Cotton Wool Kids

Sassinak · Cotton Wool Kids

Did anyone see the programme last night about over-protective parents?

I watched with a mixture of anger and sadness.

Angry that these kids were growing up with very little normality and were beginning to take on board their parents (semi-irrational) fears. Anger at the media and hysteria around that has enabled this situation to develop. There is no greater incidence of abduction and murder than there has ever been, but because of global communication and the mass media it is much publicised and people are far more aware of it.

Sadness that these parents were living their lives in fear.

There was even talk of fitting kids with GPS chips so that their whereabouts could be tracked.
One young man was so delighted that his father had finally let him go to school by bus alone for the first time - he was 14 !!

I realise that in some respects there are more dangers to children now than there were when I was growing up, but that comes from increased traffic, not from men lurking on street corners waiting to steal them.

lor138

Shame, I missed that. Was it on a bbc type channel? If so, we could download it.

Sassinak

It was on channel 4

http://www.mirror.co.uk/showbiz/t.../cotton-wool-kids-89520-20378511/

A lot of the comments on here really sum up my feelings about the whole thing
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=777486

lor138

Think you can download progs from Ch4 too, so that'll be handy, thanks.

Julie

I didn't watch that programme deliberately, there are enough things to make me cross with people without my going looking for them. Must be getting to that 'grumpy' age

The thing is, most of the children who get molested or abducted are subjected to it by people they knew and trusted, so what good is wrapping them in cotton wool against strangers going to do? Surely it would be better to make them aware of the dangers and allow them to become street smart instead?

Ina

True enough. My parents left my lots of freedom compared to my peers - in a way; in other ways they were strict. For example I was once returning from a birthday party in the big city nearby (Hanover) quite late at night - had missed the earlier train - at the tender age of 11. Some man tried to persuade me that I must go with him etc etc. I just stood firm, walked closer to other people, and he went in the end. I know that some of my classmates weren't even allowed to go to Hanover on their own for shopping, during the day, when they were 14. At the age of ten I sometimes visited our suppliers (my parents had a bookshop) and picked up urgent stuff, and did almost all my clothes shopping on my own... I suppose I was streetwise, although in some ways I was very naive, too.

dizzyblond

it was interesting viewing that's for sure.

GPS chips - mmmmmmm

I'm not sure who I felt more sorry for - the kids being afraid of everything or the parents trying to protect them from everything.....

I have to wonder what future some of those lovely kiddies will have, I'm not judging the parents but kids have to learn independence and how to look after themselves......

I do know though that in my little part of the world we are still pretty kid friendly - I wouldn't want to be bringing kids up in an inner city

PurpleDragon

It is very hard to raise kids nowadays.

When I was a kid, I went out after breakfast and came home when I was hungry. If my son did that, some 'well meaning' person would report me for neglect.

There is a hard line nowadays. You cannot discipline your kids without some bloody busybody reporting you; you can't let them walk to their pals houses for the same reason; I wonder if it is not so much that parents are worried their kids are going to get stolen (because we do worry about that - of course we do!) more that we are worried social services will be knocking on our doors because some bloody politically correct idiot thinks they can raise our kids better than we can.

Ina

Same as all those health and safety measures we need to apply nowadays - just because somebody might report us, or in case somebody has an accident, nobody is willing to pay for it...

PurpleDragon

Exactly - and if you do something someone deems as wrong, you pay for it with your kids, at the very least being put on the register.