What did you do when you were a kid that is considered dangerous now?

[Karlwho]

Just out of interest.
When I was little (7-10), I'd play outside around the neighbourhood with no adults and not a mobile between my friends and I. We'd go home when we were hungry.

My kids in New Zealand go some of the things you mention. Go to school on their own by about 7-8, play in the neighbourhood both on the street and in the back gardens.
I consider cars/motor traffic a much bigger threat than people. But we're working on a better bike infrastructure and lower speeds so that should help.

As a child in Central Europe in the 1980s, I went to school on my own since first grade. I used public transport (and carried an instrument) to go to music lessons from 10 or 11. I got lifts very rarely although we did own a car but both parents were working, I was supposed to get myself to activities on my own (and I did)

Pretty much everything between my first & last breaths of the day

Kids are FAR too milky coddled these days, life was better in the 70’s and I’m glad I grew up then!

Molly mot milky thanks iPhone

My Dad used to give me mercury to play with.

I would hitch all over the place from age 12 even alone. I ran away with a friend when I was 14 we got 6 hours up the motorway. We also would camp down the woods from age 12. My mother would buy us vodka and leave us to it. I'm 34 and I'm nc with my family.

When I was in the Girl Guides, we went to Summer camp in a small furniture van.
Firstly, the hard lumpy stuff like tents and cooking equipment went in, then the softer stuff like rucksacks and bedding rolls.
Then the guides; seat belts? We didn't even have seats. Hung on and shrieked when the van took a corner......at one big camp, we looked on in scorn as another company arrived in an actual coach - bunch of sissies......
When younger, playing on the bombsites was like an adventure playground. Vandalism was impossible, as Hitler was an act that couldn't be followed. So we could build a small fire for "cooking", scramble up and down slopes. We were quite miffed when sites were cleared and boring old houses were built.
Our parents had to trust that we would stick together, as mobile phones did not exist, and most of my mates could not ring home anyway, as few houses had a landline. (We did, as the previous occupant of our house was a doctor, but this was considered rather posh, and there was a waiting list to get a phone), and be back at a reasonable time.
I was once despatched to visit an auntie in North London (Tottenham) by Mum putting me on the right bus, (in Brockley, South London) going home, phoning Auntie to say I was on my way, and Auntie was waiting at the bus stop for me.
But I wasn't allowed to play out in the street on a Sunday, as this was "common".......

In the 50s, My dad and his brother rode their bikes from North Yorkshire to the South Coast, and back, camping in fields as they went, to visit an aunt. The trip took two weeks, during which time they phoned home once.

My dad was 11 and his brother was 13

When I was about 14, my friends and I would miss the school bus on purpose, go off in different directions and see who could hitch to school first. My parents would have heart attacks if they knew.

There were 2 rope swings attached to trees where you would jump off at the top of a really steep incline, no idea how nobody got hurt there.

Child of the 80s, rode a bike without helmets (went over the handlebars and badly banged my head), was allowed to go into town on the bus with friends aged around 9 or 10, swimming and cinema alone at a similar age. I used to go cycling on the roads from that age too, from age 12 basically allowed to go anywhere.

Walked alone to school after first term of primary 1 aged 5, a 15 minute walk but with only one quiet road and loads of neighbourhood kids walking. A child did get badly injured once by going to the park on the way home, climbing up the slide and messing around and falling from the top.

My dad used to constantly tell me how much more freedom kids had in the 50s.

I think it's sad that kids don't get much freedom these days. We of course need to be safe but it's like it has gone too far now.

No one else used to climb up pilons then?

I guess we really were crazy.

Also used to swim in the canal and clamber about on various barges when they were moored.

Seatbelts? My mum was lucky if we sat down! Mostly we travelled with our heads sticking out of the sunroof.

Erm.. everything.

Riding ponies out without either an adult or an adult knowing where we were going or when we might be back.

Sometimes not wearing safety helmets whilst doing that.
(and those we had were shared around, didn't always fit, had been fallen off in loads).

Riding motorbikes and mopeds with little regard for safety, or the max. recommended number of persons on board (being the one sat on the mudflap was precarious!)... again out and about miles from home over the commons and no one knew where we were nor could they get hold of us til we reappeared.

Building rafts and playing in the beck (very fast running with deep pools and steep waterfalls), out of sight and hearing of an adults.

Lighting fires.

Half cooking things on said fires, then eating the half burnt half raw results.

Building epic cross country courses through the woods that far exceeded our ponies jumping ability, which they knew and solved by stopping and launching us over on our own...

Exploring caves, alone though we did tell someone where we were going and when we expected to be back (vital the day I managed to backfill the entrance hole behind me and my lamp died and i was trapped in the dark for an hour with my friend the other side being utterly and completely wet and useless!)..

Rock climbing.. ditto..

Wild swimming, mostly with adults but this was really only because the best places were not accessible for little legs and no car.

Left to sleep in the back of the car outside pubs/village halls/party hosts home whilst adults carried on drinking/partying.

Left home 'alone' with the neighbours listening in (ie, with a key ready to run round if they heard anything untoward, through an intercom we had set up, worked actually, mrs next door came running round one day when I woke up screaming because id opened my eyes to a spider on my face! Oh and mrs and mr next door were a judge and a grammar school head!)...

