Our Farm Next Door star Amanda Owen has revealed she was once flagged to social services after her son suffered an injury outdoors.
The Yorkshire Shepherdess, 52, has spoken about raising her nine children at Ravenseat Farm and the freedom she has given them to explore.
Speaking to The Times, Amanda said social services became involved after her son Reuben slipped in a river and cut his eyebrow.
She said: “It didn’t look too bad so I left it.
"But of course it got infected.
"The doctor said I should have brought him in for stitches and I got a yellow flag from social services.
"I’ve never had one since.”
Amanda also recalled accidentally trapping Reuben's finger in a door when he was a baby, saying it “nearly had to be amputated”.
Another of her sons, Miles, was once bitten on the cheek by a ferret.
Despite the incidents, Amanda said she continues to give her children freedom to explore and believes they learn to understand risks for themselves.
She said her "feral" children can “roam for miles” and argued that keeping youngsters indoors does not necessarily make them safer.
Amanda said: “Don’t fool yourself into thinking children are safer in their bedrooms.
"They might be indoctrinated by some dangerous regime while surfing the internet.”
She also explained that her older children helped care for their younger siblings and became independent at an early age.
She said: “The older children helped look after the younger ones and quickly learnt to be independent.
"Maybe Raven, my eldest, who graduated with a first in biomedical science, will write a tell-all book about her traumatic childhood, but I don’t think she will.
“Responsibility moulds kids.
"Plus, as Raven joked recently: ‘If it hadn’t been for being dragged up and years of neglect, I’d have never made it to where I am now.’”
That approach to independence continues today.
Amanda said that when her children announce they are heading “off to the waterfall”, she responds that she is “not listening”.
She added that they “learn their own parameters when it comes to safety”.
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