Letting 15 year old Son travel to Europe by rail

I think I would be "outraged" if either the press or SS had my, what she must mean, personal/private phone number. She must wonder where they got that from.

I'm guessing her son will return to school next week as the 6th form hero!

M0nica - but KA is whining and complaining about someone daring to question her choices.

Exactly Iam64 and the social media risks were discussed too.

Some people on the Newspaper panel said they thought the online risks were arguably greater. It was an interesting few minutes - sorry if you heard it.

We have spoken about this several times at home and with family now. Our own children (and mother-in-law) are of the opinion that the interrailing was a good thing to do. I haven't discussed it with one of my daughters-in-law but I'm wondering if it's just that some whole families have a similar idea of "good parenting" (good enough parenting) to others?
Maybe some whole families have different attitudes to risk - just as they eat different things or maybe prefer different holidays.

Maybe this all comes from how children are raised and that families tend to believe in their familial parenting norms? I always thought my children parented very differently one family to another but their ideas around parenting are maybe closer than I thought.

It's been interesting how many of my direct family have found the outrage about this trip "ridiculous" - even the ones with nearly teens and the one who is more generally "cautious".

Iam64

Why not Vintagejazz?

Because it must have been very hurtful and distressing to have SS on to her and in my opinion laughing about it is unkind. Obviously you disagree. But if one of your children was in a situation where someone had maliciously reported them and you thought their neighbour was privately laughing and making jokes about it what would you think about them?

Have you heard her actually speaking about this Aveline

She was not at all whining and complaining about someone daring to question her choices when I heard her in conversation about this.

She said she was first scared, then amazed, then cross - cross because the person who reported her clearly didn't know her and had apparently picked it up from a celebratory post. She was raising it as she thought we ought to be debating children's freedoms and safety.

The only outrage, though, is KA's.

Nobody else gives a silent f*rt, I'd imagine.

Social services don't, the person who reported her doesn't have serious concerns, probably, and never did have.

Someone has taken the opportunity to "take her down a peg or two" I'd imagine, after her twitter posting about how proud she is.

MissAdventure the "outrage" I was referring to was evidenced in the media storm about this. I heard some of an LBC phone-in and some callers sounded like it was a hanging offense!

No she is not whining, just expressing outrage. The boy concenred was only a few weeks from his 16th birthday. It wasn't as if he was only just past his 15th birthday.

When you read in this thread about the extent of overseas travel done by GN members, including myself, in previous generations, without having mobile phones or any of the other advantages of modern communication. This fuss about KA's son is a real storm in teacup.

Yes, Social Care have checked it out and are presumably OK about it. They were obviously right to do this.

NotSpaghetti

MissAdventure the "outrage" I was referring to was evidenced in the media storm about this. I heard some of an LBC phone-in and some callers sounded like it was a hanging offense!

Really?!
Apologies, i didn't know that.

People do get ridiculously het up, don't they?

Don't Social Services have better things to do?

Some young adults go off to university at 18 and are unable to cope because they have not been allowed to find their own independence.
I remember more than one young person who went off to university and could not cope, begging to be fetched home again. Their parents thought they'd been doing the right thing, transporting them everywhere by car, being careful to protect them but they failed to learn independence.

Grantanow

Don't Social Services have better things to do?

They were doing their job, so no, not really.
I doubt a quick phone call has ruined lives for anyone.

I don’t understand why people are so ready to accept this must have been a malicious referral motivated by spite. Perhaps it was referred by someone who had a genuine concern about a 15 year old being allowed to travel abroad without an adult, just as many posters on this thread have also expressed. Aren’t we told that child safeguarding is everyone’s business? It’s served a useful purpose in opening a valid debate and demonstrating that we all have very different risk thresholds.

As for ‘how did they get my phone number’ well I assume someone (possibly the person who referred it or possibly another body) gave it to her. How on earth do people think Children’s Services do their job? It’s not as if it’s going to be published for all the world to see.

Thought some of you might not have spotted this:

x.com/AmandaPCraig/status/1828844919647007083?t=BJFLcfYDVyrj6gV2V1Fxlw&s=19

Should have said, it's from Private Eye.

NotSpaghetti

Thought some of you might not have spotted this:

x.com/AmandaPCraig/status/1828844919647007083?t=BJFLcfYDVyrj6gV2V1Fxlw&s=19

Sir Herbert Gussett. 🤭

Thanks for bringing some much needed humour into this Not Spaghetti.

😂😂😂

Allira

Some young adults go off to university at 18 and are unable to cope because they have not been allowed to find their own independence.
I remember more than one young person who went off to university and could not cope, begging to be fetched home again. Their parents thought they'd been doing the right thing, transporting them everywhere by car, being careful to protect them but they failed to learn independence.

Couldn't agree more - and there is nothing new about this.

I went up to university in the early 1960s and, as an army brat who had been to boarding school and been flying around the world, virtually unsupervised since I was 15, I was left quite aghast about how unprepared so many students were for independent living. Floods of tears because they couldn't work out how a washing machine worked. I didn't know either but I just pressed buttons until I got the desired result. Frightened of lecturers. I was gobsmacked to find this, now I have become innured to stories of cossetted children who need heir mummies and daddies around to look after them even when they are married and have children of their own.

M0nica I went to university at 17.
I was youngest of my year group at school. I would have been quite a bit younger than Oscar after GCSEs having taken them at 15½

I have an August birthday, so did GCSEs at 15.75, shortly afterwards I and my 13 year old sister flew out to Malaysia, with little or no supervision, including being grounded overnight in a hotel in Singapore, with no supervision at all because the stewardess nominally in charge of us had flown on to Hong Kong with the plane. Inter railing would have been a doddle.

Doubt you'd find it so all these years later. It's a different world. Different people. Different morals and standards and expectations.

I think that is an illusion. There was as much danger aroun din the 60s as there is now, we just did not know about it and if we were in trouble, we had no mobile phones or other ways of summoning help.

Looking back on my travels I had all the confidence that ignorance gives.