Bubble wrap is not a toy. Keep away from children!

Of course hours of fun popping all those bubbles was worth getting into a low-grade fight with siblings for a piece of the stuff!

Gotta agree with the sentiments made here... Kids these days are far too wrapped up in cotton wool! I've got a one year old son, who's at the stage in his life where he thinks he can walk miles. Whereas in actual fact, he can make two or three steps, then land squarley on his arse. While mum is happy to chase him around catching him...I on the other hand sit back and watch the hilarities from a distance, watching him LEARN.

That's not to say I'd watch him fall down a flight of stairs (as he's surpremely keen to climb them when the safety gate is left open) bouncing on his head... But, kids I feel should be allowed to take risks, learning from their mistakes. If that involves bumps and scrapes along the way, then so be it. Never did me any harm growing up (other than the odd scar or two, here or there!)

Its about time someone realised that the whole point of childhood is to build deathslides, forts, treehouses, eat worms, fall off your bike, skint you knee, break an arm (so you get a cool cast and all your mates sign it) and generally learn what hurts and doesn't.

Here here Mr Johnston, I support thee!

Besides... do these bubble wrapped kids get the honour of air holes?!

So I let mine play with loaded guns before I feed them hot gravel and beat them to sleep in the evning.

Btw, is the Paris Hilton angel that she is too bubblewrapped or that she is too air bagged?

It's the first time I find a headmaster making some sense. Why, oh why does it have to be a dude from the army?

.... find other kids and beat the crap out of them and film it on their mobiles, only the really thick ones keeping out of the way of the aforementioned yoofs play on train tracks.

with the current attidued to bubble wrapping children could there perhaps be a link between bubblewrap fetishists and child molesters

just to be sure all people with a bubblewrap fetish should be put on the sex offenders register

Forget happy slapping, now you'll get gangs of youths wrapping unsuspecting kids in bubblewrap while filming it on their mobiles and posting it on youtube...

Bring back the days of "Death by Misadventure!"

Before he taught at St Mary's, Mr McKenzie Johnston taught at a small school in Dorset called "Hanford"

Both my little sisters were lucky enough to attend, and I can confirm that this chap takes a much more reasonable view of Health and Safty than most of the populous.

One thing that sticks in my mind is one large tree, situated just outside the school's front door, next to the Church. The children were not only encouraged to climb this tree, but on starting a new year, they would all have to climb to a new, higher branch than they did last year, with all their friends watching and cheering. There were many other activities just like this, camp building, swimming in the river, and of course tobogganing down the many flights of stairs.

As somebody who was forever being thrown into detention for climbing trees, or being caught swimming in the school lake (I was trying to catch a swan, it always got away), I can respect what the man is trying to do.

The UK has become more litigious, and that is part of the reason that children are not allowed to take risks - because corporations and local councils and the Government don't like being sued, or the thought of being sued, and so are becoming more risk-averse.

(On the plus side, a litigious society means you're less likely to have a bit of scaffolding hit you on the head...)

I was told that in the States, the emotional and naive jury would set the level of fines/compensation. In the UK, the tired and jaded (and learned) m'lud would do it.

This should mean that under the UK system we should never have the insane level of suings that exist in the States.

Americans always trying to out-do everybody else! :)

Maybe your teachers should have beaten you as a child with the cane, then you would know the difference between a Hilton angle and a Hilton angel! :)

... at the same time are actually quite possible and fun if you keep the snowballs (hidden rocks optional) in the freezer until it's time for conkers. Enjoy!

I had fun playing that one at school. We never did manage to organise a Kabaddi tournament though.

Let me add a cautious voice in favor of bubblewrap. Making toys and playgrounds safer, mandating safety gear, background-checking caregivers, and suchlike reduce mortality among children. 'nuff said.

The crowded urban environment in which many kids grow up today differs from the environment of our remembered or imagined youth. The simple, predictable dangers of the natural outdoor environment have given way to somewhat more subtle dangers. Plus kids don't have stay-at-home caregivers to the extend their parents and grandparents did.

