Wpuld some children benefit from a bit of 'benign neglect'?

I believe that the numbers of children attacked or murdered by paedophiles are about the same today as they were 50 years ago but our perception of the danger has changed.
When I was 10 I used to walk across a park to school with a friend. One afternoon we met a flasher who wanted us to go and play with him. We weren't sure what he was showing us - or why, but we were fairly sure that if we mentioned it at home we would not be allowed back in the park. So we went home and kept quiet. We had been warned there were sometimes "funny" men in the park, but we weren't even sure if this was one of them, or what the "funniness" involved

NZ parents do not seem to be a mollycoddling to me. There is a "toughen em up" streak in their culture. (well you've got to grow All Blacks somehow)
I was admiring a NZ pre school that had a garden with a scruffy shrubbery with rope swings and places to make dens on a bank. I thought my australian GS would love that, because his just had a small paved garden. You see kids wandering about outdoors more, sometimes without shoes. Where I live children are largely an indoor species - or maybe nocturnal and I havent spotted them?
The other morning my next door neighbour was shepherding 4 primary kids out of the house. They are a Nigerian family. Rarely seen on foot. it was a foggy morning.
They were heading down 3 very shallow steps and mum kept saying "be careful, be careful" I was wondering what the hazard was. My only conclusion was that, seeing the fog, she thought it might be icy. I guess if you go everywhere by car you don't read the weather very well

Children here in NZ mostly cycle to school, or those on remote farms cycle to the nearest bus route - you see lots of bikes waiting to be used when they get back from school.
My gd was helping to run a fund-raising cycle marathon yesterday , especially for children, and we were amazed at the huge numbers of children who were there, considering this is not a densely populated area. Of coruse, the weather helps, but it does get cold in Winter and they still cycle. They benefit from a much more outdoor lifestyle, and most of their out-of-school hours seem to be spent camping, kayaying, fishing, tramping, or cycling. They still find time for the usual technology, though - my gd is rarely seen without her iphone held to her ear! But she is 15 and has a boyfriend as well as lots of girl friends, so I suppose it is only to be expected.

Yes greatnan the vast majority of sexual abuse, violence and murder of children occurs in the home. Most accidents occur in the home. Most internet risk occurs in the home. The way in which humans perceive risk is known to be grossly distorted by all kinds of factors.
I once let my DS aged 8 travel from Paddington to Swansea by rail on his own. We sat him next to an older woman who was doing the whole journey.
granjura in the school i know so well, the only kids that get picked up are the ones who live a mile or so away, or more, because they have been placed out of area. The vast majority walk. They rarely travel more than a mile or so from their homes. This is not unusual in poor communities.

I think children are to molly coddled now, it is a difficult one though. I have never lived in a tough inner city.
When I was 4ish we moved to a newly built house in Northamptonshire. The building was continuing down the road beside us. We had such wonderful fun playing on these building sites. Climbing on the scaffolding buiding dens in the piles of bricks. Pushing over newly cemented brick walls. It was one glorious adventure playground.

My sister and I made friends with a man "Donald the digger driver". After doing his excavations for the new houses he would drive my sister and I to the tip in his lorry.

The extra traffic does make roads much less safe and having a car to quickly drag and abduct a child into makes it much easier.
However most sexual abuse is not done by stangers and I doubt if child abductions, (excluding feuding parents) has actually increased. taking risk is very importan and being responsible.

When we first moved North I put DS 10 and DD 8 on a coach from Stoke on Trent to Victoria Coach Station London to be collected by their aunt and cousins. (With lots of advice on keeping safe and exactly what to do if feeling worried etc.) They really enjoyed the adventure.

The problem now is getting the children from their computers to do exciting things outside.

FlicketyB that was a very interesting observation - the fact that you just don't see children travelling on the train, bus etc. whereas it was commonplace. I'd never thought of it but it is so true. How sad it all is, what we've done to our children and grandchildren.

My mother went out to work after the war, when I was five and my sister was nine. We came home from school, on foot, alone and my sister looked after me and set the coal fire and peeled the potatoes. We didn't feel neglected.
We should remember that most abuse of children is carried out, not by strangers, but by people known to them, often family members or the mother's boy friend.
I remember Victoria Gillick who made a big fuss about girls under sixteen being given contraceptive advice without their mothers' consent (her daughter later got pregnant at 16). She said that every minute of her children's holidays was accounted for by her. Poor kids, no wonder the girl rebelled.