Allowed in pubs late if I kept my head down and stayed quiet, and therefore accidentally saw my first male stripper when I was 8 ...

Allowed to help wire up explosives, accidentally allowed to handle plastic explosives ('whats this funny dirty yellow plastacine daddy?'), allowed to push the 'bang button'... (its no where NEAR as easy to get explosives licences compared to the early 80s)

Climb trees, jump off stuff, drive the car round fields, drive the car up the track, drive the tractor up the track, sit in the front bucket of the digger whilst someone else drives it, steer the van whilst sitting on an adults knee (minor roads)...

Sat alone on a single seat ski lift in Bulgaria, just a chain and being told to SIT STILL stopping me dropping many feet to my certain demise..

There are more, ive probably blanked them out, it is a pretty epic miracle I am not dead and survived into adulthood really!

Definitely being out all day in the woods or countryside, no supervision, no phone, could have been anywhere within a five mile radius, not coming back til six or whatever time tea was.

My mum's rickety childseat on the back of her bike, no seatbelt or helmet, just hold on to the handles.

Sitting in the back of my dad's work van, tools used to regularly fall off the shelves.

Playing in the sea with no one watching.

One teacher was a known paedophile and we were just told to keep away from him if we were alone, nothing really done about it.

Madness now when you consider it but we mostly had fun and learnt a lot. I do think we were conversely safer as we learnt how to manage risk (maybe not with the paedo teacher.)

Playgrounds with rickety metal high climbing frames where if you fell off it you fell onto pure concrete.

Riding on the handlebars of my brother's Raleigh Grifter - and him braking and me going knees-first into gravel.

Making 'dens' in the local 'tip' (a clearing with bushes and trees).

Walking to school by myself in first year juniors (now Year 3) so 7 years old.

Knocking on doors for 'penny for the guy'. Knocking on doors for carol singing.

Doing jumble sales outside my house.

Being pushed down the street in home-made go karts my dad made - no brakes.

Oh, god... Pretty much everything? Racing shopping trolleys around the park, being given that disgusting whisky concoction to help with a sore throat (hot toddy?) Playing out with no supervision, playing next to the train tracks, cars with no seatbelts, having to smoke 20 cigarettes in a row as punishment for being caught smoking, hitching lifts from strangers at the side of the road, putting stones in the middle of snow balls for a laugh, having a 21yr old boyfriend when I was 15 and everyone thinking it was fine...

And I would say I was a very tame child for the times. I had friends who did much worse.

Oh and being able to go to the pub to drink and smoke when I was 13. I was an early bloomer and everyone was just happy that we weren't on the streets. No such thing as think 21 or think 25.

When my parents went to neighbourhood dinner parties, they’d tuck us up with blankets, pillows & teddies in the car, parked outside the hosts house. Usually between about 6.30pm- midnight. If we were lucky, someone would come out and offer a toilet trip or a snack. If something went wrong, the eldest kid (me) would go up and ring the doorbell. And expect an earful for not dealing with it myself! This was a naice neighbourhood, and educated well-off people. I’ve often wondered what my parents would have considered ‘a step too far’ and would have forced one to stay home. If they couldn’t find a park within 100 metres? If one of us was really sick? I can only hope.

I was regularly babysitting for neighbours (for money) from the age of 12, including quite little kids. They’d hear about me, call my parents, I’d go over on foot to (strangers) houses and they’d be out the door 10 seconds later. I’d have to stick my head upstairs to even find out how many kids they had for me to mind. Crazy. I’d often walk home alone late, too. If I was ‘lucky’, the Dad would drive me. Shudder.

Oh, and lighting fires then playing with them. Making sparks fly, daring each other to hold a burning stick, throwing cap gun caps in to make it pop.

My brother and I, aged perhaps 5 and 7, standing on the back seat of our parents' car with our heads and torsos sticking out of the sunroof as my parents drove along (only on quiet backroads or off-roading - main roads would have been a step too far even then!).

So many kids in the car on the school pick up that a couple of us would be in the boot of my aunts' estate car... we ALL had pocket knives at age 7/8... took myself and little sister to school a mile away when I was 10, she was 5. Walked to school alone age 7.
left the house at first light on a weekend morning, packed food, went off all day with friends till dark.
swam unattended by adults in open water from aged 8 ish.
our favourite games involved ringing doorbells and running away, chucking stones at windows and running away, stealing milk off doorsteps, using magnifying glasses to start little camp fires.
we were heathens.

oh and the best one? lived on an estate where houses were all terraced and on top of each other. No one had any money. the grownups used to take it in turns to have a party Saturday nights. All the kids were put to bed and left in their own house while the adults partied till 3 or 4. One dad would take the keys to the houses and check on everyone's kids - every couple of ours... not dodgy at all!

Played on the roundabout in the park. Loved to get it going as fast as I could. Just generally spent most of my time playing unsupervised on the hill behind our house.

After my mum and dad divorced me and dad spent most weekends with his sister, so many memories of all of us crammed in the car, no seatbelts and all on each others laps/in the foot wells 😂 (she had loads of kids)

Ate peanuts

Playing in derelict buildings and pushing old walls over

I used to ride my bike across the ice on a frozen lake. One side to the other. It makes me shudder to think what might have happened. I was on my own and there weren’t many people around. Aged 11.