We cannot wind back the clock to the bucolic days when most children died from being eaten by pigs (true fact) or from communicable diseases. There is always a thing that kills the most children, and we are negligent not to work to eliminate whatever that thing is from childrens' environments.

Here starteth the rant.... Yes, as well as being a sideline tech-head, I'm a member of the supposed dreaded H&S Gestapo (even worse I work for local goverment!) and, in our defence, I want to make a few things clear. Most 'conkers bonkers', 'wrap 'em up in cotton wool', 'ban Xmas decorations' type decisions are not made by us professionals but by people who have no idea of what risk is or are looking for a) an excuse not to do something, or b) their 15 minutes of journalistic fame.

Of course kids should play rugby, climb trees and find out the hard way that no matter how tempting that mud pie looks, it tastes like crap. I'm also a Scout leader and I regularly dangle kids from rock faces on the end of a bit of rope and teach them how to be budding pyromaniacs. Without this experience kids will just turn into a bunch of unsociable, pale skinned fatties that sit at home with no human contact beyond their favourite social networking site.

As a fellow trade that is often unfairly maligned, how about not propogating the typical H&S stereotype and I'll promise to stop slating the IT department every time they tell me I'm not allowed to do something as simple as add a new printer.

Rant over.

It's all a case of getting the balance right.

Consider telling the parent who's just had their child die from [insert gruesome preventable accident here] that you did want to wrap them in bubblewrap!

If it costs me £13,000 per year to turn my kids into someone interesting instead of the bland consumers they are then by jove i am writing the cheque now!

Alternatively could just raise them in the inner city, they will get plenty of risk awareness there, obviously no education but its cheaper.

The problem seems to be one of either me having a Aston Martin or they having an education. Its a tough one.

13,000 x 7 years = £91,000.00, anyone wana buy a kidney? Not mine obviously.

I also dispise the no win no fee stupid claims culture, but isn't it a result of the previous version where someone with a legitimate claim due to corporate indifference would be fobbed off for years before having to take a derisory farthing from the corporate insurers.

If you fall over and bump your arse on something obvious thats your fault IMHO, if you're injured by say falling masonry from a building that has been in a dangerous state for months and nothing was done, then prehaps taking a large wad of cash off the idiots responsible may open their eyes.

I remember my car got wrapped in clingfilm on the last day before exams! Does that count?

It was mildy amusing even though it was my car!

I don't know the source but I think there is a lot of wisdom in the statement that "It takes a village to raise a kid." The problem is that one half of the village is too occupied by itself to get involved in it and the other half is too scared to because they know that life is one lifelong way of risk-taking. Which is a shame because living is lethal anyway.

One can prevent a kid form getting in a potentially dangerous situation once in a while but it's far more effective to learn the kid to recognize and avoid these situations itself. Yet that's not without risks itself. essentially it is all about care and compassion, not only for your own kids, but for all kids, indeed for all human beings within your circle of influence. The problem with care is that it makes you responsible. Denying this responsibility, hiding it in disclaimers or substituting it with bubblewrap is a much more comfortable strategy. But on the long term it is taking humanity out of our society.

I agree. "Kids" should be taught and educated, not scared into never waking up. Shock tactics don't work. (I actually like them, they make me laugh the twitch on the balloon saving bloke from the anti get wasted advert really sets it off nice).

(Proper) Education, education education!

Bowdlerized high school science classes have come into favor where students perform safe computer-based simulated experiments, and never come anywhere near strong acids, bases or voltages.

Yesterday's scientific World of Tomorrow came into being in spite of religious persecution much more vicious than anything we see today. My question is, will tomorrow's World of Tomorrow be limited by "safe, simulated science" education which may prove more deadly than virulent religiosity?

After seeing "Idiocracy", I'm betting on at least a slowdown in scientific progress for not only the reason given in the movie, but also because real science based on real physical experiments will become increasingly rare.

Um. Bubblewrap is cheap. Psychotherapy is expensive.

"... bucking the stupid, risk averse, US style culture of breeding pointless, brain dead unthinking lard arsed kids with about as much knowledge of the real world and it's problems as a retarded donkey."