Taking risks is a part of developing a sense of safety. If we do not allow 'controlled risk' kids do not know how to manage tricky situations! That is both in the home/school and out an about. Also not giving kids time to do their own thing! Some kids do like to be organised but others (most?) prefer to entertain themselves.

My 2x DGDs (7 & 4) have today been designing a sling & pulley so the older one could haul the younger one up through the open staircase .. not 100% safe but loads of fun!

I was discussing this topic with DD and we recalled a train journey she and her brother made from Reading to Glasgow when he was 14 and she was just 13. It was a through train, I put them on it at Reading and they were met at Glasgow. She commented that she recently saw a child of about 13-14 on the train, only a local commuter train, and was quite shocked that they should be allowed to travel alone. She commented that even though she had made a much longer journey with her brother at a younger age she had so been indoctrinated by modern attitudes that she reacted in shock at seeing the child and automatically began to tut to herself about it.

I think the big difference between now and the previous generation is that then there were lots of children walking in the street, catching public transport and generally moving around independently,now you see so few children on the streets or public transport alone or with a friend that those who are allowed out attract attention, not all of it benign.

It's quite paradoxical that some kids after having a somewhat sheltered childhood then take it upon themselves to do the obligatory gap year and go off backpacking all over the place. My kids went off to Newquay after GCSEs at 16 which I at the time I thought was too young to be away with a load of mates and no adults but it was a rite of passage a few years ago. I remember not being too relaxed about it at the time and issued them with loads of warnings about drinking and behaving responsibly. There was a fatality down there a couple of years ago, but then I guess kids can get up to dangerous things anywhere.

Though he does like his swimming.

Can't get the other one to shift his arse for love nor money. Just wants his mum's i-pad.

My grandson likes his trampolining. And his dancing. And his youth club. And scouts.

#trystoppinghim

Sometimes I think the great thing about childhood of yesteryear was being content with so little, I remember a friend and I would occupy ourselves all afternoon with paper dolls and their cut out clothes. I also remember my mum putting a sheet over the washing line and we pegged it down both ends to make a tent. If I got bored during the summer holidays I would order a Famous Five book from our local library which usually only cost a few pence and spend all afternoon reading it.

No one mentioned the word paedophile back then although they were definitely around. I do remember one dodgy moment when I was about nine , a friend and I were out playing in a wooded area around our local duck pond and a man came up to us and started chatting to us quite innocently first about school and then asked us whether we did gym in our vests and knickers and what colour were the ones we had on and could we show him. We instinctively knew to leg it I don't think I told my mother till much later, although I remembered it left me feeling very troubled. Unfortunately, the internet such a great invention, has made child pornography so accessible.

I don't think children were less at risk in 'the good old days' - some of the sexual abuse scandals of recent times refer back to the 50's, 60's and 70s and children were often very severely beaten in my mother's day. They won't get experience in dealing with traffic if they are never allowed to go out alone, obviously after many excursions with adults to teach them the required skills.
Certainly technology has opened up a huge opportunity for people to hurt children and I do agree that parental supervision is essential.
Nothing wrong in children having extra classes in the things they enjoy (rather than the things the parents think they ought to enjoy!) but some poor children seem to have every minute of their lives 'diaried'.

Apart from the extra traffic is the world more dangerous or is it represented as such to us by the media? Not saying this as a fact...just posing the question.

That's very true jane. Unfortunately, many parents are not as computer literate as their children. My one regret at the demise of the desktop PC is that it could be situated in the living room, so that everyone could see what was being accessed. Mobile devices make this much more difficult for ordinary parents. As a former lecturer in computing studies, I can assure you that enquiring minds can easily subvert parental control software. I do feel that in this one aspect at least I have been able to educate my DGS and his parents to use the internet safely and responsibly.

Vegasmags I agree with you about living in a different world.
The internet can be a dangerous place for children and this is one area where I think parents have to exercise very strict control.

I absolutely agree with Rachel Johnson, having had a not dissimilar chidlhood. Aged 10 and 8 my sister and I used to travel from Kowloon on the mainland to school on Hong Kong Island. We had to cross by ferry, with a longish bus ride both sides. DPs planned a route with buses that stopped and left from the ferry terminal, after a few weeks DS and I re-organised it, catching a different ferry and buses with long walks between so that we could travel with friends. It was months before DPs knew what we were doing.

