I was never allowed out of the house when I was a child in London, but on Holidays in Poland at my Gran's children used to be out all day and just pop home for meals and go home when it got dark. 

I was never asked where I had been or who with, but there were plenty of places for innocent recreation.  there were the woods and the big hill that was mostly sand so great for sliding down on making dens etc.  there was no way that i could have had such freedom on the city streets.

Now the streets are full of drugs. This is my main worry with son as experimenting with drugs is very cool in their age group, as long as they stay clear of heroin and crack, the rest are seen as being recreational fun!!!!

Add to that binge drinking and sexual activity from early teens, it really is a  very different world to my childhood days in the 70's.

What you say is so very true Brainless. You and I are from such different areas, but we do seem to have many areeing opinions. Drugs are seen differently to when I was a teen in the 70's. My son, when we talk about drugs says that 'grass, weed' is seen no differently to cigarettes, drugs are the hard things like crack. he assures me he uses none, I can only hope this is the case, and watch for the signs but I do trust him.

Oh, the days of The Famous Five, where everything was jolly and fun, gay meant just that, and drinks were orange squash and lemonade. Did that really happen, or was it just a story.....because today things are so different. The squash is likely to have vodka in it, the cans are more likely to be lager and the teens are more likely to be 'tooled up' if only to defend themselves. Kids are not always out for the fun of it, but because the parents want them out of their hair. Family days out, spending time playing, biking, visiting places, seems to be unusual rather than the norm. Personally, I love to see families on bike rides, or walking out with their children, learning about the countryside, teaching them how to look after themselves when they are old enough (mentally, not just years) to be out alone. Families picnicing, kids running around the park together, playing, under watchful eye yes, but who says kids can't play like that. Lots still do that, but there are plenty that dont. it should be safe for little kids to play in a den, or a wood, but often the teens will also be there and can chase the little ones off, or take things from them, or harm them. Little Sarah is just one example of what can happen, and Holly and Jessica, and little Jamie Bulger plus countless others over the years. A 15 yr old was taken close to here by a rapist who had been let out, she was raped and murdered walking home from school. maybe the difference between the stats of abduction and attacks are fewer/the same because parents are more vigulant than they were 30 yrs ago. Despite the stats, they cannot be totally accurate because not everyone reports the 'lesser' cases of violence or injury, or attempted abductions, either because they don't want to cause a fuss or because they know full well if they report to the police, and they investigate, the reprocusions will be not worth it. families/teens live in fear of retaliation from 'crews' if they report them. its easy to say they shouldnt, they should stand up and be counted, but unless you live under the fear of mob rule you really can't know what its like. Youtube was shown on TV with the culture of crews and guns on the news, in the area the little 11 yr old was gunned down. he should have been safe where he was and doing what he was, yet the videos show what the culture is like there, and everyone seems afraid to speak up even though a child has died, and who can blame them when they could be next.

Its not what it was when I was young, despite what some groups will try to say, I dont agree with kids sitting glued to Pcs or playstations all day every day, but I can see a real need to be careful.

> Despite the stats, they cannot be totally accurate because not everyone reports the 'lesser' cases of violence or injury

I think that the perception is that there are more cases these days because the television/media coverage is SO OTT :( :( Whilst not wishing to play, say, the Madeline McCann case down, I was quite sick of the wall-to-wall television coverage of it :( :( Thirty/forty years ago the coverage was much less, indeed, there was not 24 hour television. Whilst any tragedy isn't any greater/or lesser than any other, we do have our faces rubbed in it these days which can only heighten people's fears :( :(

Daisy

I put the maddie case (bless her) to one side, because no one really knows what happened in this case yet.

