stressed out kids

National tests for seven and 11-year-olds are putting children under stress and feeding into a "pervasive anxiety" about their lives and the world they are growing up in, according to an intimate portrait of primary school life published today.
Primary-aged children worry daily about global warming and terrorism as well as their friendships and passing the next exam, according to a report based on 700 in-depth interviews with children, their teachers and parents, which will feed into the biggest independent review of primary education in 40 years.
The findings echo a report from Unicef which this year placed Britain at the bottom of a league table charting the well-being of children across the developed world. Guardian

One of the things that reassures me about our decision to homeschool our children is that they don't worry about grown-up issues. They don't stress about bogey men, big mean bullies, the ice caps melting, high pressure tests, or missing the bus because they have to go potty. We are trying to keep our children innocent and concerned with important childhood issues such as designing the world's fastest paper airplane, the most fashionable way to wear a purple boa, trying to break the speed reading record for a Nancy Drew mystery, and how to stay up late reading in bed without getting caught.

Sex ed? Will finally got around to asking last year how babies get inside and come out. When I gave him the most simple explanation possible he seemed satisfied and hasn't brought it up again. Maggie still thinks that babies come out of the Mommy's belly button. "Ouch"! They don't need to worry about diseases, predators, or teen pregnancy, at least not before they are teens.

It is our job as parents to protect and shelter our children from the big bad world as long as it is necessary. They have decades to worry and fret about madmen and moral decay, but only a short time to daydream and play without a care. Let us fight to give them a childhood they can look back on with nostalgia.