Category: Children

Safety matters

30-Apr-10 13:35

 
In comparison to my days as a child, children generally have a much tougher time in today's society when it comes to safety. According to a survey in the Daily Mail today, children have far less freedom than their parents did when they were younger. Why has this drastically changed? Are parent's over-paranoid and scared to let their children grow up into independent adults, or are there valid reasons to be so concerned?

With the everyday issues affecting the UK including bullying, knife crime, paedophilia and child abduction, is no surprise that parents want to protect their children. I'm not saying these issues have sprung out of nowhere and didn't exist years ago, but with the increased exposure of negativity on the news and in the papers, you can't really escape it.

I can't believe it's been three years since Madeleine McCann was abducted from her holiday apartment in Praia de luz, Portugal. Madeleine's parents were interviewed on GMTV this morning, where they expressed their concern for the lack of efforts shown by the authorities on finding Madeleine. I cannot imagine how they must cope on a day-to-day basis, but the abduction has most certainly raised issues and has scared the entire nation.

The Daily Mail survey also reveals that a quarter of children aged 15 and under are not allowed to sleep over at a friend's house, compared with just four per cent of their parents' generation. Six in ten are forbidden from using public transport without a parent present and 43 per cent are not allowed to visit their local park alone.

What are the reasons behind the statistics? Apparently ‘stranger danger' is the biggest concern followed by bullying, mugging and road danger. As a result of this, many more children are staying indoors and probably piling on the pounds from playing too many computer games, as their parents are too scared to let their children out on the loose. Whilst I fully understand why parents are so paranoid, I also think there needs to be a healthy balance so that children aren't completely oblivious to the ways of the world once they've turned 18.

Donna