Sirius, Sirus, and more Sirius/ Blood protection/ Dumbledore and Harry

[Clifford Vander Yacht]

No: HPFGUIDX 158566

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214"
<dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:

> Alla:
> 
> What I hear you saying is that Dursleys are a typical family and 
> most kids are growing up in families like that? I am really not sure 
> how to respond to this.
> 
> I will just say that there are many many families which are **not** 
> like Dursleys .
> 
> I am not sure what is wrong with sweetness and hugs, but there is 
> pretty big road IMO between sweetness and light all the time and 
> locking a kid in 
> the room with locks and starve him and try to hit him with the 
> frying pan.
> 
> JMO,
> 
> Alla.

Cliff here:
This reminds me too much of the current debate over raising kids in a
germ free home only to have them develop the children's diseases as
adults. Mumps is a disease which on a ten yore old boy isn't
dangerous, but to a boy over 14 can be a lifetime sexual disability.
Learning to ride a bicycle at less than age five is fraught with
scraped knees, but at age fourteen, when I finally learned to ride a
bike, it was pure murder when I fell. So let kids learn to cope with
bad situations when they learn quickly and can adapt and/or heal quickly. 

So Harry leans to adapt and cope. He used his wits to save the
Sorcerers Stone, to fight the basilisk, etc. at ages 11 and 12. Put
your average kid of 11 or 12 who grew up in a safe, loving home into
those situations and you'll have a disaster. SS would have been a
horror story.

I was given a lot of freedom as a kid (stay within a half mile of
home) so I learned to identify and stay away from child molesters, but
to trust anyone else. I had free access to two manufacturing shops
(OSHA would have a fit with a four year old in a iron casting firm),
so I learned many different manufacturing techniques before age ten. 

Don't wrap kids in plastic bubbles.