Look, why is it that when someone holds a different view to the poster it is argued that they don’t understand your point? I am not anti government. I used to work for the government! Where the state work in areas that are best suited to state matters, it does it reasonably well. But there comes a crossover point where the state uses the wrong tools for the job or uses the correct tools inappropriately. If you or I do that, we affect a minuscule number of people but if the state does it, then it can potentially affect millions upon millions of people. I completely understand the point taike is making but I am simply saying caution must be used!

What has happened over the last 30- 40 years in the UK is the very gradual invasion of state policy into family matters and the erosion of parental responsibility. For example I work with children in a church choir and I coach basketball at a state school. I do it because I think it’s a worthwhile activity for my daughter and her cousins and my extended church family etc to be involved in and there is a desperate need for volunteers if these activities are to continue. The state has introduced various rules governing who can work with children for child protection reasons. They have also set down in detail how adults can interact with children. Now this is all because of the concern over the risk that someone might interfere with the children.

Now that’s a good reason I think everyone will agree but what about the execution of the policies?

I have had to have 2 separate sets of record checks at the highest level for the two roles that I play. The very first question I am asked on each form is ‘ why do I want to work with children!!!!’ !

I am motivated and despite what I feel is an intrusion into my life I accept that it is necessary and have let the system run its checks on me. Other coaches that I have worked with and volunteers (both male and female) who may even have been parents of some of the children at the choir and the school have objected and now no longer have any involvement with the organised activities and consequently have withdrawn their children. I am reconsidering my position certainly concerning basketball, as it is without doubt a contact sport.

Even some of the parents that simply did’ the school run’ taking their neighbours kids to the same school because it was cheaper to use one car than two have to have these checks done. Consequently, they now just take their own child for fear of being accused of avoiding the checks.

Various rafts of child protection polices have been inculcated into general UK policy morphing each time into something more detailed and far reaching to the extent that the fear of encountering a paedophile /abuser or worse being labelled as a paedophile or abuser or even being suspected (which a lot of people consider to be fact that you are one) is so much greater than the actual risk of encountering an actual abuser that an horrendous distortion of normal human interactions has resulted which some may argue is worse than the perceived problem the state was trying to fix.

It has brought in a culture of mistrust, suspicion and blame where anything can be termed ‘Abuse’, where adults can lose their jobs on unfounded suspicion of over protective parents. Children have become aware of their power to reduce grown men to tears and provoke them even to lose their livelihood by the mere hint that they 'looked at them in a funny way' because they know they will be believed in the first instance. Parents are looked at with fear and disgust and even set upon by over enthusiastic school personnel because they dared to take a picture of their own child in the school sports day that may have included the image of another child in the background!!

Children have lost out on the warmth of human interaction. They may run to hug an adult because they need comfort or reassurance or because they are excited that they achieved something they didn’t think they could or they have fallen over and simply want hug to take the pain away. In years gone by it would have been nothing for an adult to return the hug or to carry the child into the school office and clean up the cut. Now it’s ‘inappropriate ‘. My own child had a rash on her arm and her mother (we are divorced) gave her medication to rub on the arm but the school would not let her use it neither would they apply it because there was no prescription accompanying the medication. It was an over the counter skin cream.

As I say, I see this all the time and it is unnatural not to hug a child that needs comforting. But the fear of being accused of not following procedure or of something even worse has now taken precedent.

Pretty much any normal interaction with a child that no one would have had a problem with 20 years ago is considered unacceptable now.

And the consequences reach further as the fear of being labelled a paedophile has seen the almost complete eradication of a male presence in the classroom. In the UK, more than a quarter of primary schools have a zero male presence in the school. Zero!!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/edu...e-teachers.html

And there is a direct correlation between the lack of males in schools and the fall in after school activities. And generally, why would any teacher voluntarily risk losing their job doing out of hours unpaid work? These are not exaggerations. I see them with colleagues and family who deal with this culture everyday. Many of the children in our schools are now labelled ‘Obese’ because much of the schools sports and after school activities have stopped in part because of the fear that a child might get hurt. So we are looking at kids who are likely to suffer with weight related diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure in the years to come.

Children and their parents are starting to view pretty much all-adult men as a potential threat to them.

Do our children feel more safe and more loved now and do parents feel more relaxed and confident about the people they entrust the care of their kids with compared with 30 years ago?

So in short (although I grant you the preceding paragraphs were anything but short)

I get your point Taike. All I have alluded to is the concern I have that the state already has, in my view, too much say in our personal lives, our belief systems and how we raise our children. I have said from the start that the ideals of providing education in terms of marriage and parenting are worthy ideals but I have expressed caution at the thought of any further state interventions to ‘fix ‘ the problem. I respect your view and I understand it. I just think it can potentially be the wrong tool for the job or have the propensity to cause more harm than good.

And Chas we can debate creationism and evolution on another thread if you like and compare views on what I might also class as indoctrination. J . Actually scratch that, I don’t have the time, got too much on at the moment.