Are We Too Safe With Our Kids

Is keeping our children scared the safest thing for them? Here in Britain, a debate is beginning to rage about the best way to raise a healthy adult.

For years the global parental mantra has been to tell our youngsters to fear everything and everyone in the belief that they will remain safe if they do so. But these days, more and more kids are growing up locked up at home - virtual prisoners trying to develop in a virtual childhood. Stories of snatched 3-year-olds, 10-year-olds getting gunned down after soccer practice and school stabbings have all fed our paranoia, but now we are being told that we may be harming our kids more than helping them.

Children are unable to distinguish between teasing and bullying at school - each one bringing on a victim's mentality. Innocent relationships with strangers are no longer formed because every child growing up in this modern world believes that every friendly adult is a potential pedophile. Perhaps while trying to do right by our child we are doing something terribly wrong for the adult he or she will become.

In other words we are churning out wet, insecure and fearful people. Adults who will be incapable of free thought and brave actions. Play and independence are vital to the healthy development of children. Yet we will not let them climb trees or walk home from school alone. In some schools, soccer balls are not allowed because of potential injury and sports days are run so that no one wins or loses in case we make a weak child feel bad.

Competition is being abolished in childhood - but a productive adult must be prepared to compete for work and love. Unless we do something now, our children will fail as grown ups - not only for themselves but for us too, as we age and hand the economy over to them to run.

Our fear is unfairly poisoning our children. Protection is good. Teaching self preservation is vital, but removing all danger cannot ever be the best thing we can do. We learned by our own mistakes. We grew to understand the difference between acceptable and unacceptable danger. Isn't it time we trusted our children to do the same?
by Petrie Hosken