When I was young I used to go out to play, and be gone for most of the day.
When my own children were young, they could only play out within a certain designated area, and were not allowed to cross the busy road that cuts thru the estate.
My grandchildren are not allowed to play out at all. If my grandsone is going to play round a friends house, my daughter will take him there, and go fetch him later.
I live in an area that I used to live in as a child, and my daughter lives jus a mile away, so basically she`s in the same area that she grew up in. So it`snot as if either of us have moved to different parts of the country that we have no knowlwdge about.
But it`s not only parents who aremore fearful of their childrens` safety. The local council have taken away a lot of the play equipment in children`s parks. This meas that there are a lot less parks that are close to peoples homes where children can go and play without adult chaperoning.
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
Know what you mean about local parks. In the park local to me the council have organised a youth staff team to chaperone children in the park so that they can play safely during the school holidays. How are children ever going to get a real sense of freedom without having to be organised and attended to? My school holidays were days of vacuum where we created adventure and excitment out of nothing. I really feel sorry for young people, they may have a better standard of living but as far I am concerned they have a poorer quality of life.
I have just seen this programme and it is really sad to see kids stuck at home playing wii tennis and football instead of out in the park. One teenage lad on the show was so cosetted, he was not even allowed to cross the road without his mum seeing him. my goodness, this is taking it to extremes. Some parents were also going to get their kids microchipped! It seems as though kids are not allowed to be children anymore, i understand that there are more dangers in this day and age, but you cannot keep them inside all the time like caged animals paying computer games.
No wonder there is a rise in obesity, parents driving their children to school and not being allowed out to play games. I hope that i will not be that bad when my little girl grows up, of course i will be cautious but at the same time i do not want to take away their childhood!
An important and timely documentary. When I was doing the research for my book on how our lives these days are ruled by fear, How to Live Dangerously, I was shocked but not wholly surprised to find just how many of us behave in a way that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.
i think the culture of fear partly grows out of a culture of personal blame.
people are no longer willing to accept that accidents happen, they want someone to blame for them. so where i broke my arm in the local playground and it was just an accident, these days parents would be suing the council.
blaming parents is a particularly popular sport, so an accident becomes an inevitable risk they should have foreseen and prevented from happening.
sad. but i firmly resisted raising my own kids in that way.
I felt that cotton wool kids highlighted a very good point in today's society in that we are a community living in fear of the worst. However, my mother has always said to me (herself now being in her mid forties!) that the same problems always existed in her childhood...just the public knowledge and publicity was not applicable. Perhaps this was because incidents of the same manner were considered taboo subjects. We are encouraging future offspring to be nervous wrecks...more than likely to cry at the smallest of scratches. Growing up is about learning from your experiences, something which these children were being denied. One last point... I felt it was incredibly insensitive and distasteful of channel 4 to focus such a majority of the programme on Madeleine McCann. In my opinion a serious error of judgement!
Accidents do happen, unfortunately it is a part of life! In this day and age we are seeing a compensation culture, with adverts on the TV stating that it is not so and that someone always is to blame, how sad!
Ok so these parents on the documentary, cotton wool kids are anxious about things happening to their child so keep them in doors. This is wrong! Why then dont they take their kids out, to the park or swimming or whatever, instead of sitting them in from of the TV or playing computer games. It is all very easy to do this. This boy was playing computer tennis instead of playing the real thing, why dosent the dad or mum take them to an organised activity then!
This is not good for the children, when they are older they will have childhood memories of sitting at home and not being allowed to do things. Is that what we want!
I was absolutely horrified by Cotton Wool Kids last night. I wish the show would of gone into more detail of the absolute damage that is being done to the children of these people. As parents our first responsibility is to raise our children to become adults. By cosseting them and not allowing them to mature (at an adequate pace) and learn about life by living it, you are not raising children to think for themselves which could then cause them more harm in the future. I am not saying that you allow your children to run freely in the roads but they have to become their own individual and discover the world and their surroundings in their own way by being out and about with friends. Even at 1 1/2 I would let my son run about in the our back garden (1 acre)with the dogs while I cleaned the kitchen and yes, he would come in muddy and sometimes I would have to run out to rescue him from some bush but he was exploring and growing. Our garden is 100% fenced in by a high fence and safe yet he felt free and able to explore.
