BlahBlahCafe - Jean-Michel Jarre forum

I read today ithat according to British law parents have to see off to school the children who are below 11 years - and if they don't the head teacher can even call the police.

Is it true? And if yes - what's the purpose of such a warrant?

I must admit it schocked me a bit as I remember myself going to school on my own when being 7 - of course that was quite close to where I live. I understand that it's reasonable to see the child off if the school is far away or lies in a dangerous area, but what sense does it make in case of i.e. children going to a village school?


Tha article where I found the mentioned information was written by a Pole so I'm not sure if it is not an affect of some misunderstanding or something. I would be grateful if someone from Great Britain could tell how things actually look like

Others are of course encouraged to express their opinions on the topic

I haven't heard anything but it wouldn't surprise me if this does happen. Most of my friends who have children take them to school or one set of parents will take groups of children to school. Even if the distance is close the children will still have a parent with them. Due to the unfortunate problems that have occurred for one example pedophiles I think a child needs to be taught very early never take off with a stranger.

But then you have the problem that you want to make children independent at an early age too. I started to go to school without my parents when I was around 12 and this was with my school friends.

If the schools allow this scheme it is most likely to protect themselves of any responsibilities of a child's welfare and make it the responsibilities of the parents. It's a bit like once you step into the school the teachers take care of the children and once you step out of the school the parents take care of the children.

As much as I disagree, and as much as I would opt for kids to be independent at early ages, it seems impossible these days. So it's inevitable to protect your kids as much as possible. Look what happened in a school in the Netherlands: a 6 year old child (don't know the exact age, but it was sth like that) was stabbed to death INSIDE the school by a complete stranger, and they only found out quite a while later... now imagine what could happen in the evil outside world. It seems inevitable to protect kids wherever they are, upto the age where they can defend themselves properly. And if parents don't feel like that, it's their responsibility what happens to their kids, and in my opinion... if the police needs to ticket people because they don't protect their children properly, no problem. I wouldn't vote against that. It's sad, very sad that it's necessary, but like I said, inevitable, it seems.

GeeJee,

That happened over a year ago, a burgler did that because he panicked since the kid knew who he was... Doesn't make it less sad though... It was an exeption however and these things don't happen very often (fortunatly)

The reality is however that the chance something happening to your kid by trafic from and to school is much larger. The irony is that the increse of trafic is caused by parents who drop their kids of at school by car before they goto work.

Also the fact that in NL parents choose a school across town instead of the school close to home also doesn't help IMO, although most of the times it is caused by lots of kids having 2 adresses these days... The further away the kid lives from school means kids can't even walk to school anymore...

Ofcourse most of this applies to .NL only

But making a law against it? Not so sure here...

What makes me wonder is if this

GeeJee wrote:evil outside world

is really so evil. As if it is - it is simply tragically with the condition of us, human race.


I can imagine that situation in some big cities can look so bad you can't let your child go to school at his own and be sure he'll be OK but is this so in a whole country? I think that if I lived in such a place I would escape somewhere as quickly as it's possible - otherwise I would be dying of scare every day when my children were not with me.

And what about playing out? For me that's important part of the childhood. And it's not always technically possible to accompany your child (not mentioning your child probably doesn't want you to accompany him all the time) - especially when he's not the only one and you're a working person. "I'm sorry , darling, you can't go on a playground with Suzie as you may be murdered/kidnapped/raped/made into ravioli"...?

Not to be misuderstood - I understand the importance of the problem. I'm just horrified if the things really look as you describe them.

As if yes...that's not the world I would like to bring my children up in.