Flick through any photograph album and the pages will be bursting with pictures recording milestones in children's lives.

Winning the egg and spoon race. Scoring a first goal. A starring role in the school play.

As the sports day season approaches, families will be priming their cameras for another round of happy snaps.

They are moments for parents to treasure. But today, there is a question mark over whether those pictures can be taken at all.

As public paranoia over the misuse of children's photographs mounts, some schools, clubs and playschemes are banning, or at least discouraging cameras.

The first time my six-year-old ran on to the pitch in his Michael Owen shirt, I was ready to record the moment on film.

But the match organiser sprinted over to tell me pictures were "not encouraged". When I asked why, I was told my photographs "might fall into the wrong hands".

At swimming lessons, a father who had brought a video camera to record his daughter's first triumphant length was politely asked to put it away as filming was "inappropriate". He said he felt like a criminal.

Possibly saddest of all, at a nativity play, parents who were proud as punch to see their little angels and shepherds, were told filming was not allowed without the written consent of every parent involved.

In the 21st Century, it seems cameras can be offensive weapons, at least where children are concerned. There have been cases of innocent children's pictures finding their way onto paedophile web sites. But they are few.

The row over photographing children exploded last year when a Bedfordshire school banned cameras from its school play. Edinburgh council also imposed a blanket ban at its 156 schools, though it was later lifted following complaints from parents.

Brighton and Hove, in common with East and West Sussex, has no official policy. Headteachers are left to decide whether cameras are allowed in. But some schools are twitchy, banning cameras or spending valuable hours printing, distributing and collecting consent forms.

David Pratt, National Association of Head Teachers representative in Sussex, said most schools had not gone as far as banning cameras but all carried out risk assessments for special occasions.

He said: "It saddens me deeply we have to do such things."

Children can grasp the stranger danger message but what kind of signal are we sending out when we are fretting over taking snaps to show gran and grandpa?

It is known some predatory paedophiles take photos of children as a way of approaching them and "grooming" them for sex. But more revealing photos can be taken on any public beach or park. That's a risk we have to live with.

But child protection agencies, such as the NSPCC and Barnados, have criticised school camera bans because they believe milestones in children's lives should be recorded.

Professor Frank Furedi, author of Paranoid Parenting, argues we now regard almost every aspect of children's lives from the paedophile's point of view.

He said: "Within local education there is a phenomenally strong climate of watching your back and taking steps to ward off the threat of being blamed, or worse, sued, for not foreseeing a risk."

Instead of trying to stifle family pride in our offspring, perhaps we would all be better employed watching for signs of sexual abuse taking place behind the closed doors of homes just around the corner.

Lis Solkhon is away