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When I think of summers as a child, I remember long days playing out on my bike, making mud pies, walking to the corner shop to get a tin of chicken soup (my favourite lunch!) cut knees, making up ghost stories about the ‘haunted’ house at the end of the road, making new friends and being called in for tea, exhausted and hungry. Fast forward to 2010 and would our children’s stories sound the same? I think they might read – I remember long car journeys, driving to a safe place to ride my bike, wearing my knee pads and helmet, making mud pies and washing my hands in antibacterial soap, my mum driving me to the supermarket to buy a carton of organic soup, avoiding the derelict house at the end of the road, which was covered in signs reminding us to wear hard hats and keep away. After playing on the computer and chatting with my virtual friends, I had dinner and watched a video before going to bed.

Outdoor play and more specifically, unsupervised outdoor play would appear to be one of the most emotive subjects discussed on the net. One US journalist who admitted to allowing her 9 year old child to travel on the New York subway was bombarded with hate mail from as far away as Egypt and Malta.

Outdoor play is an important part of every child’s life. It keeps children active, healthy and happy and helps them make new friends, learn new skills, improve their self-confidence - and above all, have fun. As parents, are we so concerned about dangers, real and imagined, that we are unable to let our children play unsupervised and would rather have them in the house playing on the computer or watching TV than let them play outside? Research shows us that children who play outside are less likely to be obese, and children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are better able to concentrate after contact with nature (Taylor et al. 2001). Children who play regularly in natural environments show more advanced motor fitness, including coordination, balance and agility, and they are sick less often (Grahn, et al. 1997, Fjortoft & Sageie 2001). As well as the obvious physical benefits, there are also unseen benefits - outdoor environments are important to children’s development of independence and autonomy (Bartlett 1996) and when children play in natural environments, their play is more diverse with imaginative, creative play that fosters language and collaborative skills (Moore & Wong 1997, Taylor, et al. 1998, Fjortoft 2000).

It’s only natural that parents don’t want their children to be put in any danger or emotional distress but by micromanaging children’s lives and keeping them away from danger, real or perceived, we are not helping them in any way. Some parents have been dubbed ‘helicopter parents’ –so called because they hover over their children, interfering and directing their lives in a way that would probably have embarrassed standard pushy parents. Universities and colleges are reporting anxious young adults unable to cope in new environments, unable to make friends and seriously averse to taking risks. With few challenges of their own, kids are psychologically fragile and riddled with anxiety. In the process they’re robbed of their own identity and a sense of accomplishment, to say nothing of a shot at real happiness.

It all sounds scary and can make us even more fearful for our children than before! As parents, what can we do to help our children without putting them in risky situations? We can’t all move to an idyllic countryside setting free from traffic and dangerous strangers! There is a lot of media hype regarding the ‘increase’ in stranger danger. Abductions of children by strangers are a very rare occurrence and despite stories to the contrary, our children are in no more danger now than they were 20 years ago. If you look at statistics, children are more likely to be harmed by somebody they know well and in their own home, than be abducted by a stranger. There are no government or legal guidelines for parents that state a minimum age that a child can be alone in the house, play alone outside or walk to school and so, we as parents will have to make that decision when we feel it is appropriate. The NSPCC has a good leaflet on its web site, which offers practical support and advice for parents. They advise parents to use the 3 W’s – WHO are your children with, WHERE are they going and WHEN will they be back.
Check out the leaflet or other downloads from their website for useful help and advice.
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/inform/publications/downloads/outalone_wdf48089.pdf

So, what CAN we do? Perhaps, we can start with the little things? Let your toddler run around the park without hovering over them, let them try and make new friends on their own, don’t interfere in childish squabbles, let them play outside and get dirty! If they get a grazed knee, let it be a battle scar, to be proudly shown off to new friends! Remember the things you did and enjoyed as a child. I recently received an email that made me smile and I’m going to paraphrase it here. “If you’re reading this, congratulations on surviving your childhood! We have all managed to survive without childproof lids on medicine bottles, protectors on doors or cabinets and when we rode bikes, we had no helmets or kneepads. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open at the weekends, somehow we didn’t starve to death! We would spend hours building our go-carts and dens, and had real friends not virtual ones. We fell out of trees, got cuts, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents”. It does make you think, doesn’t it!