Battle to stop Laura, 13, sailing solo round the world

[Janet]

This is most intriguing in so many ways!

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/battle-to-stop-laura-13--sailing-solo-round-the-world-20090826-eyn0.html



Battle to stop Laura, 13, sailing solo round the world


Thirteen-year-old Laura Dekker wants to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, and her parents think that’s a great idea.

But the Dutch Council for Child Protection is so concerned about the dangers of the marathon voyage it has asked a court to grant it temporary custody of Laura so it can do what her parents refuse to - halt the trip.Read the rest at the link. Fascinating!

[battlecrumpet]

Yes that is fascinating!
I'm not sure what to think - in Australia, govt child protection services only usually step in when there's abuse / neglect involved...which certainly doesn't seem to be the case here....so the the govt stepping in seems quite over-the-top.

OTOH, similar types of situations as described in the article, are very open to abuse, especially with younger kids, who may be too young to protect themselves from adults who get involved for the wrong reasons.

Like the case of the 4-year-old who tried to run a marathon.
Perhaps even the 7-year-old who died trying to fly a plane across the USA - who seemed, the way it was reported, to start out in bad weather because of media pressure / committments.
That's assuming the article reported those cases accurately.

[cgull]

Hmmm... yes... interesting...


I thought the psychologist made a bit too much of the divorced parents / identifying with the father thing... Seemed pretty irrelevant to me... But maybe I'm over-sensitive because I was raised by my divorced Dad. :)

[Janet]

Update: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8226196.stm