URGENT - mumsnet on Radio Ulster at 9.30 your opinions needed

[carriemumsnet]

Hi all

We have been asked to give opinions on Radio Ulster on whether parents should modify ours and our children's behaviour because there might be paedophiles around. ie should you think about how your chidren are dressed etc

I think I know what I think but it would be great to have some other thoughts from you.

The story is on the back of a paedophile being released into the community in N Ireland.

I've only got 5 mins - so won't have time to say much - but your thoughts in brief would be appreciated.

that's such a shame triceratops..

I see this sometimes at the park, nobody helping up a child who has fallen over and is crying - in case someone gets the wrong idea.

What a sad society we have become.

Message withdrawn

agree with unicorn

I don't have girls but agree that 'teenage' clothes look hideous on them and I wouldn't dress any dd of mine in such outfits - but that's regardless of the paedophile issue.

With regard to paedophiles and dressing my boys - the only time it ever occurs to me is if they are naked so I don't think I'd let them be naked on the beach (sad but true - I'd always have them in shorts). At swimming I take their swim shorts off at the poolside though and they stand under the shower naked and then I put a towel round them so I'm not sure what the difference is (maybe cos they are close to me there and are not wandering about naked).

However, I doubt that in reality whether a child is clothed or not makes any difference to a paedophile so perhaps we should all just do as we like and just protect them in all other ways possible?

Personally I think life is too short to worry about lurking paedophiles and I wouldn't modify my own or my kids' behaviour on that account. Good luck with the interview, Carrie.

IKWYM Triceratops - I find it very difficult at playgroups when other people's children want to sit with us when I'm reading DD a story or help them into dressing up kit or even if someone falls and needs assistance. There's no way I won't help, especially in the latter case, but it's still not nice when all eyes are on you. Before DD became a toddler I had entertained the thought of becoming a classroom assistant when DD and DS are both in school. Not any more.

I would always pick up a child in the park if it was hurt... I wold lose a lot if I were falsely accused (doing degree leading to Teacher Training), but I couldn't let a child be hurt or scared and not help.

I want ds to look like a 2 year old, and of course that includes wearing a bathing suit.

I had a boss that was obsessed with paedophiles and we practically had to dress our child models up in swimsuits. it was restrictive, biased and I hated it.

We have just had an ad pulled in NZ which shows a 2 year old boy naked (from back) peeing into a potty standing up, because paedophiles might see it and get excited. That makes me sad, what next nappy ads being pulled because they show babies bottoms?

Swimsuits - I meant ski suits - must be the closet paedophile in me!

Thanks for that

after telling me it was about paedophiles and clothes I ended up debating clothes with Wayne Hemingway.... best laid plans and all that!
Anyway thanks as ever for your responses

You were the very voice of reason - well done.

PS thanks for getting me to listen to Radio Ulster while waiting for your bit. It's always a laugh a minute, that bloke moaning about his bins before you came on was brilliant, especially his theory about the obesity epidemic being linked to the sell by dates on food: "this cheese will be past its sell by date tomorrow, kids come in from the garden and have a big feed of cheese!" Classic. Wish I still lived there.

and the bit about Castlereagh bin-men being like lions - you could look for them for days and see nothing, then you come across them just lying in the sun. ROFL.

anyway that's digressing. Thought Hemingway was a bit of a snob: basically if the mother's dressed as a chav, the daughter will too, whatever her age (fair point I guess, but could have been put less judgementally) and how he's taught his children that they musn't say anything in public about how chavvy people look, but that it's OK to have a private "sneer" at them

Belfast/North Down coast

By the sounds of it your 4yo looks better than WH did the last time I saw him on the telly

Back to the original question... I think we should not modify our behaviour because of that. It is far more effective to keep an eye on your children/know where they are at all times rather than making them wary/fearful by obsessing about stranger danger. After all, one of the worst things about being abused is not to be able to trust people easily again and by teaching them to fear strangers we are actually doing the same damage.

Besides... it is my belief that more children who experience a kind of sexual abuse, get it from a person that is well known to them, sexual abuse can can come from any one, from a parent, a nice neighbour, a cousin, or even another older child at school. I suppose that children that are attacked by people unknown to them are a tiny minority.