Can we always protect our children? (Keeping Your Child Safe from the Outside World)

Member Name: adam171275

Product:	Keeping Your Child Safe from the Outside World
Date:	20/04/09 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Educate them

Disadvantages: can stop the from being children

An avid watcher of the news channels I am totally aware of the horrors that can happen to children in this world. As you may know I myself have two children a 6 year old girl and a 19 month old boy. As a parent one of the things you immediately want to do is protect them and keep them safe. The question is how much can you protect them from the outside world? And can we protect them too much? There is a fine line.

A few cases I've heard on the news in the past and present spring to my mind. The most recent is the very sad and devastating case of Baby P who was found dead in his blood splattered cot aged only 17 months (just two months younger than my son is now) He suffered months of abuse at the hands of his mother, step father and the lodger. The question I ask is who was protecting him? The social services failed, the police failed, the doctors failed, health visitors failed and the saddest thing is that his own mother failed. This is a classic example of a child being unprotected to the extreme, when reading sad and horrific news such as this it makes you want to protect your children even more doesn't it? When I saw this on the news first last year baby P reminded me so much of my son and my wife especially became somewhat more protective of him more than ever. The difference is that his mother failed him where as we and most parents will protect our children more than anything else in the world.


I remember when my little girl was first born the immense protectiveness I felt towards her was huge I almost didn't want to let her out of our grasp. As she has grown up I must say that it has got much harder. I remember when my little girl was born back in August 2002, this was when the two girls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells went missing only later to be found murdered by Ian Huntley. I remember watching this on the news late at night when my daughter was feeding through the night with my wife and we would both say to each other we are never letting her out of our site. But we can't protect them all the time as this proved for both Jessica and Holly's parents (R.I.P Jessica and Holly)


As my little girl got older we faced many hurdles such as letting her play outside with her friends. Now I remember when I was young I would go off playing with my mates in the morning and not return till tea time and this was the norm. I can't have been very old I'm inclined to say I was only a mere 6 and I would go into the town on my own with mates at around 8 or 9. Was it really safer back then or did we just not hear so much about it? Now my daughter will go outside and play with her friends but it is only under very strict rules. We live in a small street with many children so there are always children out the front playing. When my daughter was around 5 she really showed an interest in wanting to go out the front to play. My wife was at home with her whilst I was at work so she really felt uncomfortable about letting her do so. When I returned from work we discussed it and decided we would let her out the front to play but wanted to feel happy about it at the same time. We felt that we couldn't keep her in all the time as all her friends were outside playing and we almost felt sorry for her as she would look at them from the window. The point I'm trying to make here is that you can protect them too much and at the end of the day they are children and need to be children. They need to go out side and play together and let of steam. I think if you are an over anxious parent you can stop them from being a child and also pass your anxious traits onto them. When we first let her out my wife especially would be permanently at the window checking she was ok. She would go outside and do the garden just so she could keep an eye on her. I knew that I had to let her do this on her own, she knew her boundaries and as far as she could go. She was only allowed where we could see her and she wasn't allowed to go anywhere (in a friends house) unless we knew where she was. I really think she has benefited from this bit of freedom; she is very sensible, aware of any danger and above all being a child and having fun.


A new thing I'm quite wary of is internet abuse; this is in the form of grooming by pedophiles. Although my daughter is only 6 at the moment it is certainly something I will be monitoring as she grows older. She is very familiar with the internet now and can easily log on and access her favorite web sites. I am most certain that in a few months time I will be restricting her internet access and monitoring what she is viewing. When you read about how easy pedophiles groom children it is shocking they do it so easy. I think all the internet chat sites etc are one of the worst things that could of happened in this respect as it really does give pedophiles an opening to find a victim, I shudder when I think of this. I think one of the best things you can do as a parent is to tell them the risks of the internet and make them aware of and signs to watch out for. We recently had some information about internet safety from my daughter's school which was absolutely great and very useful to look at. The site is thinkuknow.co.uk this allows you to go to different age groups and will give you all different scenarios which your child can look at and be advised what is safe and what isn't. We haven't shown our daughter yet but will do when she is slightly older but we have looked around it and I advise that any parent worried about this take a look at this website as it really is very informative.



To conclude this review I'm going to say that I feel that this day and age we do really have to protect our children more than ever as if you look at the news this will prove it. There really are some very bad and sick people out there. At the same time you do have to let children be children and let them have some freedom you cannot wrap them up forever. The most important thing I feel now is to educate and educate more, the more risks children are aware of the better. I think we need to trust our children and be honest with them and make them aware that not all people are nice and have good intentions.

Summary: we cannot wrap them in cotton wool