Every morning my five-year-old son wakes up and asks me if he has grown in his sleep.

"How old will I be when I am as tall as daddy?" he asks.

The rate he is going he'll probably be about six feet tall when he is 10. I was shocked last weekend to discover that all of his jeans (which were aged five to six) were already too short for him.

Samuel is one of the tallest boys in his class, but as the smallest man in my family is six foot one – the tallest is six foot seven – it is very unlikely he is going to be a shorty.

His height also means he looks older than his five years, but being tall and looking older does not necessarily mean you are more mature than your contemporaries.

I often worry that because he looks grown up people expect more from him, and I am sure this is going to get worse as the years go by.
A friend and I were talking this week about the things which worried us most about the future for our children.

She was concerned about the rate children seem to be growing up today, saying, for her the biggest worry was that her daughter would get pregnant as a teenager.

"They seem to be curious about sex so early," she said. "And the clothes for children nowadays are so grown up."

Obviously, having a son, this is not a worry for me – although of course it would be terrible if he was the boy who had got a young girl pregnant.

My biggest concern is about Samuel getting seriously hurt in a fight. Not because he is particularly aggressive, far from it, but because boys are generally more likely than girls to settle an argument with their fists.

Fists are bad enough and can cause serious damage, but the number of knife crimes which have occurred recently are filling me with absolute horror.

Although these incidents seem to be confined mainly to big cities, nearly all the victims and perpetrators are teenagers or young men.
How long will it be before this knife culture moves into our towns and villages?

I personally think the idea of showing these youngsters the affects of their crime by making them visit stab victims and their family in hospital is a really good idea, although I appreciate the logistics are complicated.

Without wishing to be neurotic my husband and I are seriously considering enrolling our son in a martial arts class to help teach him self defence and most importantly respect.

We hope that this skill will offer him some protection from the dangers of modern day life – surely someone is less likely to pick a fight with a boy who knows how to defend himself. I guess we'll have to see if we are right.