Category Archives: Parenting

Please Kidshealth, give parents (and kids) a break

girl jumping off swingThe US non-profit agency Kidshealth – which claims that it runs the #1 most visited website for children’s health and development – has eight web pages of guidance for parents on playground safety. Page 6 includes the following advice: “Kids should always sit in the swing, not stand or kneel. They should hold on tightly with both hands while swinging, and when finished swinging, stop the swing completely before getting off.” Continue reading

The outdoor child: doomed to extinction?

Shrinking horizons of childhoodEvery year since 1979 there has been a Big Garden Bird Watch, a UK-wide survey organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I can’t help wondering about a survey of a different species: a Big Outdoor Child Watch.

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Why scaremongering about strangers has to stop

Let’s get one thing straight. The threat from strangers is vanishingly small and has been for years – no matter what you might think from the tabloid headlines and distorted television coverage. What is more, the vast majority of child murders are committed by their parents, not by strangers. However low the risk, it is tempting to think that we – and children – have to be prepared for the worst: that we have no choice but to frighten them, in order to protect them. Tempting, but disastrously wrong. For it ignores the corrosive impact of the fear of strangers.

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Who says kids don’t play in creeks and build dens any more?

Of course some still do. Take the group of boys from Raleigh, North Carolina captured in this slide show.

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Moving on from the zero risk childhood

Girl climbing a treeThe ‘cotton wool kid’ – cosseted, watched over, insulated from all possible harm – has become a potent symbol of our fear-filled, risk-averse times. Across the rich nations, children are statistically safer today than at any time in history [pdf link]. But the insidious question ‘what if…?’ crowds out common sense, and clouds our good judgement. Continue reading

Benign neglect: a vignette

This video clip shows a toddler exploring the garden of the Geffrye Museum in London while her father watches over her. It is very grainy: you have to watch carefully at the start to see the tiny figure of the girl.

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