Seriously... wtf. A nation that cranks out more college educated nationals than any other. More foreign students clambering over visas than you can shake a stick at (and not the credit card). Brain dead lard arsed kids in a nation obsessed with money and "doing well" for one selves while furthering our (crappy) consumer culture?

Obviously you've got a real handle on this real world crap. With your supreme grasp of reality you must have also noticed that US children are more violent and socially aggressive. Of course with your all knowing and overwhelming knowledge you'd also be able to make a connection to school murders and what not. You may have me cornered there oh wise one of all knowledge of what children are and are not, but...

my kid with his pistol can shoot your kid with his baseball bat at 50 yards. Oh how insensitive of me.... about 48 meters.

You know shite of what it is to be an American kid.

I wasn't even allowed trousers. Shorts all round till we got to the great age of twelve. I went to boarding school in northern France. With some friends we dug holes and found live rounds dating back to WW1. We were stopped when we denounced ourselves because we found a grenade... Talk about the school of life. Wide games stretching over miles of open country and lasting days, involving shooting people with fireworks and sleeping under the stars because we couldn't stretch our budget to a tent. Pupils helping the headmaster build whole buildings on weekends. Trail biking with the cooks motorbike. Slipping out at night to trap rabbits and hares (we even caught one once - we skinned it in the dorm washroom, hung it in a cupboard, and ate it two days later). Those were the days. It's gutting to see the way people overprotect and smother their children. After all how are you supposed to stand up to an attack on the street if you never learned to deal with a bully at school?

Enough nostalgia. But I applaud this headmaster's way of thinking. I can only hope to find such a man for my (future) kids.

....is completely f**king stupid, because it's one of the main things they cannot do and pretty much defines them as kids.

They lack judgement, right up to and beyond teenage years. This is what cuts into our hobby / drinking time, and not the short period of "sleepless nights and nappy changing" used to try and put off potential parents.

The problems here, if there are any, are twofold - one is the assessment of risk applied by adults to activities for kids, and the second is the insurance required, which often cannot be obtained, for some otherwise permissible activities. The insurance is required, because, the same parents blathering here about cotton wool and letting their kids do this and that, will just as quickly blame the school, in the sense of trying to get compensation, if little Johnny or Jenny get hurt.

This is the same reason you have to stand 3 villages away from a bonfire on bonfire night - because you all change your tune about who took the risk and who is to blame when you get your fingers burnt. For kids, when it's something we've allowed them to do, it's fair enough, we give them a hug, wipe away a tear and we both get over it...but when it's a 3rd party, we sue and blame that 3rd party for their negligence - whether it's our kid that got hurt or us. The truth is, we don't have the balls to take it on the chin, and even if we do, the money is incentive enough.

These are the same parents who will talk about nanny state while they, and their kids eat s**t until they're too fat to get out of the house "When we were kids we ate chips and sucked fat off t'oven floor, never did us any harm"

It's easy to list a bunch of relatively risk-free activities we all did, as you all have - especially when you've put your kids into a "sandbox" that you've already assessed. e.g the classic "I let my one year old get on with walking even if he falls down" Wow. Except, as he says, not stairs. I bet the house is like the house of most one year olds, most of what is dangerous has been made safe. Because, that poster isn't a complete buffoon, except when he's missed the fact he is letting his kid do something that has no risk whatsoever - one year olds evolved to fall on their arse. Advice though - If Gran can't walk on her new crutches don't sit back and let her LEARN :-) She's not so good in the falling department.

No one half intelligent really allows their kids to assess risk themselves - and it doesn't surprise me at all that someone related to the Army is coming out with rubbish like this.

The army shout at people for months until they'll run into a hail of bullets without assessing it at all. At one time if you ran the other way they'd shoot you, just in case the shouting hadn't worked they made being killed by the enemy the safer option.

They aren't interested in people who think or can assess risk or manage people. What's difficult to manage if you can just shout and they do it?

It always makes me laugh when the apprentice has some pillow biting army leader that believes he could manage troops, and thus can manage people - most couldn't even handle a school class.