to be annoyed that a 11-year old that is over to play is not allowed outside without an adult?

[goldenteapot]

AIBU?! My children usually play out on the street after school (rural area, no cars) but this child's mother has says she is never allowed out on her own because she is too young.

AIBU? I'm working so I can't take them outside all afternoon! I've told them they will have to watch tv.

My dcs played out from around 5, but we lived in a small cul de sac and there were lots of children. They migrated from road to gardens to houses depending on the weather and what they were playing.
However my DH at 5 years old was walking along country roads with no pavements as was most children living in the country. No parents taking them, just kids walking to primary school.
It may have been perceived as being safe but I think there's just more paranoia nowadays, fuelled partially by the internet.

Why are you baffled Me624? Don't you understand that not everyone lives in a cul de sac with lots of other children?

Oh yes class divide appearing indeed I think. All this talk of 'rough kids' playing out and 'nice middle class' kids in their gardens. Huge judgements going on

Funnily enough when I was playing outside as a kid it never crossed my mind to wonder what class they were, just if they knew good games or new skipping rhymes or whatever.

Definitely wasn't only the nasty rough kids who played out when I was a kid either (70s, cul de sac) - pretty much the entire road would be outside if it was decent weather. Sounds very like Me624's childhood.

(er, unless I was much rougher than I thought I was)

We currently live on a road with a small green half way down, it's always full of kids in the summer.

What, it's a class thing if you live in a tower, a flat not on the ground, around known crims, no garden, to not want to send your kid out to play in the street? For real?

It was a class thing when i was growing up.

'Funnily enough when I was playing outside as a kid it never crossed my mind to wonder what class they were, just if they knew good games or new skipping rhymes or whatever.'

Yeah, most kids wouldn't. That's why, in some areas, they are targets for all kinds. And some people live in places where those all kinds are known to be dangerous.

But what shit parents, eh, for being interested in whom their children might encounter in certain areas out of their sight?

So over-protective and stiffling.

It isn't. It's a safeguarding thing for many. Now. In 2015.

My DH grew up in the 80s, doing what he liked. Times have changed. He doesn't live there anymore.

Imagine that.

We have no fucking idea what this parent's background is, who they are, how long they've live there, anything.

Just 'OMG, she is bonkers' responses.

Nice.

I didn't say it still was. I said that I wasn't suggesting it was now.

Just for my parents personally the class thing was probably a part of it. I'm not sure what my opinion on it right now actually is

Poor kid, how is she ever going to grow up! I was getting two buses to school and shopping on a Saturday with my friends at her age, she can't be wrapped in cotton wool all her life!

"I'm feeling a bit sad for those of you who didn't play outside with your friends as children. It sounds really unhealthy!"

I feel for my kids too that they don't have the fun, adventures and freedoms that we had. Then I remember the battles with neighbouring streets, the playing on railway tracks, swimming in quarries and rivers, the bullying, then playing Chicken with the much fewer cars, climbing trees, finding porn mags in the woods, playing sometimes dangerous or cruel pranks, lighting fires, committing acts of arson and vandalism, being chased by weirdos etc, etc, etc. But, God - it was fun.

I let my 6 yo out to play on the street if he wants. he has to stay within a certain range then I can see him from the window as I have my 1yo to look after too. where I am the area is not the best but we are just on the edge and the neighbours all look out for him. he doesn't play with the other children as none of them are his age so he is not interested, or they are girls and he doesn't want to play "girl games" (they wanted him to play mummys and daddys and he didn't want to push the pram, he wanted to ride his scooter!) so he twnds to zoom up and down alone but happy. if he does get bored he comes and draws in the garden with the chalks or plays kirby if he can be bothered explaining the rules over and over as no one else seems to know that game

Why is it bonkers? You have no idea why her mum has these rules in place, so YABU for criticising them.

I was that child. I grew up firmly under the thumb of an over anxious and somewhat obsessive mother. It was awful and I hope the girl in the OP doesn't have the same type of childhood!

I remember she grudgingly let us out onto the road in front of our house as I reasonanly pointed out I couldn't learn to ride a bike even with the special dispensation to be allowed on the drive - before that it was back garden if I was lucky! Them being promised that once I passed my cycling proficiency (at 10/11 yrs old) at school, I could go to the top of our road - a paltry 3 houses on the road, with a pavement, which led onto another deserted residential road in a peaceful and affluent rural village.

Then she took it back and I was banished to the front drive again. I remember the suffocating horror of that chink of freedom being taken away with no reason except a woman's selfish paranoia. The unfairness, the feeling of having been tricked, the sinking realisation that she'd never ever let me be normal. Ugh. The neighbours kids would come and laugh at us, stuck in our cage drive (which was long enough to park a car, no longer, so why the fuck she gave us bikes is beyond me).

They'd hover a meter or two out of bounds, and taunt / tempt us. And my mother would watch silently swelled up with righteous anger just slightly, terrifyingly out of control as she screamed blue murder at me if I dared step that metre into freedom.

And then the other battle, The Copse! Our house was opposite a strip of land speckled with trees, which went behind a row of houses and then backed into a field. This was naturally a children's hang out / play area. Except for us. When I was in secondary school she finally agreed to let me set foot onto the copse... But only 4 meters in! She actually measured it and tolde what tree I was allowed up to. Which was one before the tree where the very small group of children hung out. So I was allowed to WATCH the others play and gossip and run around, and oh the horror when I went that extra few centimetres, and climbed an 'out of bounds' tree. Oh the freedom swinging in the wind sitting high up in the branches. Away from her, away from my life, away from my cage.

