Interesting article in the Herald Sun yesterday about the prevalence of "Helicopter parents" who are so over protective that that constantly "hover" over their children... gave an example of a teenage son being followed by his parents in their car as he travelled to school every morning in a bus.

I think being over protective is just as potentially damaging as allowing your children the appropriate level of freedom and trust. This is shown to me as my DD occassionally tells me: "my friend was dropped off by her mum so that she could walk to school with me... but she (the friend) had no idea about safety mum! She kept wanting to cross the road at the wrong time, she wanted to walk DIAGONALLY across intersections and she never stopped to listen if cars were coming around the blind corners... so dangerous!" Obviously these children have had very little experience of being pedestrians and having a parent take the time to explain road safety to them These same parents probably think I'm taking a huge risk alllowing my DD to walk to school but I know that, at the end of the day, my child is safer because she is street smart and their children are at a huge risk as their level of awareness seems not much greater than a toddler! Also, I'd like to add that I think that more children are injured inside cars than as pedestrians walking to school. there is also the 'hidden' risk to health of basically being unfit. My DD is very strong athletic who runs a 3km cross country race easily most weekends whilst most of her friends huff and puff after running 100m.