Why do people say it’s not safe for kids to play outside anymore?

[Waitingforthesunnydays]

People always say things like “it’s not like it used to be, kids can’t go off and play outside on their own these days”, “In my day we’d be out playing all day, the world’s not what it used to be”, “You can’t do that these days, it’s just not safe” etc etc. AIBU for thinking the world’s no more dangerous than it was in the 70s/80s/90s and it’s just and excuse for parents not to feel guilty about letting their kids sit home gaming all day? I get that we are now more aware & educated about the dangers (although in the 80s weren’t parents obsessed with “stranger danger”? - there were ad campaigns about it everywhere) but it doesn’t mean it actually IS more dangerous. Or am I missing something? Is the world somehow more dangerous in this respect now? I grew up in a rural area in the 90s and as a kid I’d be out morning till evening every weekend roaming for miles with all the village kids. Nothing bad ever happened and we were never in any kind of danger. I live in a rural area now and I’d love for my kids to have the kind of childhood I had but for their friends’ parents it’s all about structured play dates and organised trips to play centres etc. so even if they wanted to go knock on their mates’ doors to ask if they want to come out and play (they’re 9 & 11) the parents wouldn’t appreciate it or let them out at all.

YANBU. My 12 year old is out most weekends at local skate parks and football pitches. Most of his friends are too, though, so I've not experiencing parents thinking along the lines you've mentioned.

I think it becomes almost a self fulfilling prophecy. The more parents who think that, the fewer children will be out and about, and that probably does make it less safe eg 2 children at a playground are less safe than if there are also a group of children they know playing football, some other children riding bikes, some others also at the playground and they all know each other.

No idea. My estate, and town, is full of children playing out when the weather's ok, including mine.

I think the major change is traffic. There are far more cars on the road.

Cars. Many, many more cars. Also, many, many more men who like to look at and share gross images of minors, thanks to the Internet. These are the reasons my kids (8 and 6) don't play out alone. I would love them to.

I live in an area that's behind the times in many ways, that vast majority of kids still play out like they did 30 years ago and it's great. The world is not more dangerous nowadays.

We lived on cul de sac where most people had a car in the drive and very few two. Now on the same cul de sac there's cars in every available space on the road and there's cars in and out all the time.

I think that people who say that are typically thinking of busy roads and more traffic on them, typically driving faster.

We live in quiet housing estate (i.e. no busy roads) and my children have played out to an ever increasing extent since they were about 8.

My dc have always played outside. From probably 4, I mean out and about with friends. But we live very rurally, not near any public roads (long private drive from nearest road). They’ve always roamed to nearby friends’ houses. We have a WhatsApp group with parents on all the nearby farms so we can find them. 😂 My older one (12) walks into the village to hang out with friends or we sometimes let her go around town with a friend, but that’s obviously a bit different because further from home. But I’d say mine are having a similar sort of childhood to Dh and I in terms of independence.

Traffic. The amount of cars on the road make crossing roads much more difficult. The number of e-bikes and scooters on the pavement where I live mean that the pavement you still had to have a level of awareness that small kids may not have developed yet

That makes me quite sad to read, and tbh i don't really see the connection

What specifically are you worried about?

Cars, I agree with, but I don't agree there are loads more perverts around, they've always been around we just know much more about it now. Yes, the internet makes it more accessible but I don't think that necessarily means more paedophiles, surely they're either interested in children or not?

As well as traffic and being bombarded with negative news which skews our risk assessment, I don't know my neighbours that well. I've heard that there used to be more of a communal sense of watching out for the kids you knew generally whereas now I'm more fearful someone will report a free-range child.

The world is more dangerous. “Back in the day” you didn’t have social media - there is a new generation of predators and stupidity out there. You have no idea who your child is talking to and what they were persuaded to go and do. You can think they’re off to the park or the library, but they’re elsewhere entirely, doing all sorts of stupid things.

Yes there were serial killers, kidnappers, whatever back then - but you could argue that more toxic content exposure means more and more people grow up to do questionable things. My DD is 5 and when I was 5 my grandparents allowed us to walk around the estate with my 7yo cousin all day - no way I’d allow my 5yo out to a park I can technically see out my window.