What an utter bitch she was. Sorry but she really was, one reason she kept us close was so she could rule her dominion and keep absolute power over us. She assured me that if understand when I grew up etc etc etc, and I do indeed understand. I understand what a nasty, neurotic despot my mother was, and how she deliberately put fake boundaries in place so we were kept apart from being able to make friends, have any relationships beyond the stifling horror of that house.

I have no ide how I'll give DS freedom, as he's only just turned 5, and we live in an inner city area - but I'm going to have to work it out so Im not like my awful mother!

Yes indeed, I am bitter, and I have indulged myself in a rant! :)

YABU. Aside from the fact it is none of your business, it is simply not true that children are safer in rural areas. Indeed, the vast majority of child abductions seem to be from rural areas. Look at some recent cases: April Jones, Sarah Payne, Holly and Jessica, Minnie Dowler... all from rural areas. You could argue that kids are probably safer playing out on some rough sink estate.

It sounds really annoying. I suppose all you can do is limit how often that child comes to play.

I don't let my kids play out either. I live on a rough council estate in South London. In fact the whole Borough is a nightmare where kids get approached by gangs of older teens who walk around with knives and will rob them for phones/money etc. stabbings are an almost weekly occurance in our local paper.

My goodness, expat, what a huge and sweeping judgement to make and the not so subtle implications my parents were shite. No, they weren't. They actually taught me how to be safe and I had boundRies to where I could go. One child playing in the street in front of their house ina group of other children is not automatically a target for anything. The child who is never away from its parents is much more vulnerable when theybare suddenly alone and have no background to rely on

You would be even more horrified to know that I travelled independently to school from the age of seven, involving two buses. Perfectly safely and with no incidents, involving going into a capital city

When I was a kid, i went out of the house to play in the morning and i knew I had to be home at a certain time. Other than that, the town was the limit! We had various favourite places to play, including down on the beach and we wandered at will. The only forbidden place was the large woods, which were too easy to get lost in. I walked to and from school all my life, crossing busy roads without the benefit of lollipop people.

I let my kids go out to play and they wandered far and wide, too and also walked to school alone from the age of 6 or 7. They knew not to go to the busy main road a few hundred yards away, but it wasn't exactly an appealing place to play anyway and to not go to the river. There were plenty of other places to have adventures. DD1 was confident enough to leave home at 17 and move 500 miles away.

And since most abuse takes place in the home, i would be far happier for my kids to be playing outside in a bunch of other kids, learning social interaction, than in someone's home where who knows what might happen?

And by the way, my parents weren't shite either! I resent you implying that.

recent cases: April Jones, Sarah Payne, Holly and Jessica, Minnie Dowler
Tragic as those cases are, only one is 'recent' and one took place in a town (and two in a small town). If anything, they remind just how unusual child abductions are...

Everything in life involves risk. If you keep your child indoors or under your eye, he or she will almost certainly get less exercise, and will definitely have fewer chances to experiment out in the wide world. The risk there is that they come to regard execs as something either a bit odd or as something which has to be organised, and that they will find it tough to cope with tricky situations when they finally break free of the apron-strings. If you let your child out, he or she learns independence. Yes, there are risks, but you have to trust your child.

When my youngest was finishing at primary school, I used to sometimes watch children in her years being walked up to the playground gate by their parents - children who were months away from going to secondary school. I say sometimes, because DD usually cycled the mile or so on her own by that stage... and the next term she started going by train to school in a nearby town. She loved the freedom.

Almost all the kids play out here - it's not a British thing expat as nobody here is British except me (and my kids are half). Other parents are always saying it's a shame a few kids are never/ rarely out. Few play actually on the street (there are 2 who do and adults - including me - are always telling them to stay on the pavement. Most kids are on the little playground or football field or bit of field behind it.

It does depend where you live obviously - but if you live somewhere suitable it's a shame not to play out.

If it's dry and sunny and I have other kids over I'd be embarrassed to hand them back having been inside the whole time - generally those who live far enough away to need to be dropped off and picked up come equipped with outdoor clothes, and their parents ask me to kick them out for an hour or two, if we are inside when they arrive.

There are rules and boundaries and several parents usually wandering about/ watching from windows or font gardens or in the playground with younger siblings.

I've had friends come and stay with their kids and often kuds who aren't allowed to play out don't know howto - the plaplayground is only small and they have a swing on the swing, a go down the slide, then they're bored and wander back in asking what they should do next kids who are used to playing out stay out in the same space for hours on end playing imaginary games, chatting while sitting up a tree, making mud pies or building a civilization in the sandpit, riding bikes, playing an open ended game of football with players comingaand going but the game itself continuing for 2 hours or more etc. Etc. Obviously the same can happen in a large garden if you let the neighbours kids in - it's different being isolated in a garden without other kids dropping by, but still better than locked indoors obviously.

Some locations ate unsuitable for playing out obviously, but it is a shame not to allow it when you do live somewhere suitable, and a bigger shame when kids are so lacking in initiative that at 11 they can't amuse themselves and need an adult to organise them or a screen...

I've already said that mine has never played on the street (city, main road, traffic, live in a flat, no other kids nearby) but when he goes to stay with friends who live in a different situation (suburbia, quiet roads), then me and his mum negotiate how far he is allowed to travel without adult supervision, when he's with my friend's son. It's further than here, and I do let him go to the shops, park, etc, just with other kids, but not as far as her children are allowed to go. I am certain that it's annoying for them, but they respect my wishes.

I would just tell the mother that you are happy to have her child but they will be playing out and so don't send her if she doesn't like it.