
What parents worry about vs what they should worry about - cwan
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/08/30/129531631/5-worries-parents-should-drop-and-5-they-should?sc=fb&cc=fp
======
dreeves
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Prompted by news of an abduction in Missouri
a while back, I wrote this: <http://messymatters.com/strangers>

Excerpt:

I love this quote from security expert Bruce Schneier:

    
    
       Remember, if it’s in the news don’t worry about it. The 
       very definition of news is “something that almost never 
       happens.” When something is so common that it’s no longer 
       news — car crashes, domestic violence — that’s when you 
       should worry about it.
    

The truth of that hit home recently when I saw a news feature on the abduction
of a four-year-old girl from her front yard in Missouri. Candlelight vigils,
nation-wide amber alert, police blockades where every single car was stopped
and questioned, FBI agents swarming the house. I think the expected reaction
from parents is “oh my god, I need to be so vigilant, even in my own front
yard!” My reaction was the opposite: Wow, this sort of thing really does
essentially _never_ happen. Let the kids run free!

[EDIT: It goes on to compare to a non-abduction story...]

In summary, a toddler got separated from her caregivers and wandered off,
where a passerby saw her. Seeing no one else around, his first instinct was to
scoop her up and take her with him. But he decided that that was a big risk to
himself — what would people think? — and continued on, reporting it later.

The girl then fell in a pond and drowned.

~~~
logicalmind
As a parent, one of the things I fear most is DCFS. I live on a large area of
land with many natural resources and my children are free to do many things. I
inform them of dangers and protect them from realistic dangers. But not every
other parent thinks that way or agrees with it. It only takes one fearful
parent to place a call into DCFS about their opinion on your parenting style.
Once DCFS is involved you are at their mercy with little or no oversight.

So beware implementing some of the ideas presented here as things you
shouldn't fear. Because not everyone will agree with you, and those other
people can make your life very difficult.

~~~
cracki
if someone like the DCFS wanted to take my kids, i'd get the urge to poke them
off my property with a loaded gun. i mean, US citizens have the right to bear
arms, for the exact purpose of defending themselves against the government, or
what was that?

~~~
logicalmind
Believe me, I hear what you're saying. But DCFS has no oversight. If you have
guns in your house with kids they will take a very keen interest in you. There
are DCFS rules for what you can/will/should do with guns in your home that may
exceed what you would do. If the DCFS agent finds your gun not locked by an
XYZ lock your kids will be taken from you. I am not joking either.

Every attempt you make to establish your rights will lead you further down the
path of their goal. Take heed from the stories above and you will see how it
works.

------
nroach
These fears seem to stem from the illusion of control and detectability.

Ask most folks if they would be able to tell if their child is depressed or
suicidal and you'll get a variation of "Of course I'd know if my child was
suicidal" or "My child isn't depressed!"

Ask then if they could tell if a school sniper is going to target their school
or if a terrorist attack was going to happen. You won't find a similar
confidence in the detectability of the outcome.

And that produces fear.

Unfortunately, car accidents, abuse, and suicide are in fact more prevalent
because they have false detectability. The very same human factors that
contribute to people answering with confidence about their child's emotional
or mental state also cause us to overlook subtle warning signs.

That's in part why people so often express surprise when there is a suicide
attempt or familial abuse. You don't often hear parents or relatives say
"yeah, I saw that coming." It's more often "Johnny tried to kill himself? What
a shame, I would not have seen that coming , he was always such a
bright/happy/etc child".

------
simon_
"Things that kill children" is not identical with "things parents should worry
about". For example, immediate mortality is probably not parents' major
concern with drugs (#5 on the list).

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I came to say this same thing. As a parent, I really don't worry about 1-4 on
the "shouldn't" list, but drugs is a real issue, especially in a family with
evidence of a predisposition towards addiction.

There are also things I can do things about and things I can't, and that
impacts what I worry about. I can't control a drunk that decides to cross four
lanes of traffic, so beyond driving defensively, I don't worry about that.

On the other hand, I can teach my kids simple things in a way that doesn't
have to panic them to keep them safe from unlikely chance they run into
"stranger danger". We live in a low crime area, yet there have been a couple
of very creepy incidents involving adults following/bother kids walking home
from school.

I do wonder about where they got that list, though. I've never heard a single
parent I know (and I know a lot of parents) who has said "I sure Johnny makes
it home from school today and that the snipers don't get him." WTF?

~~~
InclinedPlane
How likely is it that your child will die from a random drunk crossing four
lanes of traffic vs. merely taking a ride with a friend who is unsafe? Or, for
that matter, drunk?

Drivers aged 16-19 have auto fatality rates _four times_ higher than other
drivers. That's not because they are magnets for middle aged drunk drivers.

1 in 4 teens killed in auto accidents were under the influence of alcohol.

Children are more likely to be molested by family members and friends of the
family than by strangers. They are also more likely to die by stepping into
the car of a friend than by being hit while driving alone. It's important to
instill in your children the skills necessary to deal with the actual threats
they are likely to encounter. Indeed, as a ridiculous example, if you told
your children that they are not allowed to ride with friends but they are free
to hitch-hike with random adult strangers chances are they'd actually be
safer.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I could also fireproof and earthquake proof their rooms and never let them
out, make sure they constantly wear rubber suits in case they trip, and only
feed them formula through a stomach tube so they won't choke.

