“Parents are just bad at risk assessment.” “We are constantly overestimating rare dangers while underestimating common ones.” said Christie Barnes, a mother of four and the author of “The Paranoid Parents Guide. Lisa Belkins is sure to mention Christie Barnes quote in her article in this week’s Sunday New York Times. To Keep a Child Safe, Just…, she notes how nowadays parents try to avoid their kid from being in danger but she notices that the dangers they seem to pay attention to the most are the rare dangers. While in the meantime they just seem to not think much of the ones that happen more frequently.

Lisa Belkins shows how some parents are more naïve into the real dangers that their child may make. She explains this by writing how driving is one of the most dangerous things to do but yet parents choose to do this with their kids all the time. They would rather drive their child a few blocks down to their friends’ house than to have them go alone out of the fear of being abducted. “And what are the five things that parents are most worried about (according to surveys by the mayo clinic)? Kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers and drugs.” The last two I understand. Kids tend to get into drugs and get into problems with it but that doesn’t mean that every single child uses them. Dangerous strangers is also one that I would understand, I think everyone would be afraid of having their child taken off by a stranger but unless you plan to be paranoid about every person you meet, then this one just doesn’t seem to be a real danger.

I believe that Lisa Belkin wrote this article in order to let the parents know that yeah the world is full of dangers but maybe we need to focus on the smaller dangers that happen more often instead of the huge ones that make the news and happen rarely. Don’t focus on the dangers that have a slim chance of happening because if you do, all the other dangerous that are going on everyday and your child is more at risk of will probably catch up to them. Focus on what is really important, on how you can really protect your kids. She writes about how parents tend to over worry, especially as the time goes by. Their worries just grow and grow. “Perversely, our worry seems to be increasing at a time when actual risk is decreasing. Homicide is down, kidnapping is down, traffic deaths are down.” The risk of facing one of the dangers parents worry about the most are down but yet the parents worries are going up.

The article, To Keep a Child Safe, Just…, I believe was intended for parents who seem to over worry. I think it was especially made for those parents who are always making a big deal out of everything. Like if their son gets hurt at a football game, they’ll make a huge deal out of it and even take it as far as going to the press to get attention. She is trying to reach out to all the over protective, over exaggerating parents that take it to an extreme. She wants to show them that yes there may be dangers going on in the world, but those are always going to be there. You can’t stop your child from doing something he loves in the fear that he might get hurt. There are other things one may need to worry about but no one pays as much attention to those.