Jane Ransom wrote:
In article , Brian Watson
writes
The issue is about taking reasonable precautions.

If you have let people with children onto your property and you are aware
there is a hazard, and it appears from the postings so far that "other
people's ponds" are a hazard for children, it makes sense to tell the
visitors about it.

Good God - all my visitors know me and hence know that I have several
ponds and lots of rocks that children can damage themselves on!! I don't
need to tell every visitor every time they come and visit me.
When my children were little and we went somewhere new, I always made
sure I kept my eye on them *all the time*. I would even let them have
minor 'accidents' to let them learn. They always knew that if I warned
them about something, then that something was something to avoid for a
very good reason - and they always remembered.

Perhaps you should run safety briefings when people come to visit, with
periodic refresher courses, produce a safety manual and get them to
sign that they've read and accepted it before they can sit down ;-)

The part about keeping an eye on them all the time is telling, in my
view. Too often people abdicate responsibility for their own safety
on others, which is why we are developing the litigation culture
that seems to be so prevalent in other parts of the world. Your
safety and that of your kids is primarilly your responsibility, noone
elses, and it's entirely up to *you* to eveluate the dangers of any
situation you place your kids in and act accordingly. If there are
*normal* hazards, and I think a pond in a garden you are visiting is
a normal hazard, you need to ensure your kids don't drown in it, not
your host. Of course it does boil down to your perception of "normal",
but I'd class a garden pond on one side of that divide, and a loaded
shotgun in the kid'd playbox on the other. I think you'd be right
to be agrieved (sp?) if you weren't warned about that one before your
kids played with the toys!

And you're right about letting them learn, too.

Trev