Sample Speech Two
Title: How Much Protection Do Kids Need?
Introduction:
Attention-Getting Opening: You’ve told your 4 year-old son ten times not to go too close to his grandfather’s catfish pond. Each time, he steps back for a couple of minutes before walking back to the muddy edge.
Context for Speech: It’s Christmas day in Alabama and a windy 30 degrees. Yet your son, who cannot swim, seems intent upon ending up in the frigid water in spite of your rational explanations that he would not enjoy this experience. What do you do? Do you make him leave the area to prevent a mishap? Do you keep explaining that it’s dangerous to get too close to the edge? Do you let him fall in, believing that the cold water won’t kill him and that this is the best way to learn a lesson? If you asked a thousand people those questions, you’re likely to get a thousand different answers based on their different ideas on how much protection kids need.
Thesis: I will focus this speech on three of the many perspectives a person could have on the question, “how much protection should parents give their kids when it comes to physical safety?”
Preview of Main Points: 1) kids need a great deal of protection; 2) kids need some freedom and a moderate degree of protection; and 3) kids need minimum protection and a lot of freedom.
Transition to Main Point One: I will start on one extreme and move to the other.
Main Point One: When researching this speech, my on-line library search on “keeping kids safe” yielded nearly three million articles, mostly on keeping kids safe from internet predators, automobiles, and household products. I will focus on two different sources who advocate carefully monitoring kids’ behaviors and environments: The World Health Organization and Safe Kids Worldwide.
The World Health Organization researches and reports on the United Nations’ health system and is known for their high-quality research. Their 2008, 232 page “World report on child injury prevention” offers a comprehensive view of the countless dangers children face each year globally. There are sections on poisons, disease, the environment, road safety, and drowning, to name a few. The WHO report’s exhaustive litany of dangers is supported throughout with research findings and statistics such as, “[s]tudies show that 56% of unintentional poisonings in young children occur within the child’s home, and another 17% occur in or around someone else’s home” (“World report” 134). Because the document focuses exclusively on dangers, accidents, and prevention, the cumulative effect gives the impression that the world is a very dangerous place, with lethal deathtraps lurking around every corner. And the responsible facts and statistics that back the claims further support this vision of the world as highly dangerous for children.
Safe Kids Worldwide, “a global network of organizations whose mission is to prevent unintentional childhood injury, a leading killer of children 14 and under” (Safe Kids Worldwide) unconditionally supports the World Health Organization’s approach. In their December 10, 2008 “Statement by Safe Kids Worldwide in Support of WHO and UNICEF’S World Report on Child Injury Prevention” their leader, founder, and director stated “[b]ased on the research and recommendations contained in this comprehensive World Report, Safe Kids Worldwide will be redoubling and fine-tuning its efforts to better address unintentional injuries to children” (“Statement”).
Transition to Main Point Two: The second perspective I will address is a middle ground between extreme caution and extreme freedom.
Main Point Two: Though I found many articles that favor moderation, I will focus on the two most interesting ones: Michael Ungar’s American Journal of Family Therapy article “Overprotective Parenting: Helping Parents Provide Children the Right Amount of Risk and Responsibility” and Laura Morice’s “Are you fighting your kid’s battles” that appeared in the September 2004 edition of Good Housekeeping magazine.
Michael Ungar, a clinical practitioner in the Dalhousie University School of Social Work in Nova Scotia is highly critical of people who deny their kids the freedom he feels they need in order to develop into healthy adults. Ungar notes that “[b]ehaviors that are perceived as having an element of risk and responsibility (e.g., walking to school alone or in pairs, riding bicycles in the street, sleepovers … with groups like Guides and Scouts) are being denied to children by parents who fear for their offspring’s safety” (258). Based on research in his field, Ungar concludes that this protection is “unnecessary,” interferes with healthy development, and keeps kids from becoming independent as adults (258).
However, Ungar doesn’t deny that real dangers exist. Rather, he advocates for a realistic assessment of danger by demonstrating that perceived danger bears little resemblance to real danger because he feels the world is statistically becoming safer over time (263). Ungar doesn’t believe that parents are intentionally harming their kids, he just thinks that overprotectiveness is caused by such factors as the sensationalistic news media and parental insecurities (269) and the fact that parents often overlook their own childhood experiences that “taught them self-respect, demonstrated capacities, [and] fostered independence” (265).
Laura Morice, author of “Are you fighting your kids’ battles,” similarly stresses the importance of allowing kids to fight at least some of their own battles. Her focus is on “[w]hen to let your kids go it alone—and when you absolutely must get involved (102). Morice’s expertise comes from being an experienced parent and from consulting published works by experts on the subject. For instance, Morice quotes Megan McClelland, PhD., “an assistant professor at Oregan State University” (103) as saying “If your son or daughter is not sleeping, not eating, or not going to school, you need to get directly involved” (103). She further builds ethos by quoting other experts in the field who believe parents should most often let kids resolve their own conflicts.
Morice’s own experiences have also informed her position that kids are more resilient and resourceful than parents give them credit for, but that there are times when parents should intervene. For instance, Morice learned the hard way not to question a teacher’s motive when she discovered that her son had deserved the detention his teacher had given him.
