Cotton Wool Kids

I am watching this documentary on channel 4 at the moment and find my blood is boiling!!
The general brief is to showcase some very neurotic parents who won't let their children go outside by themselves, walk to school alone at the age of 13 or generally develop independence and life skills.

One parent offered to buy his son a Nintendo wii or an i-phone rather than let him go to a sleepover!! The parents are all happy to encourage their children to spend all day every day playing on computer games, chatting on the Internet etc rather than get fresh air - why can't they take their children out to the park to play with them?? I am very annoyed, I agree that yes the world may not be a totally safe place but keeping children inside locked away is not going to help them to grow into well rounded individuals. Can the parents not see a time when their children will turn against them massively for the way they have been cossetted?

Does also interestingly raise the question about the role of the media in high profiling child abduction cases all the children aged from 3 years up can talk about the Madeline McCann case and how she is missing and the fact that her parents left her alone while they ate dinner. The children also know all about all the stabbings, murders, gang violence etc that happens around them.

Worse still one parent is looking into having her children micro chipped in case they get abducted and she can locate them wherever and whenever they are, just in case they shoudl dare to leave her eyesight or go into a shop without express permission.

Am concerned that if I ever become a parent I will either be the exact opposite of these parents or the exact same as them.

On the edge of a cliff

it's been a while since I graduated from uni so I haven't written an essay since then. Before Christmas I did a subject leaders course at school funded and accredited by Liverpool John Moores Uni. I decided (foolishly) to sign up to write the 4000 word essay and receive 20 credits.

The essay is due in, in three weeks so far no words have been written due to lack of time and motivation but a big part of me wants to do this for me. So now having spent a morning finishing some reading and trying to be analytical and reflective, traits which don't come easily to me I am about to put fingers to keys (pen to paper sounds better somehow). I literally feel like I am on the edge of a cliff and if I jump and actually write the essay i will have achieved something for me...it remains to be seen, will keep you posted.