UK --- Over protection puts your children at greater risk
Over protection puts your children at greater risk
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/...k-1080215.html Friday September 14 2007 EXPOSURE to danger may help save children's lives, according to an extraordinary claim made this week. It says that parents who forbid their children to cross roads alone may be unintentionally preventing them from learning vital lessons in how to avoid becoming an accident statistic. While the study was conducted in Britain, it undoubtedly resonates here. The number of children in Britain who are never allowed to cross a road unsupervised has risen each year for the past five years, and the number of child pedestrians killed there is also rising. Now the UK Department for Transport research has found that, last year, 49pc of parents with children aged seven to 10 said they never allowed them to cross the road on their own. This compared with a figure of 41pc in 2002. Over the same period, the number of child pedestrians killed in that age range rose from 10 to 18. The overall rate of road deaths in Britain for all children under 16 rose by 20pc between 2005 and 2006, from 141 to 169. Britain's Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said parents needed to understand the risks of being overprotective regarding their children. "Parents should consider whether or not forbidding their children from crossing the road unaccompanied is exposing them subsequently to additional risk," said the council's director Rob Gifford. "They may not acquire the skills they need. Children need to learn to cross the road on their own." Mr Gifford added that parents who attempted to avoid exposing their children to danger by driving them to school were actually contributing to a dangerous vicious circle. |
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