Coddling is wasted and a hindrance to growth

Subject: Coddling is wasted and a hindrance to growth Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:28 pm

It is easy to understand parents being anxious about child safety ("Police threat to parents on children walking alone'', February 9). Everyone remembers the Beaumont children and the Graeme Thorne tragedies of the 1960s. However, this article and the police comments need context.

Statistics for abductions among about 1 million primary-school-aged Australians are sketchy but likely to be less than in the US with 75 million schoolchildren and about 100 taken per year. All young children need to be carefully supervised, but that mostly relates to roads, not bogeymen.

Few Australian schools are likely to still teach the outdated "stranger danger" when a 2005 Australian study showed a relative, friend or regular family contact perpetrates most child sexual assaults.
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Cheer up. Our children really live in the safe and happy country.

Peter Bennett Nelson Bay

After completing primary schooling, just before my 11th birthday I travelled unaccompanied by train from Sydney to Perth, changing several times en route. The past is certainly a different country - and not just because our mothers used Reckitt's Blue and starch on wash days.

Ken Knight Hornsby

So the Manly police believe they have the right to lecture parents on letting their children walk along a street or take a bus, to the point of threatening to inform the Department of Community Services.

This is outrageous. Can they point to an increase in child abduction on buses working in the Manly area? It is this very paranoia and fear that is damaging our children.

Children learn independence, problem-solving skills and build self-confidence in their abilities by doing everyday things.

Insisting that parents keep children cooped up or follow them around is just plain lunacy.

If the police have evidence that the buses and streets of Manly are dangerous to children they have a real duty to inform the community immediately.

Philip Pryor Scotland Island

A 15-year-old can sail around the world alone but a 10-year-old shouldn't take a bus to her piano lesson?

Can't be such a scary world after all if police haven't got more urgent duties than harassing parents about their child-rearing.

I cycled alone to kindergarten from age four, through city streets and probably past strangers, too.

I loved it and it made me confident.

Luckily my parents didn't get arrested.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/coddling-is-wasted-and-a-hindrance-to-growth-20120209-1rxms.html

Coddling is wasted and a hindrance to growth

Coddling is wasted and a hindrance to growth

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