Aibu to find lack of freedom in modern childhood so depressing

[Writerandreader]

I feel I have to micromanage life for my nearly 8 Yr old - children have no way to see friends unless adults manage every step of it. I find it frustrating because I make plans and then adults cancel or it doesn't suit them. All my kid wants is friends to play with I wish so much children played outside in groups like they used to. So often I wish I could open the door and he could step out to find a friend. It makes me ratty having to organise it and worry about him having friends to play with and it makes something so natural a total palaver.. I also think it's bad for kids over the age of about 8 to have to rely on adults for everything.

Wow I could have written every single word of this. I loooong to live in a place or in a time, when kids just went outside to play. When I was a kid wins ago you just went outside. There was nearly always someone. Even if you had to wait a while because they’d gone in for their tea or something.
Sigh.

But I know how you feel. What to do??

sayFriday do you mind me asking what kind of place do you live in? Is it an estate or a cul-de-sac where you can all see your children? Or pedestrianised?
I’d like to move there.

eons ago, that should have said.

Also SayFriday how old are they, might I ask?

Mine play outside with their friends all day at the weekend (11 and 8)

And yet if a mother takes her dc to the park, let's them run round the playground making friends and sits on her phone she is vilified.

I invite people over and there's one person who'll meet up but she's very often busy. Everyone else has either never got back to me or busy. My child is always saying can so and so come over.

I hate it too. Modern parenting it seems. Yuk!

My kids did that at 8. There's lots of fields where kids can play football or other ball games plus a stunt park 5 minutes walk away to practice scooter tricks too.

My DD(9) plays out with her friends. Her and her friends are always in and out of each other’s houses. I hardly see her some weekends.
It’s a shame not all areas allow children the same freedom. We could never have let her out to play at our old house so i know how hard it is when you have to make all the effort for their play.

I take your point children's lives are managed a lot more than they used to be.

We're lucky to live on a quiet street where all the children play with each other. You can also take your children to the park where they can play with other children. In a few years your 8 year old won't need you to arrange play dates. My 12 year old has organised himself for the last couple of years.

Ours "play out" - the kids round here all do it. from about age 6 - there's someone out front kicking a ball, all the kids go join in, there is usually a "responsible" adult/older teen lingering...

someone has a trampoline - "does DD want to come bounce - mum says she's home to watch"

next door have a climbing frame and slide their kids shout over to ours to join them

we have a shed with guinea pigs in, so the garden is always full.

Our girls are teens now, but they have had a lovely free childhood - they are now the "responsible older teens" watching over the littlies.

Do your neighbours not have kids at all? Ours all played together with their "gang" being 6 or 7 kids all from our street. You do have to be prepared to allow them to do so, to perhaps run a little feral and to watch over them/provide ice pops and biscuits and a drink when whatever plaything you have in your garden is the item of choice for the day.

I live on a very ordinary street full of parked cars sadly. There are lots of kids living on the road but despite some efforts on my part they don't play out.
Cars plus very busy family lives.

It really gets me down as I think children's lives are far richer and healthier if they have some freedom from adults.

I'd move if I could. I am in London would look at anywhere within commuting distance. Am fond of South Coast but what concerns me is that UK culture has lost this freedom now.

My kids played out on the streets with friends. My house had also a small communal drive (shared by 5 houses) and directly linked to the next communal drive (4 houses). From 5/6 DD was allowed to play out on the communal drive and go to call on her friend in the next drive (no need to go out onto the road). From 8, both DDs were out playing in the street, going to friend's houses and going to the local park. But we live in a village, so was a lot easier.

The downsides of that is now they're at secondary school, friends don't live in our village, and there's no bus service for DDs to meet up with friends outside of school, so it is constant lifts taking them to one place or another.

Swings and roundabouts I guess

I truly would love to see kids being feral!!

Belive me I try. But I find other kids are just not available a lot of the time.

I'm very relaxed and hospitable would happily have kids here or keep an eye on them in the street.

It sometimes works out in the garden but I find at 8 the boys are slightly outgrowing a back garden

We live in an SE London borough. You don’t need to leave London just find the right street. Although obviously moving I’d easier said than done.

Change it! www.playingout.net - best thing I ever did for my kids

We're at the end of the cul de sac in town so all dc play out on scooters and I love it. Couldn't have lived like this in our previous house though. Dc are 8 and 11.

When I was little - please refrain from asking how old I am! - at weekends and holidays we were out of the door after breakfast and did not come back till we got hungry! We would go round to friends' houses, round them all up and head for "the rec" where we would play on the playground bit, then organise games on the large field, and wander along by the stream and just get very very muddy!

When my own DC were small we lived in a small cul-de-sac for several years and they had a great time biking around and meeting friends.

I think the crux of the matter is the presence of cars. It is so sad that they have taken over just about every environment and children cannot be safely sent out to play in most streets.

People are also more conscious (?over-conscious) of potential dangers from paedophiles when I was little there was a weird guy who used to wave his willy and we just ignored him. I am sure parents nowadays would have apoplexy!! Ours did not bat an eyelid!!

We are in the suburbs of a large town. I think that is why it works so well here.

All the (small) gardens back onto each other, all have room for one thing - so you can have a climbing frame, OR a trampoline, OR a swing, OR a badminton net, or.... so the kids have more fun playing on different things - and to do that they have to make friends over the fence or they won't be shouted over. If you have everything they could want in your garden, (or nothing) then you get left out of the loop a bit.

Later on it helps if people have different games consoles too... one will have an X box, another a Wii whatever... (for my girls and friends anything with Sing-star and Just Dance attracts them for miles!)

It's a bygone time thing. Even if you allowed your child out no one else would and at worse they'd ostracise you / SS.
My eldest was young in early 2000s and it wasn't around then either.
I used to debate this with mums irl (at playdates). All were full of several fears that they wouldn't let go of. Mainly abduction but also roads and other risks.