{"id":189,"date":"2007-10-29T14:27:30","date_gmt":"2007-10-29T14:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astraea.net\/blog\/?p=189"},"modified":"2007-11-02T14:49:59","modified_gmt":"2007-11-02T14:49:59","slug":"fear-stops-childrens-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/fear-stops-childrens-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear stops children&#8217;s development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Gill, a child expert, shows in his new book a reluctance to let children take risks could stop them developing vital skills needed to protect themselves; youngsters are missing out on their childhood because we over-protect them. In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gulbenkian.org.uk\/publications\/education\/no-fear\">No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society<\/a>, Gill argues that childhood is being undermined by the growth of risk aversion and its intrusion into every aspect of children&#8217;s lives.  The book explores several key areas, including children&#8217;s play, anti-social behaviour and fear of strangers.  Activities that previous generations of children enjoyed without a second thought, like walking to school on their own, have been re-labelled as troubling or dangerous and the adults who permit them branded as irresponsible. He recommends that instead of creating a &#8220;nanny state&#8221; we should build a society where communities look out for each other and youngsters.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I feel the need to protect and control my children&#8217;s behaviour, but I&#8217;ve learned that that doesn&#8217;t actually happen and it&#8217;s exhausting to try.  The simple realisation that you can not watch your children that they are going to have to make decisions themselves has been the catalyst for a more hands-off approach to their activities.  But this does not mean neglect.  It means letting them get in to difficult situations (but not too difficult) and helping them resolve the situation.  A child without a bruise or scratch has not been a child.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gulbenkian.org.uk\/media\/item\/1175\/89\/No-Fear-Summary.pdf\" title=\"No Fear Summary\">No Fear Summary pdf<\/a>  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gulbenkian.org.uk\/media\/item\/1176\/89\/No-Fear-text-no-pix.pdf\" title=\"No Fear text only\">No Fear Book pdf (text only)<\/a>  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.childrenssociety.org.uk\/\">The Children&#8217;s Society<\/a> (UK)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Gill, a child expert, shows in his new book a reluctance to let children take risks could stop them developing vital skills needed to protect themselves; youngsters are missing out on their childhood because we over-protect them. In No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society, Gill argues that childhood is being undermined &hellip;<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/fear-stops-childrens-development\/\" class=\"more-link pen_button pen_element_default pen_icon_arrow_double\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Fear stops children&#8217;s development<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hwcd-33","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}