How Dangerous is Childhood

wrote in
ups.com:


How Dangerous Is Childhood?
NICOLE NEAL

-- The death of trust. As children have been trained to
look out for menacing strangers, adults have learned to
fear false accusations. The fallout: teachers cautioned to
never touch a child, Scout troops unable to find male
leaders, and men who must think twice before interacting
with any child who isn't his own.


This is something we don't hear enough about. That is, how
exactly are adults to balance the need to protect kids -
since most molesters are not strangers - with the
undeniable need to teach kids to be respectful and
obedient, even to those teachers they hate and consider to
be generally unfair, since kids very often can't understand
teachers'/adults' rules anyway?

undeniable need to teach kids to be respectful & obedient?
i don't think so! not all adults are deserving of respect &
obedience and children shouldn't be forced to do so.
there's a huge difference between following the instructions
of a teacher you don't like & obeying & respecting Uncle
Milty, who is fondling you when no one is looking...
why is it so difficult to teach a child that there are adults
that should NOT be obeyed? that only certain kinds of touching
are "bad", but if any person is touching them at all when they
say no, the parents should be told.
i'm pretty sure this all falls under "Listen to your child.
Believe your child."

I'd love to know if any conservative child experts have
addressed this in detail. Certainly, Dr. John Rosemond
hasn't, SFAIK - and I'd certainly think a smart man like
him could. Especially since he has no outdated qualms
(unlike Dr. Laura) about putting a four-year-old in an
after-school program so Mommy can work outside the home.
(DL was furious when he said that, in July 2000.)

i'm not touching this with a 10' barge pole... nope. sitting
on my hands.
lee
--
Question with boldness even the existence of god; because if
there be
one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of
blindfolded
fear. - Thomas Jefferson

FlowerGirl wrote:
"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
oups.com...

I disagree .. the way I see it is that Chris is teaching her son to be aware
of his surroundings (ie "stranger danger").

I think you missed my point. That she *risks* doing so, not that she
*is*. If she's handling it carefully, she probably WON'T cause it.
Just as if she lets him go into a bathroom alone, he will probably
never be harmed. Are you seriously claiming that there is no risk to
stranger danger teachings?

Howabout that Utah kid, who was so distrustful of strangers, that when
he became separated from his family in a national park, he hid from
rescue searchers for several days?

And stranger danger is SERIOUSLY overrated. The vast majority of all
strangers are not out to get your kid. I think we should teach them
"stranger caution", not stranger danger.

I seriously doubt that Chris not letting her 6 yo son go to the men's dunny
by himself will turn him into a "fearful, distrustful child, who then turns
into an adult who has trouble connecting with people".

Me too.

...but I reckon
even a comparatively mild encounter with a sleazebag in a public toilet
would accomplish that *really* well.

Perhaps. But the chances of that are REALLY low.

I guess to comes down to what individual parents feel comfortable with for
their kids.

Yup.

Cathy Weeks

Knit Chic wrote:
"toto" wrote in message
...
http://health.theledger.com/article/...11/FAMILY/1478


IMO the author of this article has very poor logic skills. The information
that is used to back up her issue has nothing to do with the issue that has
been presented.
Comparing apples to oranges ...

Oh? Give examples please? Hard to have a good conversation without
knowing your reasons.

Cathy Weeks

Phoebe & Allyson wrote:

She
and I were at my school last night, and she saw an African-American man
coming towards us, and immediately said he was a strange man who was
going to take her away, like the man at the zoo.

Phoebe

Was the man who accidently took her away at the zoo African American?
If not, you need to start exposing your children to more people of
color.

-L.

toto wrote:
http://health.theledger.com/article/...11/FAMILY/1478

How Dangerous Is Childhood?
NICOLE NEAL
c. 2006 Cox News Service

How Dangerous Is Childhood?
NICOLE NEAL
c. 2006 Cox News Service
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate

Adam Walsh's childhood wasn't the only one that ended 25 years ago.
Childhood -- and parenthood -- would never be the same.

On Aug. 10, 1981, the severed head of the South Florida boy was found
in a canal in Vero Beach.

If a 6-year-old could be taken from a mall after being out of his
mother's sight for just minutes; if he could be murdered and
decapitated; if his killer could elude authorities, then our world
must be a truly dangerous place for children.

John Walsh's wife LEFT the kid in the video department of Sears - so he
could watch older kids play video games. She left him and went to a
different part of the store to shop. He was SIX. SHE is to blame as
much as the guy who abducted Adam.



But how dangerous is childhood?

And just as important, how dangerous is the pervasive belief that
childhood is dangerous?

You have to be educated about where your child is and whom he is with.


snip


Remember Jamie Bulger, the 2-year-old British boy murdered by
two 10-year-old boys?

