10 Propositions on "connecting" with children about risk

Prepared for a seminar of the Westminster Diet and Heath Forum
London, 26 October 2005

Some things to remember about being young now
1 Modern young people are a new blend of precocity and immaturity.
2 The young are both more sanitised and more polluted than their parents.
3 They have too much, and very fragile, self-esteem.
4 We used to have taboos and fear, now they have advice and "evidence".
5 The young can't and won't be kept safe.
6 Ideas are more dangerous than drugs, fatty-foods, or school trips.

Some useful facts to tell a young person
1 Being treated for clap is unpleasant.
2 Many and perhaps most mature drugs users enjoy trouble-free pleasure.
3 Young people are flaky, so should steer clear of drugs.
4 Eat what you like but less of it.
5 You can't be both really fit and really well.
6 A beef-burger is only a differently organised spaghetti Bolognese.
7 Smoking for a few years carries little risk except not being able to give up.
8 Some of the most useful men you'll ever meet are perverts.
9 A teenage mother knows you don't catch babies from the lodger's bath-water.
10 It's bad form to blame anyone else when your risk-taking goes sour.

A tricky thing young people need to know
1 Compared with political parties of the left, political parties of the right are nasty but honest.

RDN is media fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs and author of "Rich Is Beautiful: A very personal defence of Mass Affluence", published by the Social Affairs Unit, 2005. His "Mr Blair's Messiah Politics: Or what happened when Bambi tried to save the world" is scheduled to be published by the SAU in November, 2005

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