View Full Version : Do we over protect our children?
does the media cause us to overshelter our children and oppress their childhood?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/6352101.stm
(i know it's a Uk article but you get the jist of the research)
My short answer is an enthusiastic "yes!" but I'll come back later and say more. ;)
Kristen
02-12-2007, 05:55 AM
In some ways, yes, and in some ways, no. I think too often parents forget that, especially in the case of child sexual abuse, the danger is NOT from strangers. At least here in the U.S. something like only 4% of the cases are done by a stranger. 50% are by family members, and the other 46% are family friends. So, I think parents waste a lot of time and energy worrying about the weird guy three houses down, while they ought to spend a little more time and energy watching their family and friends.
My short answer is an enthusiastic "yes!" but I'll come back later and say more. ;)
:lmao i thought you might! :lmao
Shall add my own feelings once a few more have had opportunity to reply
(although Kristen i agree- the uk has similar statistics, abusers and child murderers are usually known to the family rather than strangers)
Okay, so my feeling on it is not that it's a problem for parents to take what they feel are reasonable precautions for their children based upon accurate information, but I think it's an enormous problem when parents base their decisions not on facts, but on false perceptions.
People will have different comfort levels, and that's fine. But, I think it's an enormous problem that so many people really, truly believe that the world is not just a more dangerous place for children, but a really significantly more dangerous place, than it was when they were kids, when it's not any more dangerous at all. People are keeping their children from enjoying activities that they enjoyed as kids out of the misperception that it would be more dangerous for their children to do those things than it was for them. If anything, it's far more safe today for a child to go on an unsupervised bike ride than it was for us to do when we were kids, because there is no greater chance of being abducted AND we've added additional safety precautions like required bike helmets.
I don't fault anyone for taking whatever steps they think are necessary to keep their kids safe. But, I do think the media has created a very skewed and false picture of how dangerous the world is, and so many parents are making decisions based on false information. I think that many parents honestly believe that it is far safer for their children to spend every afternoon playing video games in the living room rather than going to the park with friends, when the exact opposite is true. The chance of the child being abducted going to or from or while at the park is miniscule, but the chance that a lack of physical activity beginning in childhood could have negative effects on the child's health in the future are pretty high.
I also completely agree with Kristen about the issue of danger from people the child knows. Not only most child sexual abuse, but also most child abductions and child murders, are commited by a family member or friend of the family. I don't think parents need to be paranoid about everyone they know, but I do think that parents need to make sure their children not only know how to deal with strangers who may approach them, but also what to do if a friend or family member does anything to them that hurts them or makes them uncomfortable, and that society as a whole needs to pay more attention to making homes safer for children, rather than sensationalizing the relatively rare cases of attacks by strangers.
Obviously thinking about anything bad happening to your child is a horrifying thought, but I do think that we've kind of lost all reason when it comes to making rational safety decisions. The idea of Thomas ever being abducted is just beyond awful, and I can see how the idea of just never let him out of my sight (at least not until puberty, and then I'd have a whole different set of reasons not to!) is appealing, but rationally, I am putting him in far more dangerous ever time I put him in the car than I would be by letting him play in the yard alone at 4 or taking a bike ride around the neighborhood with a friend at 7. I haven't decided to stop driving because there is a chance that I could get into a car accident that could harm my child, because I understand that small risks are reasons to be careful, but not reasons to take extremely drastic action, and I'd like to think that I'll weigh things involving my children the same way, and not keep them from enjoying reasonably safe activities because of statistically miniscule risks.
Jejune
02-12-2007, 09:08 AM
In some ways, yes, and in some ways, no. I think too often parents forget that, especially in the case of child sexual abuse, the danger is NOT from strangers. At least here in the U.S. something like only 4% of the cases are done by a stranger. 50% are by family members, and the other 46% are family friends. So, I think parents waste a lot of time and energy worrying about the weird guy three houses down, while they ought to spend a little more time and energy watching their family and friends.
This is SO important, and a large part of why I oppose the published lists of sexual predators*. I know there's some danger from those people, but I think the lists make people careless by offering a convenient fear that isn't very likely. I'm not too worried by the predators whose location is well known by police. I'm worried about the family member and friends we trust, but honestly, I trust them, so I just try to keep vigilant about my KIDS, not as much about other people.
In answer to Beka's question, yes, I think our kids tend to be over sheltered, but I think we're still working out a balance. We talk more about problems that were ignored in the past, and being aware of them means taking steps to keep them from happening.
*I have other reasons for this, but I won't go into them here, because that's a VERY different debate.
