LAST week I attended the Children's Society Coffee Morning in the Town Hall, and it led me to reflect on childhood today.

Never before have children been so molly-coddled and cossetted. If you are a car driver you will know that at the end of school holidays the traffic jams will be back, as parents ferry children to school. In the good old days we walked.

And this attitude of overprotection also extends to things like school trips. With recent publicity about accidents many teachers are now afraid to take children away for fear that something will go wrong.

The modern tendency to rush to take people to court is also in danger of stepping adults who work with children taking the risk. Of course proper precautions must be taken, and safety rules must be followed, but we must accept that accidents will happen.

The trouble is that we all seem to want to live in a risk free society. We want regulations brought in that will make accidents impossible. But no such regulations exist. There will always be risks for children and, as parents, we need to grasp that.

Trying to provide children with a risk free life is counter-productive. Children cannot grow up properly if they are not exposed to risk. Children will never mature if they are not allowed to take risks for themselves.

Having said this, I do acknowledge that young people today are exposed to dangers that we never faced. Internet chat rooms and Internet pornography, for example, as well as the more widespread availability of drugs.

And, although children are now more cossetted than ever, we adults seem to make ever more demands on them. Children are pressed harder and harder to succeed at school, college, and university. Under such pressure no wonder many children suffer stress and tension. The modern emphasis in education on testing children at every stage can make for a very hothouse atmosphere.

So there is a paradox: Children have never been more protected, but children have never been under so much pressure to succeed. It is a pity we can't have a more relaxed attitude to childhood. Michael Williams, Vicar of Bolton Parish Church