To think that, actually, kids DO play out?

[BrittaPerry]

I'm sick and tired of Facebook posts, newspaper columns etc bemoaning that kids somehow never play out.

Every street I have ever lived in, and m job takes me walking and cycling round quite a few too, has had kids playing out. From about the age of 5 or 6, they are out on scooters, bikes, balls, or just doing kiddy things.

The parents just pop their heads out every now and again, and each child has a personal limit - it is quite funny to see them suddenly stop running at a certain bollard :-)

We are in a northern 'new town', but I used to live in amore traditional mill town till three years ago and it was the same. I grew up (I am only 27, we're not talking wartime) on a main road- we just went out via the back gate and ginnel.

Do I live in a different dimension to everyone else, or is it (as I suspect) all down to people just liking to moan?

(oh, and they play conkers etc too...)

My kids play out, I am outside with them while they are outside, talking with the neighbours, having a gossip ;)

Mine don't play out. If he goes to the park we go as a family. My kids are my responsibility and I want to keep them safe. We have a garden and lots of lovely places locally for days out. Why would he want to play in the street?

But I'd happily do what Claire said!

I think part of it is that it's mostly flats around here, with no gardens, so the kids either have to play out or stay indoors.

Kids do play out round here; there's a large alleyway that cuts through some trees in the middle of the estate; so they play down there or go to the park area when they're older.

Some of the smaller children (3 - 5 yr olds maybe?) go round the Square where i live on their scooters / bikes etc. - they usually get watched by a parent.
The only problem is that they have no traffic sense at that age; so if a parent doesn't supervise, then the small children forget that the road is part of the square.
One boy zipped out on a scooter from behind a parked car straight in front of my mum & she luckily drives slowly when she visits; so could stop in time. She's very aware of the local children (& zillions of cats!) that could be in the road.

Another boy aged approx 3 walked straight of the pavement in front of a taxi there (again lucky it was driving slowly) - he just stood staring at it; no parents in sight.

But many local lads & men drive on the estate roads extremely fast & i do worry that a child (or a cat) will get killed or seriously injured. There have been 3 crashes on the same small road in 2 years just near my Square; but the council haven't done anything to slow the cars down.

Wolfie - depending on the age of the children - playing out of the sight of adults gives them privacy, teaches them to resolve differences, helps them develop the skills to test themselves and see the limits of their abilities. It's fun!

Yes from what I remember from being a child, the main attraction of playing out was freedom and independence and not being supervised by adults! Don't think we ever got up to anything outrageous, certainly not as pre-teens anyway.

I did smile at this "Mine never played in the street, they would go to the local park or each other houses." because that's what I used to tell my parents (who didn't approve of kids 'wandering the streets')

Mine play out front, they are five and seven. If they are together and I can see/hear them I am quite happy. They have clear boundaries.

My children have always played out and everywhere we have lived that has been the case.

People just like to moan

OP, great thread!

Was thinking this the other day, having read that kids just stay in and play on computer games/watch tv/get ignored by their parents [erm]

My DD is 8.5. Recently her boundaries have extended so she can call on a friend who lives 2 streets away. As somebody up thread mentioned, I weighed up the risks/made sure I have her friend's mum's phone number etc and decided she could go.

She is out from 10am to 9pm most days (well, she's away on hols with GPs at moment) and comes home when she's hungry/when it's raining/when the other mum's have decided that they should play outside/inside our house

She knows the boundaries, Friend 1 (down our street), Friend 2 (house at the back of us, but different street), Friend 3 (2 streets away). She has to tell me where she is going and she knows not to go anywhere else.

They aren't 'feral' as some would suggest (in general, not just on MN) but living the life I led during the summer hols. Long, sunny (well..) days with your friends, building dens/eating sweets/making up dance routines/playing endless games from 'house' to 'super models' to 'Springwatch' (seriously!!)

I think that what the media suggest is that the children don't go out, don't get taken to parks, just stay and play computer games/watch TV.

Whereas on this thread, it is clear to me, that although there are some families that do not allow their children to play on their street for various reasons, those families will still take their children to the park and make sure they get a chance to play.

The media (surprise, surprise) are trying to portray those families in a bad light, which is just a bag of bollocks quite frankly.

There are of course children who do sit in and do nothing, with parents who have little interest in them (and children who are allowed to run free with no restrictions) but I like to think, these are few and far between.

