Sunday, September 16, 2012

Child Security

     My last post covered an aspect of seeing that our children are safe. It was a somewhat tongue in cheek post.

     Our children are the most important part of our lives. You hear many people say, "I don't know what I would do if I lost a child." Many people have lost children through disease, accident or crime and it's a horrendous experience for them. My parents lost an eleven year old daughter from illness. It was an extremely painful part of their lives and it stayed with them and altered their lives forever. The last time my Dad talked about the loss of his daughter he was 94 and it was still painful for him to talk about it. He never went back to the city she died in.

     Therefore the security of our children is of utmost importance. We want to do everything we can to see that they are healthy, safe and secure from any risk that would harm them.

    There are many workshops and programs to assist parents to raise their children in a safe manner. There are organizations such as block parent which tries to set up  community programs. 

   After my last post and the experience I went through as a teacher I have reflected on the security issue. I have thought about this issue since it's beginning. I'm of two minds. We must be prudent and err on the side of caution when it comes to security.

    However,  there are some side effects which concern me. Parents fall into a trap and begin micro managing their children. Some micro managed children do not learn to think for themselves and lose a very important skill. Some children who are closely supervised do no learn and practise the necessary social skills to get along with their peers. Their self confidence just doesn't get developed. These children tend to spend more time indoors and watching television or playing electronic games. 

     As a middle school teacher I saw some kids who had difficulty coping at that level. They had been walked to school for five years by a parent. When they started walking on their own, they weren't prepared for all the challenges. What's a worse situation is when kids are driven to school . Then they move in complete isolation.


     Many times we get caught in the trap of saying when I was a child. Those memories can be very selective and  only the good things are remembered. My daughter who is forty, likes to talk about her experiences. She reminisces about being out in the neighborhood from preschool and that many times her parents only vaguely knew where she was. Later she had free range over the subdivision. She talks about activities they participated in and I didn't know about it. These were not bad things . It was just children playing. We didn't worry about bad guys or bad kids harming our children. 

    So I have questions when it comes to the security practices we use today to protect our children. Some where there has to be a security system that protects and still allows children to learn to become independent when it's the proper time to learn. There are times to learn something and if that time is missed it's very difficult to learn later.

25 comments:

  1. you make very good points. i grew up in the country in wis. and we kids would disappear for hours and hours at a time. as long as we were back at mealtime, we were good. these days???

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    1. You had a rich childhood compared to kids today.

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  2. It is a fine line we have to walk...I see the degeneration of society as the bigger threat to the kids...we live in a time when there are people who don't value the children, therefore the children aren't safe. But, I agree - hothouse kids don't have any idea how to survive in the real world. And that is not helping them at all!

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    1. I'm not sure that people don't value children. Many parents are lacking skills and I think they missed from their own parents. Parenting has to be learned from parents.

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  3. You make an excellent point. As in all things, a happy balance must be struck to keep our kids safe while giving them the freedom to grow and thrive.

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    1. And each of us has some different idea as to what the balance is!!!

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  4. I suspect it is parents who watch too much television. The perceived threat is far greater than the reality.
    As you have so eloquently said children have to learn. They don't learn much if they aren't allowed to socialise with their peers.

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  5. Red! Second attempt. The joys of this medium.
    I agree totally with both Tex and Linda.
    Kids these days are over-pampered, they don't have what we had. That is think for yourself.
    At the age of 9/10 years, I rode a horse to school, about 7 miles as the crow flies. The major rule was "Shut the bloody gates or else" between paddocks. Got to school in time, unsaddled horse and left in the Catholic Church yard, and off to school. A school of about 30 kids at the most and about 10 horses in yards!
    At 3.00pm school finished and then at great speed to re-saddle horse and off home. The horse went much faster on the return journey. Horses are not stupid! However, you were told by parents don’t play cowboy movies. Got the milkers in, put calves in pens, unsaddled the horse into the small horse paddock and as we say “Bob’s your uncle”.
    I have no idea still what that “ancient” now days saying ever meant. I guess it means
    all is OK??
    No TV’s in those days here, no MacDonalds ( wretched mob), and certainly no internet.
    How in bloody hell did we survive???
    Later on kids when I was at a Sydney college for secondary education, kids of 12 years
    managed to fly from PNG in the old DC’3 – some trips took 3 overnight stops to even get to Brisbane and add another day/night for Sydney!
    Now the strange thing was that no kids got lost – horses or planes! Were we super-kids?
    No we were just natural, decent kids who had respect and listened to advice.
    Well that’s all folks, some Disneyland character came up with that odd saying.
    Cheers
    Colin (Brisbane. Australia)

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    1. There's a book in your story! Our lives were different and we had hands on learning.