At 11 at a new boarding school in the UK in a town we did not know and DPs living in a house in a small village we had never visited we were sent transport costs and instructions and the two of us got ourselves into town, found the bus station, the bus, got off the bus 20 miles later and found the house. We travelled out to the far east, theoretically as unaccompanied minors, but actually without any supervision, at 13 and 15 respectively. We coped with overnight stopovers, when the plane broke down (this was the 1950s/60s) and awkward customs officers. I cannot remember us ever being bothered by any of this

JessM - touché, sadly. However I'd say it does not apply to the poorest of our children and very much the exception, in my own experience. Most of the children at the primary and secondary schools on the 2 council estates near me in Leicester were picked up by car- creating huge danger for the other kids walking home as they live VERY close.

At my school we certainly organised youth hostelling trips and local visits which were affordable for all, as children on free school meals got free places.

Our ski trip of course different. But we did fundraising to help those who couldn't pay- traveled by bus overnight to cut cost, organised second hand sales and clothing hire, and had our own clothing bank from our own stuff or given to us, etc. Some of the children I took skiing came from very challenged families.

I do agree with you Greatnan, my parents never fussed over me as a child sometimes I think they were almost bordering on negligent. I remember going to Brownies from I think aged 7, the meetings were held in our church hall and afterwards I would walk home on my own in the dark, I don't remember being picked up. My brother and I would frequently disappear all day in the school holidays we lived near a common which had ponds and woods we would meet up with friends and spend the whole day building camps and looking for newts. All my own childrens' activities were supervised and I drove them all over the place when they were still at junior school. They did however take themselves off from about 12 skateboarding and roller blading, I think they might have had mobile phones by then so I could kind of keep tabs on them.

In an interview recently Rachel Johnson said that when her parents were living in Brussels she and Boris had to get themselves unaccompanied by train and ferry back to school in England. I think they were quite young at the time but she thought it made them the people they are today.

All the above (given that I scanned rather than read every word) applies to middle class children and parents. As did the recent remarks of female MP on the subject.
There are a huge number of families who do not have enough money for basics. The kids do not get driven anywhere, they don't have a car. They do not participate in anything unless the school are providing it. Even then - if it needs extra sports kit or something they may not be able to. There is a huge divide between the children of those whose parents have reasonable jobs and those whose parents are on low wages or benefits.
In the school I know well even the most affluent and involved parents (and they are few) are excluded from some things we would take for granted. I said to one dad , who had a good job and a very bright, hard working daughter "Why don't you go for a family day out to Oxford (40 min drive) and have a look round. You can go inside the colleges and look round." He looked at me as if I had suggested a family day our to Singapore.

I'm afraid the world has changed, whether we like it or not, and the challenge is as LullyDully says to find ways to encourage children's imagination and independence to flourish. I'm not suggesting that we organise children to an inch of their lives, or hover anxiously over them, but simply recognise that the world is not as child-friendly as it used to be. I used to sometimes take my DS to watch Manchester United play, but I certainly wouldn't take my DGS. Even in the so-called family area, it is impossible to escape the obscenities and disgusting chanting, not to mention the public urination. Would grown men have behaved liked this in the 50s, in the presence of women and children?

So agree Greatnan- I wish my grand-children could come and live here instead of suburban Surrey where life is as you describe! Here kids are expected to walk to school alone (with friends) from a very young age- as developing independence and responsibility is very much part of early education. It is causing endless problems with expats who just cannot cope with the concept.

Reminds me of a ski trip I took a few years ago. One of the older ski instructors, who had been a teacher all her life here (in Switzerland) one day asked if she could have a word with me. She just couldn't fathom how so many of our kids were so overweight, and so many had no natural balance at all, no strength, no 'ooomph' at all, and just sat there and cried if they fell over, and refused to even try to get up by themselves. I explained they lived in a city suburb and were all taken to school by car and dropped at the gate, that PE lessons were few, that they did little sport with the families, the constant fear of peodophilia , etc. She was a really lovely lady and she said 'this is just so sad and tragic, don't the parents realise they are killing the kids with over-protection- in a natural disaster, none of those kids would survive, would they?'.

Often heard around here 'mum, we're off to the woods' 'OK have you got some water and a snack, and your pen knife' 'yes, mum, back around 6, bye'. They go off on their own to the local ski slope or swimming pool, football pitch, cycling or walking, or to each other's homes - accidents to happen of course, usually minor and accepted as part of life's training.

Learning to amuse oneself is an important lesson that stands children in good stead in later life.