VERA HUGHES,
Sir, - Miriam Donohue is to be warmly congratulated on the refreshingly sane, sound practical viewpoints expressed in her article "Beware of paranoid parenting" (August 9th).
She has articulated something that many older people have thought for a long time, but are afraid of saying, lest they hurt sensibilities, or are looked on as if they had strayed from the Ark.
"Let's call a spade a spade - our children are spoiled", Ms Donohue wrote. Yes, indeed. Entertaining children and keeping them constantly amused in case they give vent to mutinous screams of "I'm bored-bored-bored" or murder one another through boredom and bad temper is an unwelcome phenomenon of today's affluent, instant-gratification society.
It is sad that despite all the expensive games, videos, toys and equipment with which doting parents shower their children, the little darlings are left bereft of the imagination or the ability to find interest in the simplest things in nature that, incidentally are free.
Granted, Ms Donohoe, like so many country children, had a river to swim and fields to play in, while most city and town children are confined to a patch of garden.
Nevertheless, it is incumbent on parents themselves, for their own and their children's sanity to club together in organising outdoor games in the green areas in most housing estates, and outings further afield, where nature trails, plant insect and animal study, orienteering, swimming, trekking, walking, cycling and other healthy outdoor pursuits can be enjoyed, at no enormous expense.
The paranoid parenting phenomenon is something that for the sake of the next generation must be tackled by parents themselves, but then are these psychologically equipped, or have they the moral courage to face the problem?
Leadership is badly needed, not more psychoanalysis. - Yours, etc.,
VERA HUGHES, Moate, Co Weatmeath.