h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been having a(n online) conversation with some friends about letting children learn how to take risks - prompted by this article

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10837395

and as usual (with us - all parents) the conversation drifted around to the fact that when I was in the UK with my Gruesomes the other parents near where my parents live were "horrified" that I let the pair of them go to the playpark (500 metres away, not visible from the house) alone, for 30 minutes on their way back from the sweetshop (no major roads to cross, one zebra crossing on a not-much-used one way street).

Wasn't I worried they would be kidnapped? Actually, I was more worried they would fall off the swing, but that's something that could happen even if I was there since I'm not the kind of person to stand by them all the time in case that happens.

So anyway, during the conversation the news about the little girl in Wales came up. At which the UK based mums all said: I would never let my kid play outside. My reply, given before any arrests were made was that the statistics still show, overwhelmingly, that the danger to children is from people they at least have a nodding acquaintance (if not closer) with. and it seems now that this case is no different.

So, while teaching stranger danger has either worked or is not needed (I tend to think that it has worked but wasn't needed as much as we may have thought) how are we teaching our children to be aware of people they know?

FWIW: my Gruesomes were drilled that we would never EVER send someone to collect them from anywhwere we were supposed to pick them up, unless they had our password. And the only time I forgot to tell someone and another mum attempted to take them from ballet, the teacher called me because the Gruesomes asked her to. Which seems to have worked well.

Children do indeed need to be able to explore boundaries and take some risks.

It may be less than wise though for a child of say, 5, to be out playing at 7:30 at night when it is dark.

PP

but it's not dark at 7:30, and she wasn't alone. I don't know why people are blaming parents, it should be normal that children are outside. Blaming the victim is just such a wrong thing to do. (hadn't there been a parents' evening at the school, I heard that just about all the children were still outside)

We used to be out until the lamps came on...

How do we all feel about the naming of the arrested man? I'm very uncomfortable with that.

This being the UK, we need to find where on the social scale the family lies so we know whether to sympathise or be outraged.

I thought they weren't allowed to name the arrested individuals by law

This was rural wales so it's not like she was out in an inner city park in London - this will be very village like and so not at all the same thing as playing out after dark in say Peckham.

Also if it's rural (mid-north) Wales then they're not likely to be upper-class.


It's all very sad to be honest and a rare, freak occurrence. Press hysteria over it doesn't really do much to help anything.
The only shining light in it that I can see is that in all the mistrust of strangers and keeping kids cotton-wooled that may occur, maybe people should look at the response of the majority and most-of all, those from places like Manchester who've gone down to try and help. Not *there* is community spirit.

'Stranger Danger' is a bloody poor way of doing things anyway... according to child logic someone simply introducing themselves properly stops being a stranger.

I've come across Sho's method before, and that's what I'll be teaching any kids I have (along with having Words with anyone who tells them about 'stranger danger')

My youth was spent in a very Huck Finn / Tom Sawyer way.
Falling thru ice in winter, drifting on a log raft, hitting live bullets
with hammers, all par for the course. I usually came home when
it got dark or I got hungry.

I feel badly for parents and kids today.

Yesterday a helicopter Mom moved round me and my shopping
cart with her shopping cart to get at something on the shelves I
was browsing. Her son froze in his tracks. He could see his mom
on the other side of me but he was afraid to move past. At his
age my Mom would have sent me to the store.

And it's still 3 weeks to Hallowe'en.


~jwf~

The big problem is not that there are paedophiles, murderers and other such scum in the general population. Unfortunate though it is, they have always been there.

The BIG problem is the mass media hysteria that has brought them to the forefront of everybody's minds.

The biggest problem for me is that this thread is more likely to make sing 'Red Light' by Billy Ocean than remind me of any genuine threat to society.

B

Blog post on the subject: http://checklistmommy.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/tricky-people-are-the-new-strangers/

It is dark at 07:30 (in the evening) and as I understand it, she wasn't alone, she was with other children.

I know that I am an old fogey (sp?), but 20 years ago, unless it was a summer holiday evening, my children would have been in, almost certainly in their pyjamas and being read a bedtime story at that time.

I know that that was then and this is now. Parenting, it seems to me, often seems to be rather less 'hands on' than it was.



