We must not give into the climate of fear after foo tie sex beast scandal
When you send your children to a club to learn a sport or hobby, you do so in good faith that they’ll acquire a skill, make new friends, gain confidence and simply have a good time.
The last thing on your mind is that they’ll be abused.
Yet sadly as we are learning, many young boys who trained with youth football clubs in Britain became the victims of sexual predators.
The thought that by encouraging your child to develop their skill base, you are leaving them exposed to the perverse vagaries of men who want to exploit their innocence is horrific. It is every parent’s nightmare. Thankfully, inquiries are now being held at various football clubs around the country after some adult male victims spoke out recently about the culture of abuse, and that can’t have been an easy thing to do. But where does it leave parents? Frightened, confused and worried, I suspect.
Do you raise the subject with your child? What are the words you’d use? How best do you protect them?
Difficult though it is, we cannot allow ourselves to be so anxious that we deprive our sons and daughters of the most precious thing we can give them – a normal, happy childhood. And that involves trust. If we are so
consumed by fear that we don’t let them join clubs or make friends, we are depriving them of the basic experiences of childhood that we should take for granted.
Sadly over the past decade many children have been forbidden to play in the street, to explore the countryside, warned
not to leave their garden. A culture of fear has prevailed.
So we have raised kids who are technologically savvy with phones and computers but not very streetwise or as physically fit and active as they should be and who rely on mum and dad for everything.
If we now extend that to banning them from attending any organisations or clubs because of the risk of male predators, we are doing our children a massive disservice.
My kids went cycling, built dens in the fields behind our house with their pals, wandered off to play footie for hours – and that seemed natural and right. And, despite the current fears, I still think it is.
We cannot deny our children the experience of exploring the world around them, learning how to run and jump and play – for fear something might go wrong.
We have to teach them how to survive in a world where not everyone can be trusted.
We have to talk to them honestly and openly about safety issues. They need to be aware.
But we must not deny them the precious gift of freedom. I think that’s too big a price to pay.