Are we over-protecting children?

March 17, 2008 at 11:45 am (ethics, freedom, friends, home, love, parenting, philosopy, psychology, relations, society) (children, courage, danger, grow, kids, teach)

 

A  new report out today claims that over-protecting children stops them developing the skills and resilience they need to protect themselves. Do you agree? The report “No Fear” explores a number of key areas including children’s play, anti-social behaviour, adult vetting and fear of strangers, identifying the ways in which our preoccupation with eliminating risk is restricting children’s freedoms and corroding their relationships with adults.

“Although there is a widely held view that children grow up faster today, in fact their lives are far more controlled than they were 30 years ago,” says former government adviser and author of the report, Tim Gill.

DIVAS says:

People, while trying to make their offsprings perfect, are messing with nature’s mechanism of growth.

Children should be allowed to tread an unknown path; if parents really care for their kids grow out of fear.

They should be allowed to do things own their own; even if they may hurt themselves while doing so – that’s the only way how an organism learns in nature.

And there are no 100% safe practises even if one wished for.

One Response to “Are we over-protecting children?”

cyberpunk, on November 18th, 2007 at 3:29 pm Said:

I agree with this. I think parents are overprotecting kids nowadays.

We grew up with less “protection” from things and other people, but we did ok (fine, I’m not a good example, but you get my drift)…

Kids need to learn and think for themselves.