Yes, teenage drivers are scary. I'm scared every time my son backs out of the
driveway (for him and everybody on the sidewalks). We have laws here that
prohibit a new driver from having friends in the car without parents, which I
think is great. I wish there was more we could do to make people safer and
greatly applaud companies like Mercedes who are using technology to help with
that.

However, I won't cripple myself or my kids by living for the worst case. I
will try to teach and coerce so they worst cases won't happen, but I refuse to
be a helicopter.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yes, quite so. My point wasn't that you should coddle your children, but
rather that it's important to understand what the real dangers are _and
empower your children to deal with them_. Being overprotective of your kids
from real dangers is a problem too, but being overprotective based on
imaginary dangers is just plain dangerous.

------
edw519
"It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because
there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do
control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized." - Wayne Dyer

~~~
xiongchiamiov
That's one of the founding principles of stoicism[0], as I understand it. The
general idea is to change your emotions about external events, since you can't
change the events themselves.

I'm told it's rather helpful for POWs.

[0]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism>

------
qjz
This article pretends that both lists are mutually exclusive. Maybe combined
they equal most parents' top 10 list of worries, and the ones that happen
rarely are simply the ones that are most effectively prevented. I rarely die,
but I don't consider the time I spend preventing it to be wasted.

~~~
klochner
How much time do you spend preventing sniper attacks? (#2)

~~~
nhebb
My sons play MW2, so they're well well trained in handling sniper attacks.
They're also well versed in fending off campers and noob-tubers, in case
either of those are #6+ on the list.

~~~
mrerrormessage
I hope they are well stocked with smokes and not stun grenades when the
snipers come looking. Lets hope they have cold-blooded pro as a perk too.

------
zach
School snipers is kinda ridiculous, but if you define "worry" as "fret due to
a lack of control over the situation," then you can expect these kinds of
results.

You're asking the vast majority of reasonably conscientious parents at large.
What they "worry about" is the list of risks which they have not found a
practical way to mitigate.

They're not being asked about how they think other people's kids might be
killed, which would make comparing the two lists a valid exercise.

So these are heartening results. If parents are "worrying" about their kids
dying by gunshot instead of actually locking up their handguns, you have a
_major problem_.

~~~
prawn
Was the point about school snipers referring to actual gunmen picking off
kids, or kidnappers grabbing a kid as they came out of the gates before their
parents could pick them up?

Surely the gun-toting variety wouldn't be that common, even in the US?

~~~
hugh3
I'm really curious about the survey methodology. If I ask a parent "Hey, are
you worried about the fact that _right this moment_ somebody might be shooting
your child with a sniper rifle for no good reason?" I'd probably get the
response "Well, yeah, now I am..."

------
quizbiz
This list is about how we fear the rare events that terrify us (terrorist
event) over the more common events we just accept as risks of life (car
accidents). Nothing to do with parenting.

------
gokhan
Since car accidents are number one cause of child fatality, and since it's on
topic, I'd like to remind you people that rearward facing car seats protect
better in an accident.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssIsceKd6U&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssIsceKd6U&feature=related)

Also, _"Child occupants seated in the center had an injury risk 43% less than
children seated in either of the rear outboard positions."_

[http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/121/5/e134...](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/121/5/e1342.pdf)

------
twillerelator
There are social factors that magnify worrying about children. For example, in
the UK over 0.5% of children are in state care.

Thus parents also worry about what other adults think of them.

------
mellery451
similar issues are discussed regularly on the Free Range Kids blog:
<http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/>

------
plnewman
I'm a parent and I worry tons about drowning and car accidents. I also worry
about kidnapping, though, just because it's such a horrible thing. I have
never yet to lose a minute of sleep over terrorists or snipers though -- it
sounds they surveyed the Fox News paranoia generation with those responses
(assuming this is an American audience. Those are obviously real threats in
some parts of the world).

------
jules
I don't think so. My parents worried about the things in the list that gets
kids killed, and not about the things in the that doesn't get kids killed.
Which parents really worry about snipers and terrorists?!

~~~
hugh3
Exactly. When I was a kid my parents put a lot of emphasis on making sure I
crossed the road safely. When I was slightly older they put a lot of emphasis
on making sure I rode my bike safely. And when I got old enough to drive, they
damn well put a lot of emphasis on making sure I drove safely.

As far as I know they never worried too much about me getting shot by a
sniper.

------
InclinedPlane
There are real costs to being worried about the wrong things. How many kids
today have been raised in over-protective environments? Not allowed to travel
around the neighborhood or the city alone, for example. How does that affect
them when they become adults? How does that impact their ability to be self-
reliant, inquisitive, adventurous, confident, self-starting?

------
js2
Slightly related, leading cause of death in my age group is accidental
poisoning. This got no traction when I posted it, but I'll try linking one
more time.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1505903>

~~~
nkurz
It's an interesting topic, but I found it a confusing article. I read quickly,
but really didn't get a sense of how many of the deaths were due to what, what
this implied, and what could be done about it. And I'm sure the required
password certainly didn't help people read it. Post again when you find a
clearer article that's out in the open!

------
joshfraser
I recently gave a talk at Ignite Boulder along these same lines. It's not just
parents, we are all guilty of being scared of the wrong things:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyydlDsS5I> [video]

~~~
annajohnson
Great point. There is a lot of fear mongering in our society and this is only
perpetuated by the media which focuses mostly on bad news rather than good
news.

