I was born and bred in South London and have luckily never been mugged or had any really bad experiences. I have hopefully brought my kids up to be street wise and they're certainly not nervy kids. I do however, like to tell them where to keep an extra eye out for any trouble. The bit about them having phones is a difficult one. I struggled with that for a long time and they certainly didn't have them until secondary school. It's swings and roundabouts really, do you want them to be contactable when they go to the park or are their phones too much of a mugging risk. I think I prefer them to have their phones, not expensive ones, and teach them to give them straight up if they feel threatened.