To think we have ruined childrens play

[Beepbopblop]

I grew up on a working class estate, in a northern mill town. I am almost 34 and I had the best time with my friends growing up. I am comparing my child DS8, to my child hood and I am feeling a bit sad. Because;

1. From aged 8 I could ride wherever on my bike all over town
2. we had the most imaginative play, we kept up for the whole six weeks holidays that the mills behind us was haunted, I convinced a peer to trap a bee in a jar to save my life - we all knew it wasn’t true but played along as it was all part of the story, and ate a mud pie after sacrificing the bee…
3. I was allowed out to play from when my parents left for work until tea, and then from there until it got dark
4. we had secret woods, haunted woods, various (unsafe) rope swings and biking routes

In comparison DS8 gets to go on “play dates” and prearranged activities..

AIBU to grieve for the good times being a child and wonder why we are so closed off with our children

It might be a good starting point for you to explain why you don't allow your child the freedoms you had when you were younger?

I had a childhood were I could roam around from a young age and found myself in loads of unsafe situations.

walking along the motorway was one of them as it was a quicker way home from the cinema. Being approached by older children was another one.

it’s neglectful what parenting was like for the majority of kids in the 60s/70s/80s/90s

My DC play out from morning until I have to drag them in for tea. The neighbours kids all do the same. I guess it depends on where you live, can your DC not do the same?

Just because you feel your parents were neglectful it doesn’t mean the majority of parents were.

I have younger children, two girls 6 & 3 so not at the playing out stage yet, but they play loads (as long as the TV is off). Today they have been kittens, library assistants, ran a dog ice cream shop, mum's and dad's, cafe owners and nursery staff. They've also played with Lego, Barbie's and done some arts and crafts. When they meet up with friends (playdates) they are cops and robbers, musicians, farmers etc. I love watching how their imaginations work and hope long may it continue.

I get older children don't have the freedoms we had as children but I still witness them playing in woods, parks etc. Yes it's different but I think play still exists

I grew up on a farm. We spent our school holidays making rope swings in the barn and climbing and making dens in the hay bales. It was idyllic.

There were also kids who didn't grow up because their rope swings snapped, they fell 20ft to a concrete floor from a stack of hay bales or their hay bale dens caved in and crushed them.

I'd rather my DC were alive than allowed the total unsupervised freedom we were.

The reason all this ended was because kids were getting kidnapped, raped, murdered, or dying in stupid accidents playing where they shouldn't be. It's like saying it was so much better when you had the freedom to lay down in the car on long journeys now you have to wear a seat belt so you don't die in an accident. It was a bad thing you had so much freedom, it was dangerous.

Also killing a bee is shitty, like you shouldn't think that was a good thing .

The answer is obvious isn't it? There's way more traffic on the roads than there was when you were a kid.

Also, are you suggesting that it's appropriate for an 8 year old to look after themselves all day whilst their parents are at work? With zero adult supervision? I'm glad that's in the past.

I kind of agree, OP. I see so many threads which are critical of parenting in the 1980s and earlier, and people say "it was normal for the time, but we know better now". And I think "Do we? Is this really better? Because I had a wonderful childhood doing things that would make Mumsnet explode, and what do children get now? Grapes cut in half until they are 10."

But then I didn't get hit by a car or molested, which I certainly could have done. I might feel differently if I had.

I do think it depends a bit where you live OP, but in general you are right. There were no holiday camps back in the 80s kids just entertained themselves for 6 weeks. We also spend £££££ creating playgrounds in our back gardens these days so kids don’t have to go to the local playground……which is a very clinical affair……no tree climbing, camp fires, rope swings, den building. It would be interesting to know if the risk we perceive to be associated with this type of childhood is real or imagined.

YABU. If you want to give your dc more freedom, do. I'm 50 and had a fairly similar childhood to my dc's (now 14 and 16). Allowed to play out from a sensible age, not anywhere dangerous and not at all hours.

But then I didn't get hit by a car or molested, which I certainly could have done. I might feel differently if I had

but your DC could still have both of those happen now. And I’m not sure the car accident holds true……there were significantly fewer cars 40 years ago and they were much smaller and generally slower.

I think it depends on where you live op. Kids play out in my neighbourhood and it all seems very free and lovely.

We are lucky to live on a quiet street so in the summer the DC can play out all day. Also able to go to nearby playground.

In terms of imaginative play - I don't think it has changed. After school the other day she showed me a small bit of grape vine that was 'Frog'. She showed me over the playground where his house was and where the hospital was etc. He'd got up to all sorts of adventures! I even find her electronic gaming to be so imaginative - the worlds built on Minecraft, role play on Roblox and the videos she makes and edits on Toca. So much more imaginative than playing Sonic etc. A chunk of my sitting room is her 'babies' nursery' which she looks after as real children with ever more complicated 'story lines' as she has got older. She can play for hours and hours!

My DC always climb trees (at the park) and make dens (in the woods). Camp fires when at a camp site.

