I was having a chat with @R_Arblaster this morning (as I do most mornings while having my morning mocha and mail check before starting on the daily housework) and we ended up on the subject of the way health and safety is going nuts at the moment.  He made a post about it on his blog and, since he’d set me off on a rant (which he also does fairly often) I thought I might as well share my thoughts on it too.

Health and Safety in itself is, of course, a good idea – no one wants to get hurt, or cause someone to be hurt by their actions… well, okay most of the time we don’t want to cause/inflict hurt on someone, there’s always the odd occasion where you could happily murder someone – I’m happy to admit that and you’re lying if you don’t – but I think it’s being taken beyond reasonable limits.

Take, for instance, last week at school.  A friend’s daughter has had her ears pierced.  The policy is that children either take out earrings or cover them up for PE – understandable in case they get caught on something and rip out.  But to take this further, the school were not allowed to put plasters over the child’s ears in case the plasters caused an allergic reaction of some kind.  Her mother not only had to go and purchase plasters to cover her daughters ears, she then had to go into school and place them on her ears personally.  Then mark the box of plasters with her daughters name on and leave them at school with permission for the teachers to use them in every PE lesson from then on.

My daughter fell over at school last week.  She was wearing tights and since the teachers were not allowed to remove her tights, they could not check to see if she’d cut her knees.  Luckily it was hometime so I was able to check myself.

Neither of these situations were the school’s fault, but the Health & Safety policy they have to follow.  To me, H&S protocols are hindering more than helping of late.

As Richard pointed out in his own post, when we were kids growing up in the 70s, we were running, jumping, climbing trees, getting into scrapes, getting dirty and playing rough and tumble games without a care in the world.  We’d go home and, to the disgust of our parents most likely, we would then eat without washing (if we could get away with it) and never came to any harm from having dirty hands, cuts and bruises or getting cuddles from the teacher when we felt out of sorts.

We could play outside our houses with our friends with toy guns, plastic knives – screaming and shouting, tying each other up with skipping rounds and generally running rampage around.

I think the mollycoddling of health and safety is having a kncok on effect with the way children are behaving.  They’re so mollycoddled and undisplined because adults are fearful of being accused of child abuse, etc, that they’re no longer learning respect or right from wrong or that there are consequences for the actions and decisions they make.

I spank my children.  I’m not afraid to admit that.  I don’t beat the living crap out of them for the slightest misdemeanour, but when all else has failed and they will not do as they are told, they will get a smack – it’s a last resort method of discipline and one I feel has its necessary place in growing up.  Before all the fluffy bunny treehugger types start posting death threats, understand this.  My children do not fear me, they understand right from wrong and they understand that there will be repercussions if their behaviour crosses a line.  They know what the line is, and being children, occasionally they will cross it.  Crossing the line doesn’t always result in a smack.  We have a three-strike method in our house, ie three warnings before any action will be taken.  If they choose not to heed the warnings, then the next step is taken where they are sent to their rooms, if they continue after that they will get a smack.

My children don’t always behave at home, but I can guarantee if I take them to someone else’s home they show respect for the house they are in and the people who own it.

Last week  (lots of things happened last week it seems) I took my youngest to get weighed by the Health Visitor.  While doing this, my second youngest decided she was going to throw a toy at someone.  The toy wasn’t soft and would have hurt should it have made contact with the head she was aiming at.  So, obviously, I called her name and told her no.  The health visitor turned to me and said I should have let my daughter throw the object and then, to deal with it, I should have ignored her and gave my attention to someone else – this would, apparently teach my daughter that it was wrong to throw. . . . . I’m sorry, but on what planet is that going to work?  If I ignore the fact my daughter has thrown something at someone and don’t tell her it’s wrong, how is ignoring the fact going to show her she was wrong to do it?  If she doesn’t get told it’s wrong, at 2 years old she’s not going to figure it out for herself.  In fact, if I ignore her she’ll do it again and again, thinking it’s fine to do so.  Not to mention the potential for serious damage being caused.  What if the next object she decided to throw was a knife or something that could split a head open?  Is the health visitor going to pay the legal costs when I get sued for not stopping her?  Come off it, just ignore her indeed.. I don’t think so!

This mollycoddled society that we’re bringing into play is producing children who don’t understand cause and effect, who have no idea about taking responsibility for their actions and don’t have the first idea of right and wrong.  I personally am horrified by the thought of what the effect of this will be on our childrens future.