Kirstie Allsopp was left feeling worried when receiving a call from social services this week after writing on her social media that her son, Oscar, 16, had been travelling with his friends – sparking a debate amongst her followers.
On Monday, August 18, Allsopp took to her X account and said she was “proud” of her son, adding: “If we’re afraid our children will also be afraid, if we let go, they will fly.”
Discussing his travels, she added in three separate tweets: “My little boy has returned from 3 weeks inter-railing, he’ll be 16 on Wednesday so he went with a mate who’s already 16 due to hostel/travel restrictions, but they organised the whole thing; Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Marseille, Toulouse, Barcelona & Madrid.
“For obvious budget reasons, inter-railing isn’t on the cards for everyone, but in this increasingly risk-averse world, it’s vital that we find any ways we can to give our children the confidence that only comes from trusting them. Of course, I missed spending the summer.
“With our son, but I’m so proud of him & my loss is nothing compared to his gain & the encyclopaedic knowledge he now has of the differences between one McDonalds & another, if we’re afraid our children will also be afraid, if we let go, they will fly.”
The revelation of her son travelling to the countries by herself caused a mass debate on social media and led to one of her followers calling social services, concerned for her son’s welfare – leaving the Relocation, Relocation and Location Revisited star stunned.
She opened up about the ordeal today on Paddy O’Connell’s BBC Radio 4 show Broadcasting House and explained: “He’s back. He came back about a week ago and that was when I did my tweet saying that he had a lovely time and I think that his trip is inspiring, well little did I know that it would cause such chaos.
“Oscar’s birthday is the 21st of July, he is a Summer-born child, like many children so his cohort has all turned 16 and like many kids who are at Reading, Leeds, Boardmasters, or travelling in Europe, there are some that go simply because of their cohort.”
Discussing the moment she received the call, Allsopp added: “Someone did ring up yes, they rang up RBKC Children’s Services, and they, I don’t know what they said and I don’t know who is it and I haven’t been told what they said about what Oscar was doing but I then received a call.
“I was having a very busy day and it was a number I didn’t know, so I sent a text ‘Saying packing up the house, I am looking at the texts’ and I got a reply saying ‘I have had a referral regarding your son’.
“And, obviously I was profoundly shocked and I don’t want to knock children’s services they do an amazing job and it is very important that we don’t ignore that in all of this. Confidence comes from trust and independence from doing things by yourself and my son is capable.
“It was his idea, his plan, his savings, he came to me and said can I do this and I saw no reason for saying no and when I mentioned that he had done it I wanted it to be inspiring.”
O’Connell asked how she felt, leaving Allsopp to admit: “I felt sick, to be honest. I felt absolutely sick. I panicked, quite badly in the first hour and called all sorts of friends and luckily, sweetly, a couple of them laughed, which actually brought me back down.
“It made me realise that I had to see this was obscured but my initial concern was real fear and worry and sense of shame and I obviously had a choice to say absolutely nothing about this publicly and be quiet about it.”
Kirstie Allsopp shared her sons 16th Birthday plans with her followers
GETTY
Allsopp went on to add that she didn’t regret tweeting about her son’s travels, and added: “I had to be public about that because we have to have a conversation about the fact that we are increasingly risk-averse and increasingly restricting the options our children have and the impact is being felt.”
The star recently posted a lengthy statement on her Instagram account defending the freedom she gave her children and said: “But I hope the silver lining to this cloud is that everyone stops & thinks about the freedoms we had as children, and ask what harm could be done, not by the freedoms, but by the restrictions and fears we are imposing on our kids.”
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