YANBU. Play is so, so important to children’s wellbeing and imaginative play in particular. They just aren’t getting it and many don’t know how to play imaginatively any more. I think screens have got a lot to answer for.
Children seem more connected to each other because of social media etc, but care-free connection and extended play such as you describe is at an all time low.
Yes fewer die from broken rope ladders, but more are confided to their rooms, riddled with anxiety and other mental heath problems and even take their own lives. The millennium cohort study found last year that 7% of children had attempted suicide by age 17, and 24% had self harmed in the last year.

Childhood may be safer in the physical sense, but mentally, socially and emotionally our children are suffering for it.

Car accident rates are much lower - in fact cars are less dangerous (better mechanical control and safety features); people speed less (we are used to much lower speed limits); and the rates of drink-driving are much much less. (Also drivers are on the whole better trained - the theory and hazard perception parts of the driving test were brought in to do just that.) Deaths from car accidents are much much lower than 30, 40 or 50 years ago.

There are many more cars nowadays. Once upon a time Dads went off to work mums were at home any mum would keep an eye out for all of us. Was pretty similar when I raised mine. Now kids are with grandparents, childminder, out of school club around here. We have gardens, parks, but have to cross busy roads, or dual carriageway to get anywhere

Why don't you let your DS do all of these things, then? Wave him out the door in the morning with a packed lunch and tell him not to come back until tea time?

My dc have more limited freedom than you describe (and what my own childhood was like) but they are allowed to what they call the "wooden rec" down the road and up the ginnel, as well as the "compound" (the grassy bit down the road) and up the road to play with their friends. They also walk over to the shop and to school, both of which mean crossing main roads. They're 9 & 11.

When i think back on my seaside childhood home ... yes we were safe from creeps and stayed out ALL DAY
but ... we played in the rocks even at high crashing tide
we walked across mudflats/quicksand regularly
were in strong river estuaries
biked MILES from home to jump off a huge bridge into the water
utterly death defying tree swings
dug into side of sand dunes
touched train lines.
and we KNEW we weren't supposed to haha
gives me the fear thinking about my own DC doing such activities
but I suppose we didn't die ...?

I think it's a shift in society as a whole to be honest, people are a lot less social in many ways. I can't imagine staying in much at all in the holidays or just doing pre planned stuff; but we had one telly and just a few channels, one dated computer that you couldn't often play as someone was watching telly, and I did love reading but would find plenty of time in the evening when home to do so- the entertainment was other humans and the natural world.

I joined the Royal navy when I left school and the mess was very social, not drinking even but people coming together to chat etc. When I left it was very different. People largely stayed in their bunks on computers or scrolling through the Internet. Now with working from home lots prefer it. The Internet and tech has been the seismic change, I think it's also why people are more aware of horrible crimes etc and worry.

I feel sad about it, but children don't know any different now.

Correlation is not causation and nostalgia isn't data.

I've no idea if children 'play less' than 40 years ago. How would one go about proving or disproving that, definitively, beyond bias? How are we defining 'play'? How many children were asked in the 80s if they self harmed, versus the more open conversations we have today, so how can we accurately compare?

I genuinely don't know! Ooh, this thread is getting my brain going...

I am a year or two younger than you OP, so broadly similar era of childhood; I don't recognise your experience at all! I grew up as an only child, in a big house with a big garden and did do lots of solo, imaginative play and felt that I had lots of space & freedom... but my parents were around and knew where I was- there was more of an eye on me than I realised. I had play dates & neither my friends nor I were allowed to wander off out. Your free range childhood sounds more like my dad & my uncle who grew up in the 30s & 40s than mine or even my mum's 50s childhood tbh.

I don't think the safety concerns today are a bad thing, although I feel sad about the amount of electronics & social media children are hooked upto and under pressure to maintain. Play is precious and necessary.

I'm considerably older than you OP, but this isn't a description of my childhood.

From aged 8 I could ride wherever on my bike all over town
We had limits where we could go "round the block" or to limits - or to a specific park which my parents knew we were going to.
Exactly the same rules for my dc

we had the most imaginative play, we kept up for the whole six weeks holidays that the mills behind us was haunted, I convinced a peer to trap a bee in a jar to save my life - we all knew it wasn’t true but played along as it was all part of the story, and ate a mud pie after sacrificing the bee

I'm pretty confident my dc have done similar (no mills specifically)

I was allowed out to play from when my parents left for work until tea, and then from there until it got dark

Well that is just damned neglectful, and I am very surprised you were doing that in the mid 90s. It certainly was never the norm.

we had secret woods, haunted woods, various (unsafe) rope swings and biking routes

As have my dc

In comparison DS8 gets to go on “play dates” and prearranged activities

Well, why are you limiting your dc if you feel it is so bad ?

AIBU to grieve for the good times being a child

Not unreasonable to look back through rose tinted glasses and mourn for the days when you were carefree

.....and wonder why we are so closed off with our children

well, I'm not. Nor are lots of parents.