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.

midnight my parents would have said exactly the same and that’s the worry, sometimes you cannot know.

I’m just going to say though, I wasn’t the one who brought class or money into it.

Fine babybythesea. However, research has substantiated educators' concerns that children who are unsupervised during the after-school hours can suffer an array of negative developmental outcomes, especially when those children come from high-risk circumstances.

I don’t think I said it was a cure all for poverty, but a starting point in addressing disadvantage. I probably have a better informed and wider understanding of disadvantage than you, in truth. So, huff away.

Cannot know what?

I work with children too wanda

midnight I meant that you can’t always know if the worst they experienced was a grazed knee. I had some horrible experiences which I didn’t ever tell my parents about, which is why I’ve always been a bit cynical when people insist they live in a very safe area, the children never disagree and it’s just lovely for all concerned.

the poverty was the problem absolutely. But whether you’re in Bradford or Buckingham, Windsor or Wigan, packs of unsupervised children on the street leads to problems.

@LemonRoses surely though that research is specific to children from high risk, high poverty homes hanging on streets - not the majority of dc from stable homes playing tig in their leafy cul de sac so it's irrelevant to this discussion which doesn't target a specific group (although the dc in the OP are more likely to come from the latter sub set) . Fwiw I work in a school in one of the most deprived areas of the country and the dc are the ones that are spending the majority of the time staring at screens indoors. Most of them have returned after lockdown ghostly pale and clearly have rarely been outside at all.

What is unsupervised though?
There's a world of difference between letting them roam the streets unchecked and letting them play on a green and sticking your head out to check them regularly.

People moan about kids on play stations indoors, they moan about them being outdoors. They can't win.

@LemonRoses you must live in some weird gated community out in the sticks past the back of beyond if you have never seen children playing out in Britain

So it’s being horrendously snobby to say you don’t want your child playing out in the street but not horrendously snobby to say children from deprived backgrounds spend all their time on screens?

@Aliceandthemarchhare I'm not sure what you are suggesting could happen between a group of mainly under 11 year olds that would traumatise them so badly yet not be noticed by any of the adults?

I haven’t seen it for a while ginty

And fwiw last time I did it was to help a child. That must have been 2017, I think.

Maybe lockdown has exacerbated it. I’ve moved house recently and there are definitely no children playing out on the street here.

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

oh my god, god FORBID they be SOCIALISING?!! The HORROR!! 😱😱😱

Sorry if that sounded condescending. It's a simple truth. I've not stopped my kids playing out. In fact I've suggested to them in the past that they could. But they chose other activities instead.

@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

oh my god, god FORBID they be SOCIALISING?!! The HORROR!! 😱😱😱

They socialise plenty, with their school friends, and with friends from their extra curricular activities. Just not hanging around the street with the neighbours.

Some of the things I experienced were really nasty name calling and bullying, and if you are a teacher then you surely know bullies can and do perform right in front of an adults nose and it not be seen or noticed, never mind out on a street.

When I was very little I remember a gang of children hurting our dog, who admittedly should not have been out but he was a bit of an escape artist and was a hound so when he smelled something he was off. At the time I was very upset. Now I see how it happened.

Obviously this is area dependent but things like running into a road after a football, climbing trees and so on (I do encourage tree climbing but safely!)

And to be honest it is anti social. I used to live somewhere teenagers used to congregate and I didn’t say anything as they meant no harm but they were loud and played music on their phones. It did impact on my life really.

midnightstar66, yes most research is around young people who have already exhibited unwanted behaviours. I’m sure that most children don’t enter delinquency because they played Grandmas footsteps with their neighbours children.
However those children where ‘playing out’ is synonymous with an absence of parental oversight, where peer group is allowed to become more important than parental influences are more likely to end up with worse outcomes because the sense of identity shifts fairly smoothly from family to friends in early teens.

There is a balance to be had. Freedom to play unsupervised and without adult oversight of what they are up to does present increased risks just as being so fearful of harm, or so incapable of saying no, that they are left in front of a screen all day. I rather think it’s about knowing who they are with and what they are up to so that there are no complaints from neighbours coupled with ensuring freedom to play is balanced with a dominance of family based engagement and supervised social activities.

@AliceandthemarchhareI haven’t seen it for a while ginty

That is really sad. I get to see it every single day. I just need to look out the window. Kids playing on bikes and scooters, games of football, chase, hide and seek.

It increased during lockdowns especially as soon as the weather improved - nothing else to do.

The sound of children playing outside is one of life's joys.

@LemonRoses

Fine babybythesea. However, research has substantiated educators' concerns that children who are unsupervised during the after-school hours can suffer an array of negative developmental outcomes, especially when those children come from high-risk circumstances.

I don’t think I said it was a cure all for poverty, but a starting point in addressing disadvantage. I probably have a better informed and wider understanding of disadvantage than you, in truth. So, huff away.

Playing outside doesn't mean unsupervised though. Generally there are a few sets of parents routinely checking on their kids, albeit not standing sentry.

Kids need space to develop. They need to learn how to manage without adults dictating the rules of play. It leads to resilience. Your child may have a conflict with another child out of your eye sight, and that's ok. They need to learn how to resolve things for themselves

Lemonroses -
I think the problem is that you are confusing two different issues - children being left totally unsupervised after school (whether that is at home or elsewhere), and children playing on the street near their homes with a parent on hand if needed.

I am not sure what research you are reading, but there is a huge amount of research which states that children suffer from lack of opportunities for free play (including street play) - see here for some of it:

playingout.net/why/research/

[quote GintyMcGinty]@LemonRoses you must live in some weird gated community out in the sticks past the back of beyond if you have never seen children playing out in Britain[/quote]
No, a variety of towns, cities and rurally. I’ve seen it in some places, of course but usually in the course of my work, rather than amongst neighbours and friends.

I think I’d ask them to stop with the whistle. That would drive me crazy.

They socialise plenty, with their school friends, and with friends from their extra curricular activities.

Where I live schools have only just gone back 2 weeks ago and before that they were stuck in home school for 4 months so no opportunity to socialise with school friends.

Most extra curricular activities have been off since the pandemic began. Cubs and football have had little spurts of opening when not in complete lockdown. So no opportunities to socialise with friends from these activities.

So in the last 13 months the opportunities for child socialising have pretty much been limited to going out to play.

@LemonRoses the majority of British children are not living in high risk environments of course and so the risks of unsupervised play are minimal in comparison to the benefits

They probably shouldn’t have strictly speaking been doing that. Not that I’d say anything, the lockdowns were miserable enough.

I don’t think I’m confusing the issue at all. Supervised by a parent or other adult at a distance is good. Playing outside is good.

Left so unsupervised you become a nuisance is not good. That isn’t all about high rise blocks. Many children are left to roam. That’s really not good.

Sorry @LemonRoses you did say I’ve only ever seen them hanging around the stairwells and concrete playgrounds on inner city housing estates.

I've seen kids play in inner city housing estates too. I've also seen them play in the suburbs and in rural villages. Working class and middle class alike. Private school and State school.

Play is universal.