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  6. I am not sure that our children can ever be or feel safe out on their own. This may be true in other countries, but not here. I had some very close calls as a child and I was on my own a lot and that was decades ago. I look back now and shudder. It is sad that we cannot allow them the freedom they need to face challenges, but I would always err on the cautious side these days.

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    1. There certainly are places that are obviously unsafe. I think most places are very safe and it's those places I was thinking about in my post.

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  7. We grew up in a different time, Red. There were so much fewer people, and I believe we have more crazy people who want to hurt others around us today. It's a dilemma. Children do need some independence to mature. If you find the answer, I want to know it! :-)

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    1. You ask a very difficult question! This situation is one that will always be with us. We will move from one extreme to another.
      On another matter ...how safe are adults?

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  8. I find the children of today are bused and driven everywhere. Parents escort their kids to all events. You hardly ever see children playing on the street n sidewalks. We are so fortunate on our street in our small town to see kids going fishing, playing ball, bicycling or just hanging out on the corner laughing and joking with their friends. The kids all know whose house they can play in front of and get a nice cool drink on the way home - that would be me :). Unfortunately there are kids that are greatly overprotected and these children have little or NO idea at all about surviving in the real world - everything is handed to them and most of them would have real difficulty surviving on wits and basic instinct. Growing up, we were exposed to life in general and all it had to offer, from playing on our own till dark, or when the light posts came on, to going fishing and swimming as a group exploring all nature had to give. Kids today spend way too much time locked away in a room with electronics, games and movies. Great post Red

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    1. Great reply! You should have written the post. This is a very large topic and one post doesn't begin to cover it.
      You had to make your own fun and it sounds like some of the kids in your town are still making their own fun.

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  9. I used to enjoy taking my kids in to school and laugh now when they told me they were too old for that.It hurt a bit.

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    1. Enjoyment is one thing. Hovering over kids is going to far.

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  10. we give our children a lot of freedom....they ride their bikes for miles and miles and take long walks in the woods...they have earned this freedom by demonstrating responsibility and making good decisions. their friends have parents who hoover and make all the decisions for their kids.my kids are sad for their friends because they know how much fun it can be to be 13 and how good confidence feels....the kids whose parents monitor their every move are only good at video games....seems a lot safer for the parents.

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    1. I think Mom has a lot of confidence and trust in this case. I applaud your position.

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  11. A very well done post, Red!


    Linda
    http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
    http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com

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  12. Many good points by you and your readers.
    I'll just make a brief comment about taking kids to school. Our taxes are used for schools and buses yet on any given day I pass the school at let out time the buses are half empty and it's hard for traffic trying to get in and out of the parking lot. Most of those being taken and picked up would have less than a fifteen minute ride to school. I know I for one enjoyed the time on the bus to spend talking and laughing with my classmates. I rode the bus 12 miles. I lived in the country as most of the local kids here do. When I got home I didn't have neighbors to play with so the bus was our social time.
    Good post Red!

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  13. Red I think that it depends on where the child is raised, when my children were still quite young and I lived in a small town they were allowed to go outside to play. I felt there wasn't any real threat to their safety other than a fall off a bike or a skinned knee. Then I moved to the city and life changed. It took me a while to realize that they needed to get outside to play with their new-found friends, we were close to a few of their cousins and they'd all get together and play in the school yard across the street. I tried not to hover, suffocate, nor stifle growth but in retrospect if I were to raise children today it would definitely not be in the city. A lot of children in the city are suppressed from growing, they are driven from point A to point B and most parents need to know where their children are at all times. Rightfully so with younger children, as they age it's hard to let them go and wonder around the city. I still don't like it when my 17 year old niece wants to go out and not come home til after dark, but I'm sure not about to drive her around and be her chauffeur neither. It really is a catch 22 most of the time.

    Excellent post and good awareness... makes me think on this end.

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  14. You have a good point, Red. I think the most important safety skills we can teach our kids is to think. And to trust that little warning voice called Instinct. Both of those together go along way to keeping them as safe as is naturally possible.

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