Parental guidance lost

SIR – Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, has announced that “children as young as four are to be taught about the perils of social media” as he launches “a consultation on draft guidance that ministers will provide to schools on how to teach ‘age appropriate’ sex and relationship education classes” (report, July 16).

Mr Hinds lists risks for children on social media: cyber bullying, concerns about “body image”, predators in chat rooms and “addiction and graphic violence in video games”. He omits to mention a deadly risk to health and relationships – pornography. That too is addictive.

Unfortunately, it is an aim of “sex positive” campaigners to introduce pornography lessons into schools on the pretext of protecting children by getting them to recognise “good” and “bad” sex. Indeed, it seems that the more sordid the subject, the more we need to talk to children about it – all in order to protect them.

Mr Hinds says we must protect “our” children, even while successive governments have undermined parents’ power to protect their own children. Now, under the General Data Protection Regulation, medical practices are telling 11-year-olds that their records can only be shown to their parents with their permission.

Far from reminding the nation of the Judaeo-christian duty to protect all children, the state appears to be trying to nationalise childhood – making children state property. Ann Farmer

Woodford Green, Essex