Kids playing outside

[Jiggy16]

Trying not to be a grouch, what time do people feel is acceptable for kids (10/15 maybe around the age 10ish?) playing outside in the evening, shouting and loud singing, sometimes with whistles.

[quote GintyMcGinty]**@Nonmaquillee I think it's lovely to have children playing in the street

Completely agree. I think that the pandemic has turned the clock back a bit on it too as kids don't have after school activities anymore there has been a resurgence of going out to play.

I live in Scotland so our under 12s haven't had any restrictions on social distancing and it has been such a relief throughout lockdown to get my youngest (8) out to play every day when the weather has been dry.

My older one (12) couldn't go out until the latest lifting of restrictions and encouraging him to go out and hang out with his pals in the last few weeks after school has made such a difference to him and his wellbeing.

I really find these folk who are opposed to a normal childhood to be rather odd.[/quote]
How life should be

Why wouldn't you go out and have a word with the whistle boy in particular? If an adult goes out and politely asks him not to as you have young kids sleeping I'm sure that's all it would take. And / or give them a time frame to move on from your wall. As a parent of one of the children involved I wouldn't mind you asking that of them provided you're polite about it!

@LemonRoses

babybythesea Thats very nice. Similarly, my children who have never been allowed to play out still managed to grow lifelong friendships, raised money for charities but they never played football. Maybe that’s a shocking absence from their life.

Peers involved in anti-social behaviour from aged seven upwards is a strong indication of risk of youth violence. Unsupervised large groups of children increases risk of peer group dominance over parental influence and choice of friends.

I’m not saying they didn’t. But you have made some sweeping generalisations, including comments about gang culture. I’m trying to point out that actually, it isn’t necessarily like that. We did all of that without any adult supervision. We looked out for each other. No bullying, no feral running wild. Our parents knew where we were but we were trusted. Maybe it’s because we didn’t have a pool at someone’s house to hang out at - recognise your privilege with comments like that.

@LemonRoses

Clearly a few from the coven over here with their blinkered idea that anyone who disagrees or leads a life different to theirs must be a troll. That limited perspective is what is truly sad.

Most children do not play in the street. Britain’s 11–15-year-olds spend about half their waking lives in front of a screen: 7.5 hours a day, an increase of 40% in a decade. That combined with school rather suggests that most children are not roaming the streets or estates but that is reserved for a subset. Neither is a subset I would not want my children to belong to (online almost continuously or street roaming). This false idea of teenagers happily chatting and swopping nail varnish in the local park is either blinkered vision or parental abdication of responsibility.

Where are these vast numbers of children with their whistles, their marbles and French skipping elastics playing sweetly whilst mother polishes the door knocker?
I’ve only ever seen them hanging around the stairwells and concrete playgrounds on inner city housing estates. Rarely was their feral play something to aspire too.

Risk taking, play, friendship are all important for children, but so too is parental control of those things to avoid excessive reliance on peers for decision making.

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@Aliceandthemarchhare

My issue with large groups of unsupervised children is that they aren’t only at risk from traffic and from people with sinister intentions but also from one another.

There was an interesting documentary once about poverty in Britain. It’s old now (came out in the 2000s, I think) but the children roaming the streets was a theme and it was a problem.

🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

jam maybe you’d like to tell me exactly what you object to rather than quoting my post then putting silly emojis on the end.

@Aliceandthemarchhare

Oh wanda really, you think bullying is imaginary? Of course it isn’t.

Packs of unsupervised children do pretty quickly turn into lord of the flies without any sort of adult guidance or supervision, even supervision from a distance. That isn’t some sort of made up hysteria.

The irony of the number of posters here referencing Lord of the flies to roast children whilst ignoring their corrupt government has made my jaw hit the floor.

Erm what!?

There was an interesting documentary once about poverty in Britain. It’s old now (came out in the 2000s, I think) but the children roaming the streets was a theme and it was a problem

Are you suggesting only poor children play outside? Our street always has dc out playing. Around 60% of them attend private schools, the rest have 2 highly paid professional parents. Mine are the only urchins who have a single, low wage parent. I suppose they might lead the others astray (fwiw they are the best behaved and most corrected if they do make too much noise etc as i am actually consciously the judgment)

Of course I’m not.

The documentary was about poverty so obviously it featured poor children.

But the risks are the same.

Lemonroses
Absolutely not. Their parents can take them to the park, to the woods, to the beach. They can enrol them in free or very cheap outdoor activities and encourage pro social behaviour. They can start addressing the class division of achievement and success.

Having just read this comment, I am totally astounded by your complete lack of understanding of how life is for many, many people. You clearly live in a world of immense privilege, which is fantastic for you and your children, but has made you completely blinkered about just what goes on in the lives of lots of people. The idea that sending children to a free club after school will ‘start addressing the class division’ is utterly contemptible and laughable. I won’t engage with you further. You won’t change your mind and continue to look down your nose at those who are far less fortunate.

Risks? From playing hide and seek, building dens and having scooter races? K then!

So those of us on this thread who let our feral kids play out are a 'sub set' who should keep our poor little ragged urchins away from the naice children from the big houses.

