Won't somebody please think of the children.

This is another in the series of adults trying to destroy children's childhoods because of their own phobias and insecurities. Note, children are not adults. They do not act or react to situations like adults. You should not treat them as if they are adults. My main pet peeve is when kindergartners get expelled for sexual harassment or something because a little boy/girl touched somebody else's butt, or some other stupid thing. But this is just as bad, and if the research is accurate parents are in fact doing a serious disservice to their children by trying to protect them. (Not in this article, but i've read similarly that not letting children ever play in the dirt or do the various crazy non hygienic things kids do can hinder them from developing proper immunities/resistances to diseases/etc.) Kids have been growing up for 1,000s of years in roughly the same fashion exposed to all sorts of dangers/violence/etc. why is it that all the sudden we believe kids can't handle it and need to be protected from it at all costs. (admittedly for 1,000s of years child mortality rates were much higher, but their a difference between having modern medicine/measles inoculations/good nutrition/etc. and not letting a kid play on the monkey bars.) I guess i can't really blame parks and schools if they are getting sued when a kid falls and breaks his arm, but i can blame a court system that seems to feel that every time somebody is hurt somebody else must be to blame, and must be made to pay. And i can blame parents who would sue over their kid getting hurt and parents who would make a big stink about kids safety.

On a similar note I watched an episode of the closer recently and a kid goes missing at the beginning of the episode after which the father blames the mother (who also blames herself) because she let the 9 year old ride his bike 2 blocks to the summer camp unsupervised. Really? 2 blocks? Since when can a kid not go 2 blocks on his bike? First off it's barely worth getting onto a bike for 2 blocks, but beyond that it's certainly not worth owning a bike if you parents are afraid to let you ride more than a block away. Somehow we want to on the one hand treat children like adults and demand that they act like adults. But on the other hand we want to treat them like babies and supervise their every action. Just like them be normal kids.