Childrens Soc study, modern children don't have enough freedom

[Blandmum]

Results of the study out today confirm what we were talking about not that long ao. That children don't have enough freedom and that this is preventing them learning independence, making friends and learning how to deal with otheras in a wide range of situations.

I now feel better about letting my two (10 and 7) play 'out' with their mates as of the last few weeks!

i live in east london, and my child has v little freedom in terms of playing out by himself day to day,thicars down both sides,s is solely down to one thing TRAFFIC.It is soso dangerous here with tiny narrow roads ,morons screeching about with music on that makes yr house shake,i am a nurse and my best friend in a & e cannot believe how many kids each day come in after being knocked down,i have never thought about paedophiles etc just bloody,bloody traffic.It is a sad state of affairs.However when we are on hols,or away at weekends or in large parks he has lots of freedom to come and go.

I definitely think they need more freedom - imo it's crazy to say they can't go out on their own till they're 14 or 16 - they can get married at 16!!!!

interesting comment here - half as many children killed in road accidents today as in 1922, and risk of abductions tiny.

PS - Cycle helmets are absolute must, crazy not to wear them, and good to get toddlers to wear them so they learn that 'that's what you wear on a bike' imo.

Edam, completely agree with your post. I grew up in a small town and what you describe was my experience of childhood too.

My children live in London and it's just so different.

What has happened is the media have created the illusion of a wolrd outside our frontdoors of which we must be fearful.

I would just like to see some real evidence of the cause and effect that is being cited by the Children's Society. It doesn't suprise me that fewer children have a best friend they can count on and trust. I would not make the immediate assumption that the reason for this is parents not letting their children out to play all day away from home.

I'm sick equivalent of reading and hearing news reports about this and the way they talk about parents. It's like the parenting equivalent of misogyny. There's underlying contempt and disdain for these parents in all those artilces and reports.

"In 1970, 80% of primary school-age children made the journey from home to school on their own. It was what you did.

Today the figure is under 9%. Escorting children is now the norm - often in the back of a 4x4."

No, not often in the back of a 4X4. The majority of children in the country are not driven to school in a 4X4.

Sorry - hope you can make some sense of what I wrote.

this is quite old news to me though. our playscheme criteria has recently changed to allow free play. i think it's more aimed at the 5+ years

My two (9 and 7) are allowed to play in the street with the others. In practice this usually means at one another's houses, but they get to work out where they are going and they know what time to come back for meals.

They get a lot of benefit out of that and I think it really has helped them to develop. It also builds a bit of a sense of community, as mums we seem to take it in turn to feed the pack.

In fact we recently took our house off the market - we'd like somewhere a bit more isolated and on one storey - but the benefits and fun that our children have seemed to us on balance to be worth us staying put.

What worries me is that people are saying that children should be 'out' on their own until 14.

And at 14 they will have the temptations of drugs, sex, alchol, crime and tobacco to deal with. And all of this before they have sucessufuly learned to deal with crossing the road and playing with their mates on their own!

So these kids will have (in general) greater temtation to deal with and less basic prepartaion to deal with it.

We give them next to no freedom, and then at 14 (a time when they are riddled with hormones and all the insecurities that go with them), say 'go on, be independent!'

And then we wonder why they sometimes cock it all up!

Totally agree mb. They get no practice at small decisions, weighing up risks, etc.

This issue has been a bugbear of mine for years, and it's so strange to hear it become the top news story of the day. I don't think this report will change anything, though.

I'm convinced the lack of freedom we had will affect child brain development, although I don't know how or how much.

One thing the media is missing is that many kids have friends who live miles and miles away, so they couldn't realistically go down road to play with their mates anyway.

I try to go out with my children and just let them muck around, so they can play like I did as a child, only I read a novel and vaguely trail behind them. I'm sure almost no other parents do this.

I don't think the traffic or stranger risks (within the same sort of environment, town vs. big city) are much greater than when I was a child (1970s USA), BUT our tolerance of risk has changed. Like most people I wouldn't let my child play out alone at 7yo, even though I played out alone at 4yo -- AND on busier roads. Nowadays we are just too aware of the same risks that our own parents didn't rate at all.

Maybe because they had mates who died of measles and minor infections (pre-anti biotics).

One thing that I really agreed with was that they don't learn how to make friends. If the only children they meet are in the adult supervised arenas of school or in the homes of other children, they don't learn how to deal with relationships on their own terms. At the end of our cul-de-sac there used to be an area of open ground - the children made dens and little communities - they all learned to share the responsibilities they though they needed - some would be the soldiers to defend the den against the other side, one would be responsible for making/mending the den, others would find things (stones/fircones/bits of old brick) to be treasures. They fell out, they made up, they discovered how to rub along with anyone who turned up. You only have to read all the threads on here from parents who are upset/annoyed with the way that other children behave in their homes or behave toward their children, to see that there is never going to be the freedom for children to develop the same social skills with constant adult supervision.

i suppose that's why they're really pushing free play now, we basically have to just provide the spaces and let children 'get on with it' not to intervene unless asked. it's quite a good way for children to interact but some of the proposed activities would make parent's worried! ie: playing with electric drills, hammers etc

Does anyone else find it a little sad though that some children spend most of the day in doors playing on computer games etc instead of being outside? I used to have great fun playing outside with dens/climbing trees and playing on bikes etc. It wouldn't have even accured to me to stay in all day.