Playing Out

West Ender · 15-09-2007, 19:54

My granddaughter is 8 next month and she is allowed to play outside on her bike after school. She rides on the pavement, which has few pedestrians, from our house to the "2nd lamp post" and back and round the corner, the other way, to the post box and back - about 50 yards each way. On this journey she passes the houses of 2 friends, the same age as her, whose mothers won't let them join her because they are paranoid about their children playing outside. This is a quiet but well populated road. These same mothers will accompany their children to our door if Laura invites them to play in the back garden and will come back to pick them up later.

I'm all for protecting children but, these days, I think the caution goes too far. There's a generation growing up that knows no freedom at all and isn't learning any self responsibility. I know all the dangers of paedophiles etc. but they have always existed, even when Laura's mother was playing out with all the other children on the street 20 years ago. I don't think wrapping children in quite so much cotton wool does them any favours. Do you?

Gayle · 15-09-2007, 20:00

It's a really tough one!

My two are quite young but they play out quite a lot in the back garden and up the street with a couple of lads who are about the same age. One of them is only 8 but has a lot of freedom and hs parent frequently comes around to find him at our house only to be told that he's not with us. Even when he is in our house the chances that he'll have told his parents where he is is very slim.

As a mother I want to keep them on a tight rein but I equally want them to learn independence!

BERNADETTE · 15-09-2007, 20:09

You have got to let them have some freedom, not to go anywhere and everywhere they please but they do need some independence. I think it is up to the individual parent to decide what they feel comfortable with. It is hard though some parents just seem to go to far with the freedom and never check that their kids are where they say they are.

mallard · 15-09-2007, 20:18

well i have no children of my own but you have to give them a bit of freedom but you do have to disciplin to keep them on the right track,s.

SPUGGIE J · 15-09-2007, 22:56

Without a bit of freedom kids become techno couch potatoes that is bad for them. Ok we need to be sure they are safe, but we cant stiffle them either. Its a catch 22 that is hard to negotiate and handle yet we have to. Over the years the roaming of kids has reduced in radius and may never get back up more like they will be out while a chaparone is on hand. Yet does that mean that when they get older and can roam further that they over do it as we have with the present wave of teens? Personally I think that if we hold them back then when they get the chance they will try and make up for what they believe was missed chances of freedom when younger.

cashman · 15-09-2007, 23:21

its a grey area,whats ok to some parents is not to others, i agree that in some cases cases caution goes to far n kids have to have a bit of rope,but as a grandad meself i would bow to the wishes of the parents regarding the safety of the child,if i thought something was way too much i would tell em why,but at the end of the day i view us (grandparents) as the buggars that can spoil em n give em back. the parents rules are sacred.

Lilly · 16-09-2007, 12:26

It's not easy but you have to let go. Keeping children indoors and wrapping them in cotton wool doesn't do anybody any favours. All you can do is make them aware of the dangers that are out there and hope they heed your advice. I worry about mine getting knocked down but I've taught them all I can about road safety and just have to hope they remember what I've said. Keeping them in all the time won't help as they'll just end up so cossetted I'll still be worrying about them getting knocked down when they're 25! I heard that the chances of something like one of them fallling into the clutches of a paedophile are actually very rare, despite the fact that it seems like it happens every day from what we hear on the news and read in the papers. These scenarios are no more common now than they were in the 60s, it just feels like it because the media has widened and they are reported on more. It's hard but we shouldn't let the stories we hear turn our children into anti-social hermits.

cmonstanley · 16-09-2007, 15:39

eveybody should let their kids out protection on numbers.everybody shouldnt be hermits like we are now .if everybody went out instead of vegetating in their houses we wouldnt have half the trouble we do now.what weve got in society now is pure apathy .pathetic really

panther · 16-09-2007, 17:22

my kids only six, and i wont let him go off the street, im not wrapping him up in cotton wool, and just a parent whos cares where he plays, and cares where he is!!

carl hurles · 16-09-2007, 18:13

well said panther im the same only my eldest is 7yrs she plays out but only on the st with ,me watching her

grego · 16-09-2007, 18:39

My eldest is only 5, she's not allowed to play out front unless I'm out with her, she doesn't ask to go out front much, no other kids her age and she like playing in the back garden. I think I will find it hard to let her play out front for a few years yet, road safety is a big issue for me. I played out all the time as a kid but there weren't that many cars on the road in them days.

junetta · 16-09-2007, 21:34

It is a difficult one. My brother and I had complete freedom of the back streets in Accrington. Endless games of hide and seek, hopscotch and skipping. (We won't mention pushbikes as he had one and I wasn't allowed!). My own two children also played out as often as they could.

My daughter's eldest two, even though they live in a small Cornish village, have restrictions, whilst my brother's children, similar in age to them, have been out and about around Ossy for years.

As our kid says 'never did us any harm'!!