Yep. I'm uncomfortable with that too. There have been a couple of recent instances where this has happened. One in Bristol where the finger of suspicion was pointed at an odd man by the man who was eventually found guilty of murder (as I remember it). The odd guy's character was examined in fine detail in the gutter. Also in the case of the murdered women in Ipswich where (another odd) man was named AND some of his odd behaviour was published in the Daily Outrage and eventually released without charge. But only after HIS life had been torn apart and ruined.



I absolutely agree. But I don't think anybody is blaming Daisy. Or her parents. The only person responsible, if she has been abducted - which does look likely, is her abductor (and possibly associates).

PP.

Just woke up thinking 'Daisy?'

April. Doh.

PP.

"This being the UK, we need to find where on the social scale the family lies so we know whether to sympathise or be outraged."

Ouch. That's as painful as it is accurate.

>Blog post on the subject: http://checklistmommy.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/tricky-people-are-the-new-strangers/

"Oh, and that soccer coach who keeps offering to babysit for free, so you can get some time to yourself? NO ONE WANTS TO BABYSIT YOUR KIDS JUST TO BE NICE."

Most of that's quite sensible, but the above? No, sorry, I have on a number of occassions taken friends' children out so they can have some time without them.

>>"Oh, and that soccer coach who keeps offering to babysit for free, so you can get some time to yourself? NO ONE WANTS TO BABYSIT YOUR KIDS JUST TO BE NICE."<<

Whoops, I guess that makes me a paedophile then, since I've done that a few times for friends. By the same logic, I'm also into bestiality since I occasionally look after the pets of friends just to give them a break.

The uncomfortable truth is that kids are *far* more like to be abused or harmed by someone they know. In the Grauniad yesterday they were trying to make a big thing out of stranger danger but they kept on having to point out how rare it is. A kid would be much safer knowing very few people and having most of the world be strangers.

I thought that as well. I have been known to babysit.

I think the difference is that by and large I prefer adult company to child company. So when I offer to babysit it's because I know I want to help the adult, who I like, not because I especially want to spend time with the child.

That said I do like looking after children, it's fun. But I'm glad to give them back as well!

I think the key words there are "keeps offering".

When I was about thirty, I had a bunch of boys under ten come round and watch the original Star Wars movies, which they had never seen (!), in advance of the Phantom Menace coming out. I suggested the idea to their mothers, and they said "Yeah", because they knew and trusted me and appreciated a couple of hours of peace. Fine. (These were kids who lived on my street and knew me, it wasn't just a random out of the blue thing - my g/f and I had "babysat" these kids before and they knew us both well. They were riveted, and I more or less left them to it and pottered about tidying up, washing up etc., except for watching a few of the best bits.)

The thing is, if either of the mothers in question had said "Nah." or even "I dunno...", I wouldn't have pushed it, because at the end of the day, while I was enthusiastic about sharing the joy of those films with kids who were the age I was when I first saw it, I didn't really care THAT much. I wasn't desperate to spend time with those kids, I just had an idea that it would be cool for them to see those movies, and I had a nice big widescreen TV some spare time.

Similarly, while *if asked* I'd be more than happy to babysit for any of my friends who have kids, I can't imagine actually offering to do so out of the blue. I especially can't imagine asking them a second time if they'd not taken me up on it the first time.

What I think is being warned against there is the guy who asks/offers more than once. I can understand that.

Ultimately, it's a judgement parents have to make, and as a non-parent I simply cannot imagine how people take that amount of responsibility. I certainly wouldn't criticise them for being over-cautious. I wonder, now, if I were in the same situation again, whether the parents of those kids would be happy for them to come watch those movies at my house. Or, come to that, whether, in the current environment, I'd even offer in the first place. I think I probably wouldn't - which is a bit sad, I think. (Sadder than a 30 year old who loves Star Wars... that sad.)

I think another key factor is numbers, as in "there's safety in". I'd imagine for a parent there's a fair bit of difference between "come round with all your friends and watch a film" to "come round by yourself and watch a film".

That is true, and to be honest I don't think I'd have asked just one of them, partly admittedly out of concern for how it would look but also because they were funnier as a group. It also paradoxically felt like much less of a responsibility dealing with four kids than it would have done if there was just one.

I was thinking recently about this, and I was really struggling with how you _can_ protect children from their own uncles/aunts/priests/teachers/really close friends of the family. There's simply no way I can see to teach them the danger, that would make sense to a child, and wouldn't require more subtlety of understanding than they have. Either that, or describe to them *in detail* the things they should not let anyone do to them, which means really pushing ahead the stages of sex ed, as they stand right now...