I suspect it was the poverty that was the problem not the kids playing outside

In a good community the kids outside are not totally unsupervised, adults will pass by and parents will talk to their children to identify potential problems ,

children learn for themselves , learn to entertain themselves and get along with others in an unstructured environment

Loads of kids here play outside , they are well mannered and healthy and part of the community not some feral under-race

@Aliceandthemarchhare

Oh wanda really, you think bullying is imaginary? Of course it isn’t.

Packs of unsupervised children do pretty quickly turn into lord of the flies without any sort of adult guidance or supervision, even supervision from a distance. That isn’t some sort of made up hysteria.

Or, alternatively, they turn into a group of perfectly nice kids who look out for each other, sort out squabbles fairly by themselves without needing adult intervention, and even decide to do things like raise money for charity together.

Which is, as I said in a previous comment, my neighbours and I did. There were 10 of us with about five years age difference between the oldest and youngest. The oldest looked out for the youngest kids, and made sure the games we played were accessible for them. I even remember being called out of class when the youngest child in the group started school. He was missing mum, and was really upset, but me and a couple of others from the group went down, sat with him, and cheered him up.
And we weren’t working class - solidly middle class with professional parents. We definitely did not turn into Lord of the Flies.

I think there is a huge amount of class prejudice, and judgement without evidence, on this thread.

We started off talking about a few kids playing outside, and what time was reasonable for them to stop playing outside OP’s window so she can get her kids to bed (consensus seems to be 8pm), although OP has wisely gone a bit quiet.

Then we suddenly had a load of posts referring to ‘playing on the streets is bad / gang culture / illicit / inconsiderate / smoking / drinking / loitering / anti-social behaviour / violence / rough / high risk / mortified / working class / feral / lord of the flies’ and so on.

I work with children and find the views on here quite horrible and judgemental.

If we want children to have all the benefits of outdoor, spontaneous play (and I do, they are numerous) we as parents within a community need to take action to make it safe to do so. In my mind that means going outside if children are being a nuisance and telling them that to stop it. Dont make a joke out of it, don't expect to be told to fuck off by a 10 year old, just open your door and say "kids, stop blowing that whistle outside my window, the baby is sleeping".

We need to create communities where children can safely play outside and know that adults are aware of what they are doing. Not communities where we chat online for days about what kids are doing outside.

It's an interesting question. We live in a very quiet cul de sac and some of the kids in the street do "play out" though a lot of the time this just involves hanging around eating sweets. My kids have never been interested to join them, even though these kids are a similar age to them. I'm not sure why, perhaps because my kids are usually busy actually doing something, reading, playing a game, drawing etc and wouldn't be interested in just hanging around the street.

It used to annoy me when mine were younger, and in summer I was trying to get them to bed at a sensible time eg 8pm meanwhile kids the same age were shrieking out in the street right under their window. I do think that at a time when young children are likely to be in bed, older children (or younger ones who don't get put to bed early) who are still up should be being told by parents to keep the noise down. It's possible to play without shouting and screaming, and definitely the whistle mentioned by op is unacceptable.

my direct next door neighbours kids play out in their garden until gone midnight in our warmer months, they're from a different culture though so it's the norm for kids to stay out that late even on a school night there. the kids themselves though, whilst they do bang a football against the fence occasionally at 11pm or whatever, are good, polite, kind children, and in the scheme of things it's fine. they've been kind to us so many times over the years, their children playing out late, whilst sometimes a bit boisterous, is a small "price" to pay for nice people living next door.

I'm not sure why, perhaps because my kids are usually busy actually doing something, reading, playing a game, drawing etc and wouldn't be interested in just hanging around the street

😂😂

There are 17 children who regularly play out in our cul de sac currently aged between 3 and 15 but mostly mid to later primary age. As I said more than half attend private schools, all have engaged parents who take them for walks and on trips and send them to clubs. In the 7 years we've lived here this has always been the case and we've never had a single 'lord of the flies' issue, or a single incident worse than a disagreement about what game to play - usually among siblings - a grazed knee or insect sting. We've had 2 complaints from the same neighbour - one noise based. (my dc weren't there at the time but I was told) The dc responsible never again used that particular piece of equipment that was making the noise in that part of the street. The second was dc standing on a bush in a communal area. They got down when told and have never done it again. My younger dd 7 and her friend tend to break off from the larger group to do outdoor arts and crafts or read together - you're right, totally feral they are! I imagine my situation is similar to most cul de sacs up and down the country.

Lord of the flies was fiction.
The reality very different.
www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months

Children playing out is lovely. There's been far too much structured activities, they need to use their imagination.

@YouJustDoYou

I'm not sure why, perhaps because my kids are usually busy actually doing something, reading, playing a game, drawing etc and wouldn't be interested in just hanging around the street

😂😂

Made me laugh too.

It might be a generalisation but I think it is a class thing to a degree. Not necessarily money as the kids on our street aren't poor. But one of the reasons my kids aren't on the street is they attend a lot of extra curricular activities so don't have loads of "hanging around" time. Maybe that is quite middle class.

But one of the reasons my kids aren't on the street is they attend a lot of extra curricular activities so don't have loads of "hanging around" time. Maybe that is quite middle class.

Here's a bizarre concept - it's possible to do BOTH