The times have changed, and i do feel that because parents are more aware of what can happen, this heightened sense of responsibility has kept children safe. i think you also have to guage what is safe in the area you live in, if drunken yobs are roaming the streets, its not safe to let little ones far. I do wonder, had the teens been parented with love care and attention, would they be like they are? Its the ones from the poorer homes that lead off the adventourous teens which we have strived to bring up to be well adjusted members of society. Much as we would like things to be as they were 40 yrs ago, they are not, and we need to live in the world we are in now, and do the best we can. There was something on the news which said that teens spend less time with their parents of an evening in this country than any other country, maybe this has something to do with it. In school time, these young teens should have some fresh air, but what about homework and study? What about a good nights sleep before the next school day? It's not just danger, but looking to the future that they seem to lack.

> It's not just danger, but looking to the future that they seem to lack

But they can only look to the lives of their parent(s), if no-one has given them the time and vision to give them aspirations to do better for themselves :( In these days, where class is less important, a child should be able to aspire to anything, if they work hard enough :) :) We are not in the days of our parents/grandparents, where a bright child was unable to take up the hard won place at a grammar school because his family couldn't guarantee to keep him/her at school until the age of 16. Places at the best universities can be and are taken by the poorest and most disadvantaged - one of my son's school friends is a prime example :) :) He came from a council house and a single-parent family. Graduated from Cambridge and is now doing post-graduate studies at a top university in the USA :) :) He was fortunate to have family members who gave him the encouragement and the aspiration :) :)

Daisy

This is what I mean, it has to come from the parents, and letting the kids run riot is not parenting but it is exceptionally hard these days to keep kids on the straight and narrow, when they see their friends having such a good time.....or what they see as a good time. Whilst some can carry on their studies, there still remain those that simply cant afford it, nor the huge debt they are in when they finish their uni studies. Is it not true that less are going to uni because of lack of finances?

Somehow we have a real need in this country to get to the basics of family life. I don't always mean couples, it is more than possible for a single parent to give this, as has been shown time and again, and by many on here who have told us of their stories, after all in the war years mums and extended family bought up the kids, this 'ideal' of a happily married couple living together, mum at home and dad working 9-5 and home at weekends didnt happen when the men were away. And some didnt come back. I also think it is better for a child to be raised by a single parent than witness rows, violence etc as is the norm in some families, and was also the norm for some in years gone by when the mother couldnt leave because she couldnt support the family, or felt incapable of, and divorce laws/accomodation was exceptionally hard for a single mum/woman to get then. But parenting is something that seems to be lacking in some areas, and this is something that needs sorting, stop it at source, if I knew how I'd be an MP and earning thousands ;)

So much presure is put on teens to do well in exams, so much so that the ones that cannot do well feel there is nothing out there for them, and this is a crying shame. We can't all be brain surgeons, and the ones that cant need help to find manual jobs, the sort of jobs that will always need doing, yet not feel shame because of this.

> We can't all be brain surgeons, and the ones that cant need help to find manual jobs, the sort of jobs that will always need doing

You are very right there :( It really frustrates me that schools try to teach the lower ability pupils subjects like history/geograhy/science etc etc to GCSE standard (not that that is always very high :( ) At 14 (say) pupils who are deemed non-academic (by themselves, preferrably) should be routed down the 'technical' route and prepared for apprenticeships in the manual skills. But they should still have lessons in practical English, Maths etc etc. This should also apply at higher levels - we are just producing far too many of Tony's protegees who leave pretty poor universities with fairly worthless degrees (to employers, anway) and huge debts that they are going to take years to pay off in the poorly paid jobs that they will have to take :( :( They would be much better off doing 'apprenticeships' in higher skilled jobs IMO :) :)

Daisy

The latest stupid idea is to raise the school leaving age to 18! :rolleyes: Honestly, have they no brains? The academically-inclined will want to stay on anyway, and the non-academic ones (no slur on them) will be bored rigid and even more disruptive for a further two years. This will only work if we go back to the secondary moderns/technical colleges where the non-academic children can learn a trade.

I wonder if leaving school at 14 and 15 and havng  the responsibility of holding down a job had soemthng to do with less trouble with teens.

Certainly going to work was the making of my daughter.

Idle hands are the devils playground.  The person who wrote that knew what they were talking about. ;-)