Naked children shock!

[Badjelly]

Some people need to get a life...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4688247a11.html

[Reckless]

yeh mate that's for sure! Next some kid will innocently go home and say He/she was last in the changing room with the teacher, it will be misunderstood, and there will be a shit storm the other way !

When we where building Kohanga Reo's (Kindies) there where windows and 1/2 height doors into all the toilet areas, you could see them sitting on the WC. Looked really weird, but its to protect the kids and mostly so as the teachers weren't exposed to a dangerous situation.

You can't win in this PC world!

[Number One]

Maybe if there were less creeps in this world it wouldn't have even been seen as a 'problem'...I can imagine that at least one parent of the nudey kids wouldn't have been happy to hear of it either though.

[Hitcher]

Brilliant. Let's stigmatise a bunch of littlies and ridicule their caregivers for just having fun and being kids. How long before the pious, handwringing sandlewearers demand that these kiddies get counselling for this emotionally scarring experience?

[Number One]

CYFS and victim support have probably already visited...

EDIT: Klingon makes a very valid point below. My 4 year old has just started to get shy about who he will or won't get changed in front of. Most people he doesn't worry and is hppy to get changed in front of the fire in the lounge but a friend the other day was here and he was not having a bar of getting his kit off in the lounge in front of them despite the fact that he loves them to death - ftr they are not creepy or a kiddy fiddler.

[klingon]

Also it depends on the individual children concerned. Some kids at the age of five are perfectly happy to run around naked but some five year olds are quite self conscious.

A friend of mine has two boys aged five and nine. The nine year old will throw his clothes off at any opportunity and play out in the back yard in summer. The five year old is very self conscious and when I'm babysitting he gets changed into his pyjamas in his room (his brother gets changed in the living room in front of the heater).

If the five-year-old had to get changed at the side of the pool in front of a bunch of strangers, he would be very upset. Knowing him, he would probably put his clothes on over his wet togs rather than take his togs off in public! He should be allowed the option of privacy to get dressed, just as older children should.

One teacher supervising 15 children at a public pool seems quite inadequate to me.

[idb]

Oh no, not Christchurch's puritans again?!
Wait for the witch hunt...literally!!!

[bomma]

i thought the article said it was a class of 15 year-olds and was like FTW??!! HOW CAN YOU GUYS BE SO ALRIGHT WITH THIS!!! then i re-read it coz i remembered it said primary school and then realised it was 15 five-year olds!! lol man get over it!! by drawing attention to it and causing such a big ruckus they're probably putting more pressure on them than it's worth....fucking penguins!!!

[Hitcher]

How long before Peter Ellis gets fitted up for this one as well?

[Ixion]

Ah for the simpler days of my youth when it was normal for small children to swim naked at the ebach. And usually robe or disrobe at the water's edge. Never seemed to cause any problems.

[Badjelly]

Maybe if there were less creeps in this world it wouldn't have even been seen as a 'problem'...

Granted, but (as the father of 3 daughters, now in their 20s) I think children are generally over-protected these days. Yes, there are paedophiles, but does making a fuss about some children changing in public make the kids safer from the creeps? Yes, if you let your kids walk or bike to school they could be injured or die in a road accident (as a friend of mine did when I was 11) but is ferrying your kids everywhere in a car actually good for them?

[Patar]

One teacher supervising 15 children at a public pool seems quite inadequate to me.

I was just about to write this when I noticed you had already pointed it out.
I don't see the issue as being that the children were naked in public, but more the lack of supervision provided by the school.

[Number One]

I think children are generally over-protected these days. Yes, there are paedophiles, but does making a fuss about some children changing in public make the kids safer from the creeps? Yes, if you let your kids walk or bike to school they could be injured or die in a road accident (as a friend of mine did when I was 11) but is ferrying your kids everywhere in a car actually good for them?

I don't disagree with you at all Mr Jelly My true personal opinion is that a ratio of 1 teacher to 15 kids of that age at a swimming pool is woefully inadequate. The school holiday programme run from my work has to meet OSCAR guidelines which for ages 5-12 calls for a ratio of 1 adult to 7 kids.

On the note of the public stripping saga IF all the kids were comfortable with getting changed beside the pool no harm done. I do however think that even 5 year olds have a right to keeping their private parts private and so were any of the kiddies not comfortable (cos even little kids sometimes want to protect their modesty) they should have been able to get changed in the changing rooms...which of course brings us back to the biggest issue here which is that there was too little adult supervision available to 'apparently' allow this to happen.

[fire eyes]

I feel the teacher made the best decision at the time for the circumstances that were presented .. I would be livid (livid- and thats stating it nicely) if my young child was left unsupervised in a public changing room to change ... as a mum .. I never ever leave my young children alone in any public area where I cannot see them.

I hope that in the situation where a young child did not want to undress then there would have been allowences made for the child.

I am also very surprised the school would actually allow a single teacher to take 15 little ones to the pools! Postponing the activity until other Adult Help was available would have been a safer course of action.

[Henk]

From the article I got the impresion that there were enough pool staff on hand to make the swimming part of the exercise safe.