How many hours a week do your kids spend in playgrounds/other communal spaces?

[SnappyCroc]

If you have young children (let's say under 10), how many hours a week do they spend playing in playgrounds or other communal/shared spaces? Is it more or less than you did as a child?

Not a journalist, honest - I'm just curious following a thread a few weeks ago about playing out.

Just out of interest, why do you think you need people to meet up with for park/playground visits?

But yes they definitely have their own little gangs that they have constructed themselves. I just sit on a bench and loosely observe/chat with the other park/beach mums

@Ratfinkstinkypink

That's sad to hear. We have just had an accessible playground open though it's 30 minutes drive away. Apparently it's amazing and even have equipment for adults with ld's who want to "play". I hope you get something similar soon

I played out constantly as a kid. My kids go to park a couple times a week and maybe walk dog with me once a week.

I think this is as close to "unsupervised" as it gets for most kids nowadays.

And yes it is more parent-intensive than in the past when DC would be pushed out the door by themselves. I can see that having two full-time working parents is an obstacle to getting out during the week, unless parents use a childminder who does playground trips.

My DC go to a village school though we live on the edge of the next town.
After school most of the school children play on the village green (opposite the school) for 30mins-1hr. So in the week anything up to 5hrs or so.
At weekends it's less, we go out to lots of places, but they'll not always get time to free play.

My point is that if we go to the park it's me standing at the park with my DC so there is 0 difference in me doing that and me letting them out in the garden after school. It's not like we go to the park and they get to run around with other children. It's just us on a swing in a park vs on a swing at home.

Are there not other kids in the park for them to play with?

I have a 2yo and 6yo. I spend a lot of time outside of the house with my 2yo, about 35 hours a week. We go to play in lots of free and paid-for placed - parks and playgrounds, public gardens, garden squares, library, museums, galleries, farms, soft play, play groups, stay and plays. Loads of places for kids to play as we're in London. In the school holidays the 6yo does a lot of the same, though some weeks she does activity camps and free/paid for workshops at museums and galleries. In term time the eldest has school and after school activities during the week, so not much park time but most of the day at weekends.

They are always supervised by me/DH and usually interacting with us rather than us sitting and watching. I enjoy doing things that way and my dcs are happy. I would be bored taking them to the same park every day, or being stuck in the house while they are in the garden. We go all over London and visit different places.

I agree that for kids under around 9-10, it's not really going to be "free-range" in the sense that some degree of adult supervision will be required. I agree with you that I wouldn't feel comfortable with small children playing out unsupervised.

For me, that's one of the things which makes it so interesting. Because "playing out" requires parental supervision nowadays, it's not an easy or a default option any longer. You can't just push them out the door and get on with stuff. So it's in competition with other parental labour-intensive activities, like clubs, sports lessons and matches, days out and other organised activities. The "default", as it were, is now house/garden for most kids.

So it's a parental choice to take them to playgrounds and other play spaces nowadays and it's in competition with a whole lot of other options, many of which are more structured or organised. And a lot of which are easier and serve a childcare purpose, like summer camp or after-school club. So for parents who take their kids to playgrounds a lot, it must either be because there is a local culture of doing so, because they can't afford the other paid-for options or because they value the social and other opportunities that playgrounds offer above or at least on a par with organised/paid-for opportunities like football/dance club.

Hours and hours.

We are blessed to have a park literally on our doorstep (my front gate opens into it!) so in the summer they're out there with all the other children on the estate for hours.

Today they got home at 3.30, and I managed to drag them in for half an hour for tea and they were then back out there until 9. No doubt tomorrow they'll be out there first thing!

In the holidays they can be out there literally all day and all of the parents take it turns in taking out a plate of sandwiches and crisps at lunchtime, bottles of squash and ice lollies. There's always bike and scooters and various toys out there and they all just share, can be about 20 kids out there sometimes aged from 3 up to 16 just playing together. They play all old fashioned games like chase and duck duck goose and it's lovely to see the teens (boys and girls!) facilitaring the games for the younger ones

Sometimes we even brave the tuff spot with some paint and paper and put it in the front garden and have multiple kids in and out just painting and drawing.

We all tend to call our kids in the same time on an evening and they all, without being printed, help collect all the toys, make sure they've left no rubbish etc.

In the winter not quite as much obviously, as it's just grass other than round the play equipment so it can be very muddy, but if it's dry, they're out there!

It's absolutely wonderful!

Adding on...

I can literally sit in the sofa and keep an eye out on the children (my youngest is 5) because it's about three feet from my front door. It's a secure small park in a very quiet estate. The kids all look out for one another, and all the parents (we all get on really well) keep an eye on everyone's kids- we all quiet often sit in the front gardens in the summer having a brew and chatting. We've got a mutual understanding that if anyone's kids play up, any adult that sees it can sort it, even if that means giving the kid a telling off.

@thefamous5 . That sounds absolutely wonderful. There must be very few places like that nowadays.

There might be a few other families but they tend to keep themselves to themselves. My DC have never made friends or run around with children they don't know at parks. They do that at soft play though.

Ah ok - so there isn't a culture of kids playing communally and the parents don't encourage it?

Yeah I'm sure it would be much better for them to be kicked out and told not to come home until dark, then spend the day exploring crumbling ruined 'haunted' houses, playing in rivers and streams despite never had swimming lessons and in and out of neighbours houses left unsupervised with their creepy relatives like we did.

Tell him to go and make a meme about how we used to drink from hoses and elf and safety hadn't gorn mad.

😂. I will indeed!

I was a child of the 1980s and had an older sibling, so I was regularly playing out unsupervised from about 5YO. At that age it was mainly just playing out in out street with the neighbouring kids. We moved when I was 8YO and from then on I was pretty much allowed out wherever with my mates from school. I have memories of my dad driving around looking for me one night at 9pm! We never had lots of family days out though. Soft play etc wasn't a thing.

It was of a time where kids went to the local catchment school and there was usually still mum at home. So there was someone around. Now with two working parents and kids all going to different schools, it doesn't happen as organically.

Where I live is stuck in a bit of a time warp. Lots of mums still at home. Some kids play out on the park unsupervised from 5YO. I live in a cul-de-sac where there are other kids so my kids have mainly played out just in our street since covid. It's only really been this year that they've gone further afield by themselves. My kids are 11YO and 9YO. I've WFH since covid so have been around to keep an eye on them when they're out. The park is two minutes from our house and I can actually see it from the house too.

In some ways, I am sad my kids haven't had my childhood. But I'm other ways, I look back now and think a lot of my childhood was borderline neglectful. I think 9/10 is a good age for them to become more independent. It happened a bit later with my eldest because he has ASD. But my youngest is definitely ready for more freedom.

@Thefanofdoom . That's interesting. I agree that 5 is far too young to play out alone - around 9/10 is probably when our DC will be given a bit more freedom as well.

The need for adult supervision/both parents working more seems to have turned playing at the playground into an activity that is in competition for other uses of precious time. I wfh part-time hours and do school pick-up three days a week, which is when we go to the playground. I know a couple of parents who condense their hours to do pick-up once or twice a week, but that time tends to be used for other stuff - swimming lessons or other clubs. It's not 'wasted' on hanging around in playgrounds.

We do have the dads' Saturday morning 'playground club' around our way 😂. I'm not sure whether it's an organised thing but a lot of mums in our area seem to chuck dad and the kids out of the house on a Saturday morning for a couple of hours and they congregate at the playground.

It's a city so any culture would probably be in smaller neighbourhood groups that wouldn't coordinate in any way when it comes to the big city parks. Most people would drive to the park.