of child pornography switched from a commercial to an amateur 'cottage industry' involving the swapping and sharing of images among paedophiles.....The development of technologies and the Internet in particularm has blurred boundaries between commerical and amateur collectors and formed what has been called a new global cottage industry. The Internet allows images of sexual abuse of children to be distributed all over the world as a gift, and exchange or an item of commercial trade"

and

"The COPINE project at the University of has been conducting research on the volume and characteristics of child pornography on the internet. During a six week period in 2002 they came across 140,000 child abuse images, of these 35,000 were completely new. Twenty previously unseen children were identified among the images"

I realise this thread is not about child porn but I had to challenge some of the suggestions that child porn is no more widespread these days than it used to be.

The web address for this reference is www.nspcc.org.uk/inform/Info Briefing/ChildPornography.asp

(tried it as a link and couldn't get it to work, and I'm usually okay with links - so have conceded defeat and just given web address instead.

Btw JanH I agree with you 1000%

so is this a figment of my imagination

Beetroot,

I'm not really talking about the running around naked thing anymore - have just gone off topic. Felt that I wanted to even up the tangential debate about whether child porn is on the increase or not

HMC - of course the figures have risen, there's been a major crackdown on it.

"Mr Carr put the huge rise in the number of arrests and convictions down to Operation Ore, the police investigation set up to track down people who paid to download child abuse images from a website based in Texas."

And

"BT, Britain's largest high-speed internet provider, last year announced that it was blocking 23,000 attempts to access child abuse websites every day."

Yes, that's a lot of people, but not as many as would have been able to walk into a shop and browse through the magazines in the 70's. And also lets not forget that some 'unsavoury' adult porn websites can leave nasty 'things' on your computer which automatically prompt your computer to 'attempt' to open dodgy websites. Infact not always adult websites, I don't visit any of those types of site, yet I've still had the (thankfully) very rare virus which have meant that I've had not very tasteful websites opening on their own. These virus induced hits would also be included in the total.

Of COURSE the problem still exists, and yes it's easier to distribute these d(and lets not forget some of the equally wonderful reports in the Guardian on parenting issues...) is greatly at fault for making it appear the problem is a billion times worse and that our children are at greater risk (actually if you read the link I posted - yes all 9 pages of it) you'll see that they say a big majority of the new images are produced by 'sex tourists' travelling to the Far East etc. Quite a different ball game to our kids running naked on the beach!

Ah, you would argue black was white missus!

Ah, you would argue black was white missus!

ah but it is!!!!! They're just different shades of grey...........................

I personally wouldn't but if others want to, that's upto them.

That's my position exactly HappyDaddy - each to their own etc

OK things we do agree on (as I really must get onto and do some 'stuff' today)

Allowing your child to run naked on the beach is parental preference.
Biggest actual risk is sun exposure, potential risk of unwanted oggling and photos.

Child porn, used to be and still is a major problem.

Now I'm off to discuss Black is White

Now that would be a nice way to end this thread!

or we could a naturist cyberhug hahaha!

[doubtful emoticon] - me naked is not a nice image! - can I still be a 'textile' in our cyberhug?