That was a horrifyiong story - one that still gives me chills.



Relentless exposure erodes our ability to see the incident for what
it is: A tragic but extremely rare occurrence. Instead, we think every
child might be the next Adam Walsh, or Polly Klaas, or Jessica
Lunsford, or Carlie Brucia, or Samantha Runnion.

I don't care how rare it is - it happens. It's stupid to just act like
it doesn't because it's rare.


Intellectually, we know the odds: The chances of dying aboard
a plane are slim (Lifetime odds: 1 in 500,000, and that's for
frequent fliers). But emotionally, we aren't convinced. Flying
scares us.

The difference, though: Despite our fears, we continue to fly. To
refuse to board a plane would be to condemn ourselves to a
limited life.

But we think nothing of limiting our children's lives, based on
fears that are even less likely to be realized.

IMO, this is a lot of bull****. being cognizant of where your child is
and what he is doing can go a long way in preventing such tragedies.
How many of the stories of stranger abduction report that the incident
happened when the child was alone, either on foot or on a bike? Most
of them.



But how common are what the Justice Department calls
"stereotypical" abductions, the nightmare-caliber crime involving
a stranger or slight acquaintance who whisks away a child with
the intention of holding him for ransom, keeping him, or killing
him?

Most children are abducted by starngers for sex - murder is secondary.


Statistics vary, but not by much. Some estimate about 40 such
cases occur each year in the U.S. The Justice Department
report says there were 115 cases in 2002.

115 is too many.


Either way, with 60,700,000 children 14 and under in the United
States, the odds of your child being the victim of an Adam Walsh
-style abduction are roughly 1 in a million.

You'd be wiser to cancel those horseback-riding lessons. Your
child is more likely to be killed in an equestrian accident. (Odds
in one year for people who ride horses: 1 in 297,000.)

I suspect for children, its higher.

Or better
yet, pull him off the football team. (Yearly odds of dying for youth
football players: 1 in 78,260.) And if you really want to protect
them, sell your car. (Lifetime odds of dying as a passenger: 1
in 228. Odds of dying this year alone: 1 in 17,625.)

Doesn't mean one shouldn't be aware of the risk.


Or, to put another spin on it, your child is 700 times more likely to
get into Harvard than to be the victim of such an abduction.

Well of course! He's an exceptionally bright boy...



Chances that the kidnapped child will be killed are smaller still.
The U.S. Department of Justice says 40 percent of the 115
victims were murdered.

And what percentage are never found? I suspect the "dead" rate is much
higer than 40%...



The casualties in this world of parental paranoia:

-- The death of walking. Walking to school -- barefoot, in the
snow, and uphill both ways -- used to be the norm. But so few
children walk to school today -- about 10 percent nationwide --
that Oct. 4 has been named International Walk to School Day.

Here most of the kids walk - with their parents or in groups.



A major reason the K-8 crowd is sealed into the backs of SUVs
and transported: Parental concerns about safety.

And those concerns "have as much to do with 'stranger danger'
-- the chance that a child walking to school will be snatched off
the sidewalk by a complete stranger -- as a fear of traffic," states
a Salon.com article about "Safe Routes to School," an effort
started several years ago to get more kids walking and biking
to school.

Traffic is a real danger here - mainly the Mooomies in ther SUVs
schlepping Bratleigh to kindy...they go 45 mph down our street where
the limit is 25...



Wendi Kallins, project manager for the Marin County, Calif.,
program, describes one father who attended a Safe Routes
meeting: Intellectually, he understood his child was highly
unlikely to meet a grisly end on the walk to school. But
emotionally? "With my pretty blue-eyed daughter, I'm
convinced she will be the one."

"When you're dealing with gut-level fears," Kallins is quoted
as saying, "there's not much you can do.

Why does anyone care? That's the real question?


"The whole level of fear in our culture is increasing."

And so a vicious cycle ensues: Fewer children walk, so they
don't travel in the protective packs that once gave parents
comfort. The increase in traffic heading to schools makes it
more likely that a kid will be hit by a car, most likely driven by
a parent. (Fifty percent of the children hit by cars near schools
are hit by parents of other students, according to the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration.)

Not surprising at all...



And kids miss a chance for exercise, social interaction, and a
dose of self-reliance.

-- The death of play. Much has been written about the
overscheduled child and the lost art of play. Structured fun
does far less to bolster creative thinking, self-sufficiency,
teamwork building, and social and problem-solving skills.

Almost all parents wistfully wish that their kids could experience
playtime as they knew it, when children organized their own
games and came home when the streetlights were turned on.