These parents are also introducing their children to some very adult issues that children should be saved from until they are able to understand it in a more grown up fashion. Yes we should teach all children about strangers and to not go off with or speak to strangers but one mother told her daughter that if someone took her they could cover her mouth and nose with a towel so that she would not beable to breath. And then one parent was driving down the road pointing out the people that could be bad. This is sadistic and is bound to only terrify the child into not wanting to leave their house and I would think it would give them serious issues with forming relationships as who knows what that person you meet at school/work/socially is really like.
I realise that dangers do exist but as stated in the show, child abduction has not increased in the past twenty years. We need to get over the fear and allow our children room to grow and explore as if we do not, we are causing them a greater danger to their futures.
Watched Cotton Wool Kids last night. Would have liked a bit more of an interview with the parents to get a feel as to why they were so protective of their children. What sort of parenting where they shown when they were younger? Did they have bad experiences? Also, it would have been really good to see more of the EFT workshop. I was really excited when I saw tapping as I never seen it featured on tv before. But we only got a fleeting glance of children and adults tapping. I have been a client of EFT and it really is powerful stuff. I would have like to see/hear feedback from the families at the workshop. Does anyone know who was the practitioner?
exactly! This mum was wanting to get her daughter microchipped like an animal, another mum was implanting fear into her daughters by talking about things that these girls should not hear, in graphic detail about what might happen if they were to be taken, as well as pointing out in the car who could be a potential kidnapper. My god, these girls will grow up with serious trust issues, this mother is messing up their lives.
Originally posted by pigletmania: exactly! This mum was wanting to get her daughter microchipped like an animal, another mum was implanting fear into her daughters by talking about things that these girls should not hear, in graphic detail about what might happen if they were to be taken, as well as pointing out in the car who could be a potential kidnapper
that was the same mum wasn't it? yes, she was telling them not to trust anyone - young people, old people, men, women - one of the kids said 'except our family though?' and she couldn't even allow herself to comfort them with that, instead saying ...'well, just make sure you stay with me' (or something like that).
she would probably claim that statistics show most abuse happens within families, but surely its not necessary to leave your children so utterly afraid of the world?
Originally posted by athomemom: Even at 1 1/2 I would let my son run about in the our back garden (1 acre)with the dogs while I cleaned the kitchen and yes, he would come in muddy and sometimes I would have to run out to rescue him from some bush but he was exploring and growing. Our garden is 100% fenced in by a high fence and safe yet he felt free and able to explore.
If I had a 1 acre piece of land surrounded by a high fence I too would be happy to let my 3 year old go outside as well! Most people don't have this luxury! I live in what is considered a deprived area and none of the responsible parents let their children play out round here. The only children you see out in the evenings are the ones whose parents don't care what they get up to. We have had ASBO's served on people, drug dealers in the area etc. We had a community "clean up" of the area but couldn't let the children join in because they might find used needles lying around. A really lovely place to play out!
The documentary last night brought tears to my eyes when I saw the 3 year old girl not being allowed to touch things in her own garden, and being worried that somebody would take her like Madeleine.
These people are installing unneeded fear into their children. It is said that those who have no experienced are most likely to get hit by cars and whatever because they are not used to it. I mean how can they legally let a woman microchip her daughter, it is unbelivable uncalled for.
I live in South-East London and feel totally safe walking the streets on my own at night even at now at 17. I will quite happily let my kids when i have them go out alone and when they are of secondary school age then make their own way to school, but i wouldn't walk my child across the road to get the bus i could watch that from the house! Wrapping you're child up in cotton wool is just preventing them from experiencing life as they should do and allow them to be children.
Those parents who were warning their 3 yr old about slipping on the grass, I mean how ridiculous, grass has always been there and hasnt suddenly become some monster that will kill their child, maybe that fear way instilled in them when they were children which it where it has come from.
Overall i think you are just making it worse for you're kids by 'wrapping them in cotton wool' and not letting them have freedom.
There is a middle ground here, i would not be overprotective like those parents in the documentary, nor would i allow them to run around will nilly and not know where they were and what they are up to. It was really sad also to see this little girl go round her garden and state potential dangers that 'might happen' e.g. being stung be nettles, slipping on grass. These parents are really messing up their kids lives. How are they going to learn if they never experience things. It is all part and parcel of childhood, falling off bike, slipping on grass, grazing your knee. I would hate a childhood like that, with no fun.
