Personal safety at university

[Tinkers]

The London road campus is actually closer to town and not where the main campus is (and where RM will be walking her dogs). However the main campus isn’t that far away really and is quite nice to wander around. There’s a lake there too.
The London road campus is not too shabby though, and close to kendrick and the hospital.

Architecture at Reading is a relatively new course.

[Daogroupie]

Is there some reason that she has been so highly sheltered in life?

Forget the talk, you need the doing. You have five months to get her out there in the real world so she can start learning how to cope as an adult.

What things does she currently do by herself?

Does she go on train or bus journeys? How much time has she spent alone on public transport?

My dds have been going to school on public transport since Y7 and often onto events in London so this type of travel is second nature to them.

Does she go to lectures, concerts or exhibitions in London?

I would set some goals of things for her to work towards so she has made some progress before she goes.

A panic alarm is not the answer. Learning to deal with normal adult travel is. DG

[stroudydad]

Is there some reason that she has been so highly sheltered in life?

Forget the talk, you need the doing. You have five months to get her out there in the real world so she can start learning how to cope as an adult.

What things does she currently do by herself?

Does she go on train or bus journeys? How much time has she spent alone on public transport?

My dds have been going to school on public transport since Y7 and often onto events in London so this type of travel is second nature to them.

Does she go to lectures, concerts or exhibitions in London?

I would set some goals of things for her to work towards so she has made some progress before she goes.

A panic alarm is not the answer. Learning to deal with normal adult travel is. DG

At the risk of upsetting, there is life outside the M25

[ToadMum]

Is there some reason that she has been so highly sheltered in life?

Forget the talk, you need the doing. You have five months to get her out there in the real world so she can start learning how to cope as an adult.

What things does she currently do by herself?

Does she go on train or bus journeys? How much time has she spent alone on public transport?

My dds have been going to school on public transport since Y7 and often onto events in London so this type of travel is second nature to them.

Does she go to lectures, concerts or exhibitions in London?

I would set some goals of things for her to work towards so she has made some progress before she goes.

A panic alarm is not the answer. Learning to deal with normal adult travel is. DG

At the risk of upsetting, there is life outside the M25

Indeed there is - I well remember the Painswick Young Farmers' disco of 1977 (although not completely for the right reasons, having made the mistake of telling a seemingly nice young chap that I was hoping to do a combined SRN / Health Visitor course, only to discover that his mum was a GP - who hated Health Visitors ), but I think the OP and their DD live in the London area, so travelling into the capital would be a reasonable way of gaining experience and confidence on public transport etc .

[KB]

+1 to getting experience now - to start with finding a good friend and doing things together to build confidence.

+1 to the drinking.
If they don't yet then it's worth thinking about introducing say wine spritzer so they get an idea of the effects.
Do make sure they are aware of dangers.
There are rubber bottle stops they can put in drink bottles to help avoid spiking for example.

Most of the awful stories come when someone gets separated from a group. At Freshers they are less likely to watch out for one another. Many places have introduced changes but excessive drinking is still a problem.
My DD knew her limits and would have one drink before going out ( so she knew what was in it and how much she had) mostly to make it easier to put up with others who were silly from consumption of alcohol but then abstain. Once she'd made some good friends to go out with in a smallish group she was much more relaxed.

+1 to having money stashed away for taxi and a phone number for a reputable company.


Make sure that she knows that whatever the situation if she's worried then to call you. They can think it's a let down to call home or you will be annoyed if they've got themselves in a mess. Independence is one thing but safety comes above anything else.

Get her to check what the local security arrangements are. Many SUs have emergency numbers staffed by volunteers, run mini buses in certain areas or there are emergency numbers for campus security etc.

Preparing for dangers can make it all seem a little more scary than it is but still better to be prepared I"d say.

[kenyancowgirl]

From a boys point of view, I would also have a talk to them about consent - making sure it is absolute, clear and unambigious - even getting the consent on text or film, if necessary - too many cases of "consensual" s*x where the woman then shouts rape in the press later on - I am sorry - I know it isn't a populr view, especially amongst parents of girls, but it is NOT automatically the boy who is at fault and, a change of mind after the event, does not constitute a criminal act. Girls need to be aware of this too...

[scary mum]

From a boys point of view, I would also have a talk to them about consent - making sure it is absolute, clear and unambigious - even getting the consent on text or film, if necessary - too many cases of "consensual" s*x where the woman then shouts rape in the press later on - I am sorry - I know it isn't a populr view, especially amongst parents of girls, but it is NOT automatically the boy who is at fault and, a change of mind after the event, does not constitute a criminal act. Girls need to be aware of this too...

I had exactly this conversation with DS1 before he went to university. He said he would never do anything without consent & I pointed out that regret can lead to bad behaviour.

[ToadMum]

From a boys point of view, I would also have a talk to them about consent - making sure it is absolute, clear and unambigious - even getting the consent on text or film, if necessary - too many cases of "consensual" s*x where the woman then shouts rape in the press later on - I am sorry - I know it isn't a populr view, especially amongst parents of girls, but it is NOT automatically the boy who is at fault and, a change of mind after the event, does not constitute a criminal act. Girls need to be aware of this too...

Absolutely, KCG. Just as our take on 'talking to strangers' (well, mostly mine, but mainly because I'm the one who says it, not that DH disagrees) is not a blanket 'Don't', but, 'if someone speaks to you, it's plain rude not to acknowledge them - just don't go off with them', I also express annoyance at the concept of ' consenting to at the time, something later you regret, so expecting to make a criminal of the person you did it consensually with', to put it rather grammatically.

[Tinkers]

It’s always been hard work getting DD to talk to anyone anyway.

On the subject of consent, it’s in everyone’s interest to know about consent and its importance.

However one thing to bear in mind is that adult males are more likely to be the victims of s exual assault themselves than be the victim of been falsely accused by someone else. Your DSs need to be aware of both.

[Stroller]

Something that sticks in my mind from over thirty years ago, when we lived in a (really rather nice) road near Lewisham station. Further up from our flat, there was a university hall of residence. One evening as I came out of the little lane by the station onto the main road, I was accosted by a young woman, who asked me whether I was walking up Granville Park and if so, would I walk home with her? Some incident had recently occurred - obviously not scary enough to put me off getting out of the house and going to work - and apparently the female students had been told that they were not to walk up our road on their own after dark.

So hanging around on a street corner and nabbing complete strangers to escort them home was a better idea then? . Goodness only knows how long she had been there; it wasn't late, but it had been dark for quite a while...

The irony of her asking another woman, not that much older, who was just about to walk up said 'too dangerous to walk up on your own' road, on her own, wasn't lost on me, but presumably had been on both the student and her advisors.

Moral of the tale, keep your own wits about you .

Keeping your wits about you is always sound advice. That said, I read a great book called “Protecting the Gift” years ago. The title sounds a bit cheesy, but the writer had significant experience of criminal investigation and the gift in question is your biological instinct to know whom to trust, with a corollary that you should listen very carefully when your instincts are telling you to be wary of someone.

One of the messages that stuck with me is that the person a child (or presumably an adult) approaches for help is safer than the random adult who spots someone vulnerable and gets involved. Blanket warnings about not talking to strangers are ridiculous and unhelpful. People need the confidence to approach someone when they’re stuck and it’s helpful to have some experience of talking to others and recognising that there are more good people than bad. In any case, a huge proportion of murders, assaults and s... abuse is committed by someone known to the victim - often a spouse, a parent or a close relative. Stranger danger is far less likely statistically.