Yet no one seems willing to let their children simply go out
and play. There's the fear -- that word again -- that kids will
be left behind if they don't take part in the requisite number
of classes and organized activities. There's also a hands-off
approach to other people's children that didn't exist 30 years
ago, so parents can no longer count on "the village" to discipline
or even keep an eye on their child. And many kids simply don't
want to play outside -- video games and computers are the
new playgrounds of choice.

I agree with all of this.


But a 2001 Time magazine article quotes a Sarasota mom who
sums up many parents' sentiments: Unsupervised play is also
dangerous.

She lives next door to a park, but her children aren't allowed
to play there. She has heard that people expose themselves
there.

The problem here is the bigger kids - they act like imbiciles.



"It used to be that in the presence of one another, kids formed
a critical mass to keep each other safe," says Roger Hart, a
psychologist at City University of New York. "Gone are the days
when children make any of their own plans."

-- The death of trust. As children have been trained to look out for
menacing strangers, adults have learned to fear false accusations.
The fallout: teachers cautioned to never touch a child, Scout troops
unable to find male leaders, and men who must think twice before
interacting with any child who isn't his own.

A New York writer shares his story: "A new child molester is
roaming South Queens, N.Y. -- me!"

He tells of walking behind an 11-year-old girl who kept nervously
looking over her shoulder at him.

"When I sought to comfort her with a kindly smile, she became
even more alarmed."

The story continues: "I wasn't some stranger cruising the
neighborhood (didn't a man once have the right to walk any
street in America?)." Turns out, his son attends the girl's
school.

He didn't think about the girl until a few days later, when a
letter went home to parents, describing the "incident."

The child's report: "While on my way to school I saw a man
following me. I looked back and he smiled and nodded his
head." The girl went into a drugstore, notified a security guard,
and received a police escort to school.

She was smart. The guy should have stopped and let her walk ahead.



Better safe than sorry? Maybe. But has this girl been trained to
be cautious, or to be fearful? Will she grow into a young woman
too timid to take a solo rail trip across Europe, drive herself
across Route 66, or simply to walk through life taking pleasure
in her own company, secure in her own good judgment?

If her parents are total fidiots, she will.



-- The death of self-sufficiency. On college campuses, our culture
of fear is coming home to roost. We've reared a generation
denied the chance to play or to simply walk to school, protected
from all failure and risk, and taught that the world is a very
dangerous place.

Now, they're struggling to grow up.

Talk to any professor, any college administrator, and hear tales
of comically overprotective "helicopter" parents and students
tethered to their mothers via thrice-daily cellphone calls. And
when they graduate? The "boomerang generation" goes right
back home to mom and dad.

That's the parents fault. That's a failure to instill independence.
There's a big diffeerence between giving your child a safety net and
wiping his ass for him...




Not all of this is rooted in fear of physical harm, of course. But
there's no doubt that a lifetime of protection from both
menacing strangers and life's regular bumps and bruises has
left its legacy.

"With few challenges all their own, kids are unable to forge their
creative adaptations to the normal vicissitudes of life," an article
in Psychology Today states. "That not only makes them risk-
averse, it makes them psychologically fragile, riddled with
anxiety. In the process they're robbed of identity, meaning and
a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing of a shot at real
happiness.


I'm just not seeing it.


"Whether we want to or not, we're on our way to creating a
nation of wimps."

-- The death of common sense. The culture of fear, as every
parent knows, is not limited to "stranger danger."

On the Web site Kids in Danger (the site's icon: the ominous
opened safety pin from diapers of yore!) parents can read
about the perils inherent in high chairs, "soft bedding," strollers,
swings, cribs, etc. They can peruse a 44-page report on Baby
Bath Seats/Rings.

They can bone up on the common childhood menace, toys:
"Meant to provide joy and entertainment, toys, however, are
linked to all-too-many injuries."

Provided they survive their toys, the well-parented child
emerges, perpetually helmeted, into a world of car seats,
padded playgrounds, sanitary hand gel, compulsive sunscreen
applications, nut-free classrooms, sugar-free birthday parties,
cellphones-as-umbilical-cords ...

Every one of those items has a place in a child's life if used
properly.



And paranoia:

Furedi, the British author, points to the ban on small plastic
prizes from children's snacks. "There is no evidence that any
child has ever choked to death (on a prize) -- but the
theoretical possibility that one just might do so one day is
undeniable, and that is enough to justify a ban."

Stearns points to the alleged dangers of Halloween: the idea
that within each plastic pumpkin lurks a chocolate bar injected
with straight pins or razor blades.

"As far as we can determine, this never happened. But it
changed the whole pattern of Halloween."

You have to know whom you are getting your candy from - don't be
ridiuculous! Would you eat candy you found on the street? If not, why
subject your child to essentially the same thing?
snip

In the end, though, numbers don't lie.

