Personal safety

Raising your daughter in a world that seems full of dangers can feel seriously scary. Yet if you check the statistics the chances of your precious child coming to any serious harm are very small. Horror stories hit the headlines precisely because they are so rare.

Personal safety

The current trend for “helicopter parents” who hover over their child, micro-managing every aspect of their life, disadvantages them. You need to help your daughter develop the skills she will need to cope in the outside world rather than over-protecting her. Getting the right balance between wrapping her in a cocoon of cotton wool and leaving her exposed to real threats is not as difficult as it sounds.

You will not be alone, either. Her school will also be preparing her for dealing with potential dangers, for example through “stranger danger” courses, through Personal, Social and Health Education lessons and instruction on internet safety.

Focus on developing her self confidence so she learns to say no and to be assertive. This is as important for when she is offered drugs or pressured to have sex as when a stranger asks her to go with him “to look for his lost puppy”. Ask her where she is going, who with and agree when she is to be home. Mobile phones make communication much easier but try to avoid telling her to ring you on the hour, every hour!

Internet safety

Consider when it is wise to let her have a computer in her bedroom. If she is too young to be left alone at home she is probably too young to be using the internet’s communication tools without supervision.

Stay involved with how she is using the computer, look at her and her friends’ web pages on social networking sites and check the computer’s history.

You could remind her that the police say that anything on the internet is public, that malicious gossip is a serious offence and that employers (and teachers) check out these sites.

Remind her to tell you or another adult if she feels uncomfortable or unhappy about anything she reads online

There are several helpful sites where you can get advice and instruction if (as is likely!) your IT skills are less developed than hers. Try www.thinkuknow.co.uk, parentscentre.gov.uk, kidsmart.org.uk or ChildLine.

Above all keep talking with her, about your concerns as well as about possible threats to her safety. Once in she is in her mid teens peer pressure will be the greatest influence in her life so any lecturing from you could be counter-productive. She needs strategies for managing the risks that are an inevitable part of life so that she can become a confident, competent and successful adult and use the “wings” you have given her to fly!