“…You can’t be too careful.”

These were the words of a somewhat strident middle-aged lady at Dungeekin Minor’s ‘football’ training session on Saturday, as she vocally and agressively demanded to see the (female) coaches ‘paperwork’.

The trouble is – I rather think you can be too careful.

When you’re not the parent, and you turn up at week five of a six-week course for 4-year-olds, and you behave with such suspicion, you don’t look like you’re acting in the best interest of the child. You look like an idiot with chronic knee-jerkitis.

Especially when said session is attended by all the other parents, all of whom are within sight of all the children for the duration of the session YOU’VE just cut short with your paedospicion.

Reality check. Despite the railing and screeching of both Government and tabloids, not everybody who has even tangential contact with your child is a predatory paedophile, desperate to deflower and subsequently devour your little angel. Surprisingly, at a nationally-accredited and franchised kids’ club and with the parents supervising, your little boy’s somewhat more likely to learn football than fellatio.

His innocence is safe with the football coach. Sadly, however, with a relative such as this the child’s innocence is somewhat less secure within the family.

Children need to grow up learning to be safe, that’s for certain. They need to learn, as they mature, that there are people and things that are a risk to them and how to verbalise their concerns if they have them.

All that acknowledged, though, they still learn to be able to trust.

Everyone is a stranger at first. If you teach your child that any non-familial adult is a rampant kiddy-fiddler, then quite aside from skewing their sense of risk-awareness they will learn only to treat every adult with suspicion.

Have you considered how this will affect their long-term ability to develop relationships? Is their ‘protection’ in childhood worthy of potential damage to their adult life?

Because the way I see it, the attitude of the lady in question has the potential to be no less damaging to the child’s long-term development than the actions of the very individuals from whom she wishes to protect him.