Protecting the children gone too far?

[commanderd]

In this article, an author protests about the new UK scheme that means all visitor speakers in schools must be vetted first and have their backgrounds checked before being allowed onto the premises to ensure that no child molesters get in.

In my eyes, this is a step too far - these people are coming into the schools to give talks, they will not be

Comments

[shim_shim]

i don't know...in my mind i'd rather be too cautious than too lax, but at the same time i understand where people are saying it's going too far.

[vasaris]

*snorts*

The vast majority of sexual predators are people the kids know and spend actual time with. Someone coming in to give a lecture (OMG!Auditorium or OMG!Classroom) or even just visit for career/science/WTF-ever fairs (where, seriously, feel free to step up security for locations that might be problematic, thats much more useful) aren't going to be with the children long enough to be a problem.

This kind of thing is an entirely false sense of security. Stranger-danger is a tiny percentage of bad things that can happen to kids. By taking measures like these, parents get the impression they're actually doing something to protect their kids -- instead of taking steps that will work, such as training their kids to recognize danger and get help, listening to their kids and taking their fears of individuals seriously enough to investigate, and being personally vigilant about people whom their kids spend significant amounts of time with

[shim_shim]

i know, i said i understood where people with your viewpoint are coming from. but i grew up at a school where people did get background screened before being allowed to speak at the school and were escorted to and from classrooms/auditoriums. it didn't cause my parents to become more lax about anything - they still talked to me about safety and taught me what to do and all of that. so i understand where some people feel the need for this sort of thing, but i do agree that for the most part it is a waste of time and money.

[nesmith]

I think it's ridiculous. Everyone is getting so unreasonably paranoid about OMG PEDOPHILES when strangers (especially ones not likely to even have an opportunity to corner any kids in a bathroom or anything like that) are a lesser danger than people you know.

[gemmagic]

Excellent point. I think that's something a lot of parents don't realise, and yet it's a well known statistic. Every person I know who was sexually abused as a child was abused by someone in their own family, or a close friend of the family (like the mother's new significant male other, who is apparently the highest risk statistically), not by a guest speaker at their school.

[nesmith]

Same here. I don't claim that my anecdotes are proof, but I think it's telling that every person I know who was abused or molested and in all the stories I've seen in various communities when the subject comes up, not one was molested or abused by a stranger. They were all parents, step-parents, siblings, step-siblings, a parent's boy/girlfriend, another relative, or a friend of the family. I don't doubt that the stranger-snatching happens, but the people bleating the loudest about pedophiles insist that it's far more likely than it really is.

[sister_anne]

Seems like overkill, to me.

[hatsumomo]

Utterly stupid. Authors/visitors etc are never alone with the children anyway. I find the "everyone is a pedo" suspicious mindset very depressing.

[firiels_cat]

This is what happens in a nanny state. Where I live I had to get fingerprinted to chaperon on a field trip for my son's class. (they are requiring it of all school volunteers) I thought it was silly, although at least I didn't have to pay for it. This is what happens when common sense is replaced by a mix of government bureaucrats and nutty parents.

I noticed that my youngest son's school supply list this year includes "goggles for PE." Also, a couple years ago, they stopped hatching chicks in the kindergarten classes because of fears over bird flu.

The only thing I didn't like was a certain flavor of elitism from the author group. As if because they are authors, they are above this sort of thing. They are no better than any other school volunteer so I don't think exceptions should be made for them.