There seems to be an awful lot of "blame" being aimed towards the parents in this thread.
Yet no-one has mentioned the fact that schools have cut way back on PE, and that school sports days have all but been eliminated from the curriculum. Sports days are now a thing of the past because someone-somewhere decreed that children cannot cope with losing a race, and so decided that as no child should feel upset at not coming first, they weren`t going to have the competition in the first place.
Kids have picked up on this, it gives them the message that it`s go good even trying in the first place.
This means that kids are not being given the chance to fail, and so are unable to deal with failure.
As to saying that the parents should take the children to play real tennis instead of Wii tennis... I dunno about where you live, but tennis clubs round here cost a fortune to join. The local council tennis courts have no nets, so they`re not much good.
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
I realise that dangers do exist but as stated in the show, child abduction has not increased in the past twenty years. We need to get over the fear and allow our children room to grow and explore as if we do not, we are causing them a greater danger to their futures.
Child abduction may not have increased over the years, but our awareness of it has increased.
And as the subject is no longer taboo, it makes sensationalistic press headlines. While children being abducted in the past was known to happen, it was always put down to "weirdos". But nowadays we know that predetory paedophiles exist, and that they are known to abduct on more than one occasion.
To let a child play outside the home when such people are known to live in the area is utter madness. If that child is then abducted, then the press, and all the know-it-alls point their fingers straight at the parents and demand to know why the child was allowed to play outside when the parents knew about a paedo.
Parents can`t win no matter what they do.
And it`s always those who don`t have children who make the most noise, either way.
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
Originally posted by athomemom: Even at 1 1/2 I would let my son run about in the our back garden (1 acre)with the dogs while I cleaned the kitchen and yes, he would come in muddy and sometimes I would have to run out to rescue him from some bush but he was exploring and growing. Our garden is 100% fenced in by a high fence and safe yet he felt free and able to explore.
If I had a 1 acre piece of land surrounded by a high fence I too would be happy to let my 3 year old go outside as well! Most people don't have this luxury! I live in what is considered a deprived area and none of the responsible parents let their children play out round here. The only children you see out in the evenings are the ones whose parents don't care what they get up to. We have had ASBO's served on people, drug dealers in the area etc. We had a community "clean up" of the area but couldn't let the children join in because they might find used needles lying around. A really lovely place to play out!
You must live round my way!!
Mind you, I am one of the lucky ones, as my garden is 100ft long, and backs onto wildgrounds. So my own garden is relatively safe...... barring any accidents from poachers roaming in the wildgrounds with guns.
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
The probability of your child being snathced by a stranger is zero - statistically inconsequential. Parents rant about risk yet the activity most likely to kill or maim your child is taking them on a car journey. Incidently, if you want to be really paranoid about this subject, 4 out of 5 'child snatches' are made by friends and family!!! Get a grip.
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley did not snatch family members.
The Wests killed more non family members than family.
Jason Swift was not killed by a family member.
All those predatory paedos listed by the Sun not too long ago, did not abduct family members.
The pervert who kidnapped the little girl from out of her bath was not a family member.
The little girl whose name has been given to "Sarah`s Law" was not abducted and killed by a family member.
Jonathan King, while not actually abducting anybody, abused boys who were not family members.
So while your claim that 4 out of 5 children are molested by family members, forgive me while caring parents try and protect their kids from the other 20%.
******************************** John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
em angelus, YOu can play tennis anywhere, i used to play with my dad in our small driveway. I am sure that if a parent made and effort to enquire about local facilities, there would be quite a few that would not cost the earth. I am just using tennis as an example, i used to go to a local kickboxing group which had children and adults in and used to only cost about £3 per week. The solution is not to keep children locked up. Why play wii sports when you can do the real thing yourself in a park. YOu dont need a football pitch to play football, like you dont need a tennis court to play tennis, improvise.
That is what childhood is about, learning! How can they do this if they are not given the chance!
Most people don't have this luxury! I live in what is considered a deprived area and none of the responsible parents let their children play out round here. The only children you see out in the evenings are the ones whose parents don't care what they get up to. We have had ASBO's served on people, drug dealers in the area etc. We had a community "clean up" of the area but couldn't let the children join in because they might find used needles lying around. A really lovely place to play out!
