A generation of "Cotton Wool Kids"

Love2love wrote: »

Eh, that's what my whole post was about..... I want him to have it but I'm not willing to let him out unsupervised. I've just moved into an area where I'm not local so I think it will take me longer to get use to having him outside alone.

how can you play properly with your mammy watching you?:D

I have to laugh at people saying that the world is more dangeruos today. That now we have X,Y and Z issues that could harm the children. These issues are nothing new, they were around when you when a child.

And I agree with you..... All I'm saying is, that its hard to find a balance. Do you think allowing a 6 year old to play outside alone on a busy main road good parenting?

Love2love wrote: »

And I agree with you..... All I'm saying is, that its hard to find a balance. Do you think allowing a 6 year old to play outside alone on a busy main road good parenting?

have you no garden?

mutley18 wrote: »

Climbing trees, building huts, camping, playing on hay bales, kicking a football around a field, ah the good old days.

Then Sony invented the Playstation. Curse them!

Video games were around long before the Playstation, I grew up in the Amstrad/Commodore/NES days and we still played outside plenty. Nothing wrong with letting kids play video games at all but an active outdoor life is needed too, tis all about balance.

listermint wrote: »

Depends on your perception of busy, or are you actually living facing a busy road?

Sometimes people over sell things when trying to make a point.

Or is it just a generic suburban estate?

Swords Road just at the start of the M1....

I do have a garden and he does play in it but it gets boring playing on your own. As I said, not moved in and he's not going to school in the area so he doesn't know anyone around

caustic 1 wrote: »

Look back people, to the Ireland of yesteryear, you think there were no paedophiles? If you didn't live with them then they were neighbours. The difference, social media, some cases now are reported yes only some hundreds and thousands are not, therefore because you hear of them it makes it seem like it's an epidemic. Sad to say it has always been there. You are not protecting your child by going to every single nook and cranny he/she goes too, they will grow up not being able to make a decision without you or someone saying yay or nay.
The only way to protect your child is to educate them of the dangers. Tell them why you want them to never ever talk to strangers. Not in a way that is going to give them sleepless nights, although they need a little fear to make them think twice about talking to this person they do not know. Tell them what could happen if you run across a road and not look, if they climb the tree way too high they might fall. They also might not fall. The car might not come at that time, the stranger could just be a kind person, yes they do exist also. It is about learning them to make judgements on their own.

Exactly, parents shouldn't shy away from this education - it won't make a child lose their innocence, if something happened god forbid...that most certainly would.

I remember going for a piano lesson with a new teacher, my mum told me "I'll be outside the door, if he does anything strange like touch you in a way you feel uncomfortable, or says anything strange, come straight outside and tell me" I was only about 8 at the time, but it meant I knew what to do if something untoward happened - he couldn't say "you'll be in trouble if you tell your mammy etc." because I already knew I should tell my mum! My mum has said this to people and they are shocked she'd dare mention something like that to her 8 year old daughter, but what's the alternative?? Me sitting there silently terrified while my mother sits outside the door unaware?

Same how when I went to my friend's houses, my mum would say "make sure you stay with your friend all the time and don't go wandering off in the house with any adults by yourself" - I didn't understand it at the time, but now I most certainly do!

Same with being collected outside school - the thing of "Oh your mum told me to collect you because she can't make it" wouldn't have worked because I was told that if there were any changes to the plan, my principal would come and tell me because my parents would let them know!

Educate kids on what to do in these situations, and the chances of something terrible happening will decrease dramatically! I was never a scared, paranoid child - I could chat away to people no problem, and was very confident. I simply knew how to recognise a dangerous situation, and what to do to deal with it.

mutley18 wrote: »

Climbing trees, building huts, camping, playing on hay bales, kicking a football around a field, ah the good old days.

Then Sony invented the Playstation. Curse them!

When I was a kid in the 80s we had an Atari, but my love was books. I'd sit in and read from dusk till dawn. The difference between now and then is that there was only one telly in most houses when we were little, so no chance to play games for hours on end because mum'd want to watch telly, and they'd take the book off you and hunt you outside; "Get out! And don't come back until you hear the Angulus!"

zerks wrote: »

I hate the ad for the soap dispenser you don't need to touch,ffs it dispenses disinfectant so it doesn't matter if you touch the bloody thing.:mad:

What annoys me about that is that it's completely useless. You turn on the tap with your germy hands, soap up, rinse off, and then turn the germy tap off with your hands, reinfecting them.