Maybe I am just being naive in that thought though

My mum lives in Devon and the kids don't play out where she lives now, the houses are big with big gardens so there are only a handful of houses on each street, the closest family might live a 5 min walk away so the kids don't see each other playi g and just go over, also the gardens are more fun than the street as they have trampolines and pools. When I was younger we lived on abnormal road and we all played out it was ace! We didn't have swimming pools or trampolines but we roller skated and played football onthe street, I feel sorry for my sister (8) as she has so much more than we did materially but I think we had more fun!

I live in stockholm now they the apartments are built around a park, pool, BBQ areas, woods and a football/basketball pitch, there are loads of kids playing out and no roads I think it's the perfect compromise :)

worral,

Loads of kids live here but none are ever playing out.

A friend in a HA property has had a newsletter saying kids have to stick to their own lawns or the playground and are not allowed to run along the communal lawns.

And actually another HA friend was told the kids aren't allowed to play in their communal courtyard.

So I think this policy is common.

It's not the front - that's a main road! It's out the back of the properties, and they claim that is unsafe as we can't see them, so we don't know if they are behaving antisocially. Our gardens are about the size of a postage stamp, so it's fucking annoying.

Thankfully the 10yo and the 14yo are old enough to safely get to the park now, but I even got a snotty letter for letting my 8yo go round through the car park, along the fence about two steps, and into my NDN's garden so he could go and play in that garden with NDN's DS. Unfortunately, housing officer was in the car park. It's bloody ridiculous if you ask me, I spent my whole childhood playing out, and my DC's can't do that until they are old enough to safely get outside of the HA bit of our estate.

I live on a council estate... There are kids in nappies playing out! Sometimes children will knock for DD1 at half 8 in the evening.
I have just started letting PSB DD2 (5) play out as long as she's with DD1 (10). It is gradually getting easier to relax when she's out

Yes, mine do but we are in a fairly quiet village. The through road has some fast traffic and a lot of farm traffic but my children know they are not allowed to play on the main road so they don't!

My 9 year old can go on the back roads and smaller roads on her bike, to the park and in the woods/fields. My 5 year old can do the same if she is with her sister, otherwise she can play in the back lane outside the house.

I wasn't allowed to play out on the street
My mum didn't like it, not sure why.

On our street, there are always kids playing out, and yesterday when it rained, seven of them descended on our house.

We let ours play out on the pavements but never in the road. It's a quiet street but the price we pay for not much traffic is a lot of cyclists who for the most part go just as fast as a car would down this type of road.

Mine are 4 and 5yo and they know where they have to stop and where they are allowed. If they're on their own I pop my head out every so often; if they're out with older children (our neighbours' children are all aged between 8 and 11) not so much.

Sadly, last week, another neighbour's 13yo DS was stabbed 4 times in the chest and back by a gang of boys who tried to steal his phone. He'd gone on his own to the local park to play table tennis. He made it but only just; they missed his heart by millimetres. I'd like to leave this area by the time my boys are teens.

We're in a village and all the kids ranging from 5 to 12 all play out on the street, DD is 10 and she goes out at about 9am come home for luch and dinner then in at 8pm. We've hardly see her! She has a mobile and must let us know where if she goes to the park or shop or anywhere else.

DS is 5 and I can't trust him at all, he has no common sense whatsoever and would cross a road without looking. It's not through lack of trying to get some sense in to him, I've no idea where I went wrong

There never seems to be many children playing out on my street until about 7pm

It's a one way in and one way out street and children seem to play out from 4/5yo as there's a park/ green area here too.

I don't let my DS out all the time though as feel he needs time chilling and /or out of the sun.

I worry that I'm a bad mother because mine don't go out on the streets to play. I worry it makes them lazy about looking for traffic because there always an adult there.

They do get taken to parks and country walks and have the garden.

Children on our street don't play out - they do on other streets. The paths are crap for bikes - its on a slope and very uneven we usually walk the bikes to better pavements then ride. They play on drive and very short distance down street when we are gardening out front - which is rare.

The street is not far from schools - and twice a day term time it full of DC. Yet the drivers pull of drives without looking and if the nearly hit DC or pushchairs - which I've seen happen as well as heard of - they blame the pedestrians for not looking . Its a very unfriendly street. It also always covered in dog shit.

Hopefully we'll move and maybe that means in few years they can go out.