Child safety: the real risks

The media is largely responsible for our skewed view of child safety. Even though child snatching and abuse by a stranger is extremely rare, they feel more common because the newspapers devote so much space to them. Exceptional stories like last summer's tragic abduction and murder of the Cambridgeshire primary school girls, Holly Chapman and Jessica Wells, saturate the media for about three months. It is almost three years since Sara Payne's daughter was abducted and murdered by Roy Whiting, yet Payne is still regularly in the headlines and there can be few parents who do not intimately know her gaunt face, and know that they would do anything not to be in her shoes. This huge awareness focuses everyone's attention and efforts on what are very unusual incidents, some would say to the detriment of much larger groups like all the children needlessly maimed and killed on our roads.

Freedom vs. safety
Some children's groups have started to campaign against this over cautious culture and for parents to take a more level headed approach to their children's safety. Recent research from the Children's Play Council shows how far parents have gone in restricting their children's freedoms. It's increasingly difficult for children to gradually grow-up through learning basic responsibilities like walking to school and playing outside with their own peer group. Professor Charles Desforges, educational psychologist, says that over protective parents can put their children at risk. 'Children need to experience life to learn to cope in the adult world. Too many restrictions leave a child feeling over anxious and unprepared to cope with the unexpected situation.'

Negotiating these first freedoms can be hugely difficult for loving parents. A good time to start is as secondary school approaches. At ten years of age, children are old enough to have dangers explained to them and they will need their street wisdom to survive the approaching change of school. 'It is a hard job as a parent to go through the gradual process of letting go and giving your child extra freedom,' says Bonnett, but there are lots of dangers is keeping your children wrapped up for too long in cotton wool. Bonnett suggests parents set boundaries for their children, agree rules and the reasons for them. 'Remember, the key rules are not to go out alone, go with friends; tell your parents where you are going and if you change your plans tell them; and don't talk to anyone who is not known to you expect a police officer or other official person.'