By all accounts, childhood is far less dangerous now than it
once was, even back in those mythic, gentler times. In 1930,
almost 11 percent of the population died before reaching age
20. For children born in 2000, that number will be 1.3 percent.
(Most of those deaths: accidental injuries, and not, for the
record, as a result of toys.)

This is so stupid. Medicine has improved greatly since 1930...


But, as Stearns, the "Anxious Parents" author, says, "we're
addicted to stuff that makes us insecure."

"It's like being mesmerized by a cobra."

Stupid article, for the most part.

-L.

Cathy Weeks wrote:
never be harmed. Are you seriously claiming that there is no risk to
stranger danger teachings?

Not if done properly, over time.


Howabout that Utah kid, who was so distrustful of strangers, that when
he became separated from his family in a national park, he hid from
rescue searchers for several days?

IIRC he was mentally disabled. The kid had incredibly poor judgement.


And stranger danger is SERIOUSLY overrated. The vast majority of all
strangers are not out to get your kid.

I don't think it's properly taught that way, is it?

I think we should teach them
"stranger caution", not stranger danger.

I seriously doubt that Chris not letting her 6 yo son go to the men's dunny
by himself will turn him into a "fearful, distrustful child, who then turns
into an adult who has trouble connecting with people".

Me too.

...but I reckon
even a comparatively mild encounter with a sleazebag in a public toilet
would accomplish that *really* well.

Perhaps. But the chances of that are REALLY low.

Possibly not. Exposure or molestation certainly is more common than
abduction. What is it - 1 in 3 girls is molested sometime in their
life? Some percentage of that is by strangers.

I remember some creep exposing himself to me and a friend in a park
while we were waiting for our parents to pick us up after softball
practice. At the time I didn't know what was going on, but later
figured it out. I was 11 and my friend was 9. I suspect that sort of
thing often goes unreported. I know I never told anyone.

-L.

"L." wrote in message
oups.com...

toto wrote:
If a 6-year-old could be taken from a mall after being out of his
mother's sight for just minutes; if he could be murdered and
decapitated; if his killer could elude authorities, then our world
must be a truly dangerous place for children.

John Walsh's wife LEFT the kid in the video department of Sears - so he
could watch older kids play video games. She left him and went to a
different part of the store to shop. He was SIX. SHE is to blame as
much as the guy who abducted Adam.

I remember in a documentary recently that she was six aisles over, which
can't be very far. A security guard took Adam out of the store and left him
there when the boys started arguing. I hope that guard feels as guilty as
she should for her part.

I would think the mom should have heard her son arguing and maybe should
have kept a closer eye on him, but the guard should never have escorted a
six-year old out of a store and left him there.

toypup wrote:

I remember in a documentary recently that she was six aisles over, which
can't be very far.

I wouldn't leave my six year old at all.

A security guard took Adam out of the store and left him
there when the boys started arguing. I hope that guard feels as guilty as
she should for her part.

I would think the mom should have heard her son arguing and maybe should
have kept a closer eye on him, but the guard should never have escorted a
six-year old out of a store and left him there.

I have never read anything about a security guard being involved - and
I have read Walsh's books. (Albeit a long time ago.) I will have to
check that out! In fact, I thought they looked for him in the store
for quite along time - seems a guard would know he had been put
outside...

-L.

"L." wrote in message
oups.com...

toypup wrote:

I remember in a documentary recently that she was six aisles over, which
can't be very far.

I wouldn't leave my six year old at all.

To be fair, I think those were more innocent times. There aren't many
parents nowadays that would leave their kids; but in those days, I think it
was more common.


A security guard took Adam out of the store and left him
there when the boys started arguing. I hope that guard feels as guilty
as
she should for her part.

I would think the mom should have heard her son arguing and maybe should
have kept a closer eye on him, but the guard should never have escorted a
six-year old out of a store and left him there.

I have never read anything about a security guard being involved - and
I have read Walsh's books. (Albeit a long time ago.) I will have to
check that out! In fact, I thought they looked for him in the store
for quite along time - seems a guard would know he had been put
outside...

I don't know how long they looked for him. Maybe the guard didn't realize
who they were looking for, maybe the mom was looking and didn't notify
security for awhile, maybe the guard went home shortly after sending Adam
out. I don't know anything more than what was on the documentary. They
didn't say much more about the guard. I'm sure she felt horrible about it.

"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
ps.com...

Knit Chic wrote:
"toto" wrote in message
...
http://health.theledger.com/article/...11/FAMILY/1478


IMO the author of this article has very poor logic skills. The
information
that is used to back up her issue has nothing to do with the issue that
has
been presented.
Comparing apples to oranges ...

Oh? Give examples please? Hard to have a good conversation without
knowing your reasons.

Cathy Weeks