I agree op. I would love for my kids (8 & 11) to play out, it would suit my 11D well in particular. Unfortunately it's just not a thing in my part of town, so there's no-one out to play with. There are slightly older kids next door who we never see, and a few more kids on the street. I do send mine out round the block on their scooters or to pick blackberries together for example. I'm very conscious my DD will need to make her own way to school from Sept and needs to build some confidence out and about herself. There are more kids playing out in the housing estates around our town, so I think it does depend on what's the norm in particular areas and vary. I often look at houses thinking whether to move. But it would double our mortgage.

The biggest problem for us is that nobody else will let their kids play out.

When I was a kid we were always in big groups playing out.

If there was a problem like an injury then there were enough kids in the big group that somebody could run to their house to fetch a grownup, somebody could stay with the upset kid. There’d be a range of ages and the bigger ones would automatically help the younger ones.

A predator wouldn’t be likely to try and grab one kid out of a big group (and if they had them other kids would have shouted for help/tried to stop them).

Now I can’t let my 11 year old play out because he’d be the only one out there and obviously more vulnerable if there did happen to be a problem.

So unless you live somewhere where all the families agree (expressly or tacitly) that playing out is ok then you can’t really do it just for your family.

Traffic, and internet, as pp has mentioned. But I grew up in the 80s/90s and I definitely didn’t have that kind of freedom. I remember my mum talking in much the same way at the time - when she was young in the 50s/60s, they’d be out all day, but it’s just not safe to do that nowadays.

An increase in vehicles is the big change (both moving vehicles and parked cars blocking up pavements) but a lot of parents make excuses, definitely.

You can find safe places for children to play outside (parks etc.) if that is important to you. My children went to the local parks with their friends a lot from about age 8.

I grew up in a Cul-de-Sac and it was brilliant for playing outside. The whole road would be full of kids roller skating, on their bikes, hanging out and chatting. I don't really see this to that extent nowadays in similar roads but we were fortunate to have that freedom and not be stuck indoors, alone, staring at a computer screen.

And yet people keep their kids inside and give them the Internet instead. Which has lots of negatives and means kids lose out on the many positives of unstructured time outside.

Have you got any proof for this?

The only thing that is more dangerous is the number of cars.

I didn’t consider that the traffic thing might be the reason. I always assumed people were talking about more dodgy people around.

I think the age limit has risen a lot regarding kids playing out. Age 12 and above I don’t think it’s changed that much - most teens I know of are still out a lot independently but parents seem to be more paranoid about younger kids being out alone. I remember one of the kids we’d hang around with when I was a child was 4, we’d look after her but it wasn’t cos her parents asked us to, they had no idea where she was all day! And she was miles from home, trying to build “rafts” out of battered old pieces of wood to cross a dangerous fast running river. Not suggesting that was appropriate! But a little older, at 8 or 9 you rarely see kids out playing completely unsupervised these days

The internet also makes it more lucrative. People make money selling this footage, that was far less easy to do in pre internet days.

I don't know if there's more or less perves out there now nor if it makes it more dangerous for kids overall, but I know there's a lot more temptation to act on their proclivities than ever before.

Most of the kids in our street still play outside. The hats with the torches are very popular since it is dark by 4pm at the moment 😂There are a few kids in the street that I have never seen outside playing ever.

I grew up in the 80s

bad things did happen. My bike was stolen. A bloke with a knife once was running around on the patch of waste land we used to play on.

i broke my arm three times in childhood from doing stupid things (mostly climbing trees higher than I should have done.)

my brother went into a stream once when we were sledging down a slope. The water was icy and it was deep there and he went under for a few seconds (he was six and we were all there in a group sledging - no adults).

having said that my kids were born in a village and I let them go to the playground at the end of road from about six on their own (cul de sac sp very little traffic) and they were cycling to school (together, with a mobile) from age 9. The way to school was footpaths across fields so no traffic.

murders and child abductions are down massively from the 1980s. Paedophilia is hard to get reliable data on but your child is at very little risk from paedophiles if they are just out and about.

my parents did insist we went about in at least twos (one to get help if the other got injured). However I also insisted on this - my kids had to cycle to school together and I raised merry hell if they left each other.