Ha childhood been cancelled?

[DrNortherner]

Something Professor Winston said got me thinking. Nowadays kids spend very little time just playing. They are ferried around from one activity to another. Sports clubs and extra tuition are eating into our kids spare time.

Think about when we were kids, we had so much more time to do what we wanted, and more freedom to play unsupervised.

Today kids are getting to 10/11 without ever going anywhere alone (at this age I would be playing out most of the day). Instead we structure their time. We tell them Monday is swimming, Tues is ballet, Weds is maths tuition etc. Plus homework and busy mums and dads is leading to a much more stressful childhood.

I say abandon most of the clubs and activities and let our kids be kids.

here here!

Abandon all homework I say!

professor winston didn't invent that though, i've just done an nvq in playwork which concentrates on just letting children play (normally in a safe environment).

Hmmmm, I saw this too and whilst I applaud the concept of just letting children actually chill out and play for some of their day so many people seem scared shitless by the media about them being snatched that I can understand the reluctance to let them out of their sight.

The issue of kids being hothoused 24x7 is a different one.

Haven't watched the latest child of our time yet but the DDs have. Funny he should say this becuase I said to them on Tuesday I think we will be cancelling Brownies, Swimming and Gym and just doing nothing after school - I wonder if they picked up what he said? I was just joking but he does have a point.

Everyone's lives are more regulated by external structures these days (more women working outside the home so constrained by a timetable not of their own making, longer working hours, longer commutes, fewer local shops...).

If you are conscious of this, you can work around the system (if you have the strength of mind ).

You want to come round here - serious feral kids running around the streets till 9 or 10!

I have often wondered whether is is ok that my 5 year old does no extra curricular activities, and instead potters about with a train set or some mud...

I wish my kids would just play. They are 4 and 2 and follow me round the house whingeing mostly or asking me to play with them.

The other day I shut them upstairs with the stairgate on and said 'JUST PLAY'. They managed it for about 15 minutes

I don't know any children that get ferried around everywhere and have tuition and sports clubs etc etc

is it a middle class invention?

my daughters do ballet clod homping noise pollution on Saturday morning and that is it

I saw this too but have to say, the little girl (think her name was charlie) that didn't go to clubs and was left to play was actually bored and just making a mess round the house. I think there has to be a happy medium. I intend to take my ds to swimming classes and anything else he asks for (within reason!) but I must admit we have a big garden and a park round the corner which I will expect him to play in!

My ds is only 8 months so I haven't had to deal with this one yet but I am instinctively against the idea of tons of "improving" activities. For a start I think it deprives children of their ability to actually make any sort of decision themselves.

I guess this all relates back to "helicopter parenting" and this obsession with hovering over our offspring 24 x 7.

Sadly the world seems to be dividing into those who perhaps "over parent" and those who couldn't give a toss - hence the feral kids nickytwotimes refers to.

I think this is quite hyped up, actually, both ways. My kids aren't ferried about to activities; DD1 does after school gardening on a Monday, and half an hour of swimming on Sundays, and that's it. They get virtually no homework. They are in reality much less pressured and unhappy than I was as a child in the early 1970s.

Intersting mother inferior - if this is the case maybe the media are just getting in a flap over not very much at all?

It's not 'the media'. It's Winston. And Furedi. And the Slow Parenting bloke. They're not journalists. Don't blame us journalists, love.

'free play' in the new government initiative. we provide the safe setting and the children can play as they wish.

No change there then!

I was a feral child, it was fantastic. I loved it. We made dens on the embankments.

I do agree with this and think it starts very young. Remember proudly reeling off to my HV the groups/activities I had taken DS to in a week (when he was all of about 9 months). She listened then very sagely said.'Goodness, I bet your mother didn't take you anywhere until you were five'

MI, I stand corrected

I've noticed when my chlidren are in their father's care they go to structured things - lessons, swimming, sport, soft play, coffee houses.

When they are with me it is mud and a bucket of water

Perhaps it is the increased input of fathers that are structuring their play in a more formal way?

I tend to agree MI. In my day I went to Brownies - it was just sort of something everyone "did". Now there seems to be a lot of analysis as to what it means, is it a good thing, a bad thing, how does it fit in, will it make them tired, how should they get there yadda, yadda.

I think we are sometimes more in danger of "over-analysing" childhood than over stimulating the children.

Ds does cricket/judo/computer as after school classes at school. On paper that sounds a bit "parent pushing lots of choices on childre and over stimulating them", but those are things he has chosen and they add 30 mins to his school day (meaning he finishes at 3.30, not 3pm) Given that in my day we finished school at 4pm - this is just like choosing your last lesson and still finishing earlier.

He then spends 2 hours at home before tea mooching around alternating between playing and annoying his sister (a childhood activity from the old days which I am pleased to see has passed the test of time).

Sorry, I get a bit touchy about the generalised idea that journalists are all Evil Beasts!