I fully understand and sympathise greatly with Laura and her parents. It's just so typicial and alarmingly so, how easily the social workers are deployed in this country to descent families who clearly DO NOT NEED THEM!

Unfortunately I am speaking from experience since we too are victims of this overbearing, control freak system. Our crime, bilingual children and a rubbish dutch school with absolutely no ability and no willingness to handle it. Rubbish dutch school says children are failing so need medical help (invasive blood tests phyisical exams, etc). I say they do not they just need better teaching, rubbish dutch school calls social services( AMK). Children moved to private international school and do so much better, social services are sold to the BS the rubbish dutch school told them and listen to no other independent points of view no matter what the sources.

I'm trying to get the school investigated because I found out recently that I wasn't the only one to suffer this fate at the hands of this school, apparently it looks like it seen as a good way of shifting out "undesirables" and the headmaster is as racist as the come.

I see you are from the UK. The British legal system announced yesterday they won't allow Laura to set foot in the UK if she continues her quest. And apart from that the UK will accuse her parents of neglect. Also Australia made clear this girl was not allowed to enter Australian land.
This girl is 13 years old and children of that age have to attend school by law. I don't think that is different in most western countries.

Agreed I think she is too young as well and also hasn't done any of the usual run ups to such a voyage, like crossing the Atlantic alone. A ruling that she would have to attend school would have probably been sufficient, putting her into social care is way over the top and I think the Dutch government wields this axe to easily. It's almost as if it is trying to make a point. And what about the children left in the background that really does need this resource? The ones that really are being neglected? Recently it's been mentioned on the news that the system is overstretched because of all the false claims and bogus reports.

I think by the time she would reach British inshore waters then there may well be a case of neglect to be followed up by their law system. But now? They haven't done anything yet!

I'm also trying to compare it with what has happened to us, though my children haven't been made wards of court.

In the UK you are allowed to "house school" your children

This Laura Dekker is non-issue.

The problem here is entitlement. This is what happens when parents "let kids be kids". This more attractive way of parenting or the "vrije opvoeding" or "moet kunnen" manner of parenting is creating children that think they can do whatever they feel they can do.

These are the same kind of parents that bring their children along with them when the invitation says, "adults only" or allow their children to have tantrums while waiting in line at the grocery store. The idea of something being inappropriate for 13 year old girls has been replaced by parents parading their children as if the world revolves around them.

The beaming smile of the father behind her tells it all.

I think the father is the issue; and it wouldn't surprise me if this was a case of returning the girl from a pushy, status-driven father back to a reluctant mother via the court system.

Allowing a child of 13 to be alone for so long will damage her emotional developments - her friends will have matured, learned lessons, moved on and she won't have. That's before the thought of a child - and she is a child! not this 'Young Woman' which are the choice words used by the media - having to deal with dangerous seas, 100ft waves, sharks, and other situations which, even if she had a 2nd boat travelling in her wake, would not be able to save her.

Reading about the incident in the UK when they would not allow her to sail back alone, told her father to get his ass to England, and he then went and she somehow sailed back to Holland alone anyway.... either the child is a precocious brat raised by another brat, or a normal girl doing what every child does - doing her utmost to get praise from her father.

He needed to be the adult and stop this. Putting your child's life in a dangerous (life threatening) situation is the absolute opposite of what a normal loving parent should do: it is abuse. If he doesn't want to act like the responsible adult, he should no longer be her legal guardian.

I sympathise Doormat about what's happened with your children's former school. We seem to yoyo between caring and totally capable teachers under whom my daughter thrives, and screeching control-freaks who absolutely refuse to accept that that they are the problem why she becomes an emotional wreck during schoolhours.

I don't know. Our society seems to be increasingly wedded to the idea of children's development as a fragile, critical process that absolutely has to follow a certain path, lest it not cause a lifetime of psychological problems. It's an idea that's easily sold to parents, particularly caring, nurturing ones.

Couple this with the Dutch "don't stick your head above the mowing field" attitude, and you've pretty much found the motivation for the increasingly narrow definition of care and upbringing our society subscribes to. And anything that doesn't fit that mould, by definition, becomes abuse.

Personally, I think it's easiest to decide the issue using the equality argument. Truancy inspectors have the hardest time keeping some of Laura's agemates in school. She can't be allowed to skip school (which is what her trip would amount to, not 'home schooling') just because she's privileged and capable.

Good morning my friends!

We have been discussing this at work, otherwise I would no nothing about the brave miss Dekkers!
As I see it, she simply wants to have her name in the Guiness Book of Records for a while [or at least until some 12 year old comes along to steal her thunder], and where's the harm in that? Obviously sailing around the world, whilst studying by internet is no easy thing to do, and I certainly would not like to do this. But someone needs to be the youngest person ever, and I think that the Dutch should be proud that one of their fine young teenagers should be willing to risk it, and not trying to get her put in care!

I wish you all a very pleasent Sunday my friends!

Les