Kristen
02-12-2007, 09:21 AM
Oh, that is a hot topic at our house, Kristen. Steve is the typical sort of parent who gives in to the media fears, and the sexual offender list makes him feel much better and safer. But I think it does nothing but lull people into a false sense of comfort. We've hashed it out, and I think it is probably best that the two of us not discuss it anymore. LOL
What you have to do is try your best to be careful about who you leave your children with, and I think THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is to tell your children to tell YOU if something happens. I love my parents dearly, but they never told me this, and so I never ever told them about my uncle, as I was worried about hurting him and that my parents would be mad at him. Had they told me to tell them if X happened, I KNOW I would have. Had I done that, I could have probably kept it from happening to two of my cousins. :( I know it's not my fault, but still, I wish I'd known I could have(and should have) told them.
So, I tell my children that they must, must, must tell me, even if they are worried that I'll be mad at the person that did it. Open parent-child relationships are your best line of defense, I think.
teawhisk
02-12-2007, 12:16 PM
I don't know if it's possible to make a generalization about all parents everywhere, but I lean toward beleiving that yes, the world is more dangerous than it used to be in one key regard.
We as a society have become increasingly desensitized to the sexualization of children and the influence of porn. It's a simple problem: if you teach people that 1) children have the right to have sex, sex is a good and proper thing for children, 2) everybody has the right to view any type of porn they want, and 3) sexual activity is like it is on "Friends" -- funny, disease-free, and without consequences, then you can't stop people from drawing the logical conclusion: children can view porn and have sex because these are good things.
Now, most people will disagree with my conclusion and say, "No, children should not be viewing porn and having sex, especially not with adults." But what is your definition of a child? The age of consent is being pushed back. I think everybody here readily understands that 13 is too young, but not everybody sees it that way. Many 13 year-olds are shaped like women and many men (and older women) will view them as therefore being adults.
I see discussions where honest intelligent women tell me that it's ok if a 17 year-old appears naked in public and simulates sex on the grounds that he's 17 and therefore is old enough to have sex. They don't seem to understand that they've just made the argument for letting the 17 year-old appear in hard-core porn: he's old enough to have sex, he's old enough to appear in films, let him have sex in films.
There's not a doubt in anybody's mind that our pop culture sexualizes children. Bratz dollz anyone? And yet we will say, "This has no affect, it's cute, or maybe disgusting, but in anyway, nobody has sex because of Bratz Dollz..." Then we will also admit that, yes, TV has an effect, porn makes people horny and lowers their inhibitions, and our pop culture is hell-bent on removing all of our impulse-control. But then we as a society refuse to connect the dots. However, there is a significant minority among us who IS connecting all the dots: children are sexy, sex is good, porn is good, children can get horny, sex is fun and consequence-free, self-control is unnatural, impulses are natural and shouldn't be supressed, and hey, look at that cute little boy over there...
It should alarm people that the fastest growing demographic that is now getting arrested for sexually abusing children are teenage girls. No, there are not that many of them, but when the increase in arrests and convictions is growing like 500% each year, we should sit up and take note. These girls are learning sexual behavior from porn and usually from an older person, and then experimenting on their younger siblings and/or on children left in their supervision or care. And why shouldn't they? Porn is good, sex with children is good, why not teach that toddler to masturbate?
Unfortunately I've had a front-row seat in several cases of sexual child abuse, and I can tell you that in every case, the perpetrator was excused by nearly everyone in authority on the grounds that he or she just "made a mistake." No, a mistake is when I pick my nose at the table. The systematic degradation and dehumanization of children is not a "mistake", it's a deliberate evil. As we have seen in the cases of ongoing child-rape in our schools and churches, the song and dance from people in authority who knew but did nothing is the same: we didn't know, ok we knew but it wasn't that big of a deal, we sent them to therapy and that's enough, we aren't responsible for children, sex with children isn't that big of a deal -- in some cases it's even beneficial, and besides teenagers aren't children and therefore sex with teenagers is ok. This attitude is a problem in our society, not something isolated to an occasional school board or caused by a celibate priesthood.
For this reason and several others, I believe that we have given permission for too many generations to act out their sexual urges while simultaneously breaking down their impulse-control, and then we send our children out into the world with the message that they should wait until they're "in a loving relationship" before having sex. And invariably molesters believe they "love" children and/or teenagers. This is a recipe for disaster.
Even with all that, my children still get to do all those activities that they want to do (within reason). I don't have to sniff out all the predators everywhere, I just have to vette the people my children are actually having contact with. This I do, and then trust in Divine Providence and let my children have a life outside the home. I listen to my instincts. If somebody gives me that nagging feeling, they don't get unsupervised contact with my children.