Transition to Main Point Three: The final perspective I will cover is the other extreme, the belief that kids need freedom to make mistakes, even to the point of experiencing pain.
Main Point Three: Advocates of this position include Hara Estroff Marano, author of the 2004 Psychology Today article entitled “A Nation of Wimps” and professional skier Bode Miller and his parents. Marano vehemently criticizes what she considers overprotection of kids from even the slightest pain. She opens with “[p]arents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the lumps and bumps out of life for their children. However well-intentioned, parental hyperconcern and microscrutiny have the net effect of making kids more fragile” (58) and gets more forceful as the article progresses. Marano is highly critical of the antiseptic, sugar-coated world adults try to provide for their kids and believes this harms kids. Throughout the article, Marano mocks such things as rubber playgrounds, sanitizing gels, over-diagnosed disorders, and helicopter parents and argues that “[i]t’s bad enough that today’s children are raised in a psychological hothouse where they are overmonitored and oversheltered. But that hothouse no longer has geographical or temporal boundaries. For that you can thank the cell phone” (Marano 58). She believes that the only way that kids can become functional adults is to learn to become critical thinkers, which means that parents must give them the freedom to make mistakes that they can learn from.
Bode Miller epitomizes the notion of letting kids have the freedom to take risks. As Lydia Polzer notes in her 2006 article on Off-Grid.Net, “Miller was born and raised in the woods around Franconia, NH…his parents choosing a lifestyle that would foster independence and free thinking. He was raised without electricity or running water, and roamed the forest freely” (Polzer). As a child, Miller was encouraged to freely explore nature, even at a very early age. He attributes his continued passion for skiing to parents who didn’t hover over him or push him to perform to their standards. In the 2008 NH.com article, “Being Bode: Young Man of the Mountain,” the author discusses Bode’s father Woody who “says that Bode’s childhood years spent wandering the woods and mountains ‘taught him that he can figure things out for himself’” (Hirshberg). Bode’s mother, Jo, also attributes his fearlessness on the slopes in part to “his comfort with the elements, the ground, the snow… For his first 10 years, when he wasn’t in ski boots he was barefoot. He can look at a ski course and pick a unique line. That comes from a life of looking at the ground, walking on rocks, and climbing trees” (Hirshberg). Bode is a clear exception to Marano’s “nation of wimps.”
Transition to the Conclusion: But which of these approaches is right?
Conclusion: Each source is highly credible and presents a convincing argument about safety and prevention of injury. Nobody can argue with WHO and Safe Kids Worldwide that significant, quantifiable dangers exist and that a huge number of kids experience devastating injuries each year. At the same time, it’s hard to fault such authors as Michael Ungar and Laura Morice for their suspicion of people who fixate on danger without weighing the risks. It’s equally tempting to admire authors like Marano and people like Bode Miller and his parents who believe that childhood
should be a period of great freedom and becoming one with nature. These articles have made me think hard about my own childhood and the childhood I have attempted to provide my own children. So what would I do in the case of the 4 year-old teetering on the bank of the catfish pond? You will see in my final speech.
Works Cited:
- Hirshberg, Meg Cadoux. “Being Bode: Young Man of the Mountain” com (August 1, 2008). Web. 5 May 2009 <http://www.nh.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080801/NHM01/528060869/-1/nhm39>.
- Marano, Hara Estroff. “A Nation of Wimps.” Psychology Today 37:6 (Nov/Dec 2004): 58-103. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO Host. University of Iowa Lib., Iowa City, IA, Web. 5 May 2009 <http://www.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu>.
- Morice, Laura. “Are you fighting your kid’s battles?” Good Housekeeping3 (September 2004): 102-104. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO Host. University of Iowa Lib., Iowa City, IA, Web. 5 May 2009 <http://www.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu>.
- Polzer, Lydia. “Bode Miller: Off-Grid Role Model.” Off-Grid.Net (24 Jan 2006). Web. 5 May 2009 <http:off-grid.net/2006/01/24/off-grid-role-rodel>.
- Safe Kids Worldwide. 2009 International. Web. 5 May 2009 <http://www.safekids.org/>.
- Safe Kids Worldwide. “Statement by Safe Kids Worldwide in Support of WHO and UNICEF’s World Report on Child Injury Safety” (December 10, 2008). Web. 5 May 2009 <http://www.safekids.org/pdf/WHO%20Statement%20of%20Support%20SKW%202008.doc>.
- Sejal, Mandalia. “Glad to have been sheltered.” New Statesman 133:4704 (26 September 2004): 17. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO Host. University of Iowa Lib., Iowa City, IA, Web. 5 May 2009 <http://www.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu>.
- Ungar, Michael. “Overprotective Parenting: Helping Parents Provide Children the Right Amount of Risk and Responsibility.” The American Journal of Family Therapy 37 (2009): 258-271. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO Host. University of Iowa Lib., Iowa City, IA, Web. 5 May 2009 <http://www.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu>.
- World Health Organization. “World Report on Child Injury Prevention.” Ed. Margie Peden, Kayode Oyegbite, Joan Ozanne-Smith, Adnan A Hyder, Christine Branche, AKM Fazlur Rahman, Frederick Rivara and Kidist Bartolomeos. (2008): 1-232. Web. 5 May 2009 <http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241563574_eng.pdf>.
