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The nanny state banner is a bit premature, but just wait. If we can legislate trans-fats out of food, it won’t be long before fun is legislated out of childhood. For your own good, of course. |
Over-cautious parents stop play
Children are being denied adventurous play because their parents are nervous about exposing them to risk, a new survey suggests.
The UK-wide poll, commissioned by Play England, found half of 7-12 year olds have been stopped from climbing trees.
It also showed 21% of those surveyed had been banned from playing conkers, and 17% were not allowed to play chase.
The ICM poll interviewed 1,030 children and young people aged 7-16, and 1,031 adults during July 2007.
Play England, which says it promotes free play opportunities, insists that parents “constantly wrapping children in cotton wool” can harm the children’s development.
The poll found showed 51% of children aged 7-12 were not allowed to climb a tree without adult supervision, with 49% stopped from climbing trees altogether because it was considered too dangerous.
You kids get off my lawn AND my trees, damnit!
Surely the current generation knows better than all the others that preceded it where raising children is concerned.
My cousin’s kid just spent a month in the hospital after puncturing her trachea after falling off monkey bars. Rest assured… she’ll be back on them when she gets better.
Trans-fats? Somebody’s got a bit of a pet peeve.
I had several dangerous activities I enjoyed as a kid:
1. Climbing to the top of the tree in our yard and holding on as it swayed back and forth.
2. Riding a skate board while towed by a bicycle.
3. Bicycle Jumps and Demolition Derbies.
I got hurt once. Today I require the kiddies to wear a helmet and I “ask” them to try and be careful. Fingers crossed.
Course, as an adult, I can’t say skiing, mountain climbing, and parasailing are really any safer, but I do wear a helmet.
My kids broke noses, skinned knees, got stitches, etc. I did sensible things like bike helmets and they didn’t die. They cried, got dirty, and went through the knees on a lot of clothes.
I really didn’t care what other parent did, I raised my kids the way I wanted. What drove me crazy was other parents who were constantly trying to “morally improve me and my kids”.
Apparently I’m a terrible parent since my kids had scabs on their knees and elbows, I let them eat crap (and they learned to like good food), I didn’t hydrate them with the correct fluid replacement regime, let them watch mind rotting cartoons on Saturday morning, and bathed once a week whether they needed it or not.
Kids only have a few years to live like this. Denying them that pleasure is kind of “reverse neglect”.
““constantly wrapping children in cotton wool””
English Cotton Wool = U.S. Toilet Paper
And wearing a helmet might have been a good idea when I was a kid after getting my bell rung after being tossed over the handle bars of my bike in many a wreck.
#4–QB==”reverse neglect.” Thats a winner. I’ll give you 24 hours to put your copyright on it, then I’ll go for it.
#6 I give it to you freely.
Anyways, I’m too busy right now. I’m back home today to pack up a few things (bikes, camping gear, etc) and my 15 year old son and I are heading off on the road for a few days with no plans or agenda.
I don’t where we’ll stay, I don’t know what we’ll do, I don’t what we’ll eat, and I don’t know if we’ll bath (well we will, but not enough). He’ll learn some road skills, we’ll have a lot of fun, and we’ll get away from the women (just like the women need to get away from us).
Apparently I’m still a bad parent.
I agree… I rarely see kids just out playing any more. When I was growing up, between me, my brother, and my cousins, one of us ended up in the emergency room to be patched together at least once a month. The nurses at the hospital recognized my mom’s car when she would pull up with another bleeding boy in it.
Not that any of these setbacks would stop our youthful experiments testing the limits of gravity, physics, and explosives.
#8 Excellent point. Blowing up things is fundamental to a happy childhood.
You mean there are still kids out there who aren’t too fat for monkey bars and tree climbing???
Whew, glad to hear that!
Unplug the game consoles, throw out the tellies and let your kids eat some dirt! I remember being able to play all day and had to come in when the street lights came on. It wasn’t eons ago either (since I am in my 20’s). If I wasn’t home when the street lights came on, then I got the two-fingered whistle and I better have my ass home soon at that point!
I would rather not have kids at all rather than having them live in a overly sterilized world with fear and panic being my parental guide. The same goes for adults too though.
Do something you fear everyday.
QB, the road trip sounds like fun! I wish my parents had done something like that with me! We went on a lot of hikes and my mom would drag me to her excavation sites when she was taking archaeology classes. I am one of those girls who keeps her nails short so it is easier to pick the dirt out and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Also, it is amazing to me that many adults would rather go to these commercial water parks for “clean and sanitary” water fun only to have their kids come down with crypto and other water spread bacteria. Mud is a hell of a lot cleaner than the literal feces and urine of hundreds of people that they are swimming in at those parks.
Conkers? Chase? WTF??? (hello UK 🙂 )
“and it has been deemed that anything not good for you is bad, hence illegal. Alcohol, caffeine, contact sports, meat…” Demolition Man
Have a joy joy day.
QB said:
Anyways, I’m too busy right now. I’m back home today to pack up a few things (bikes, camping gear, etc) and my 15 year old son and I are heading off on the road for a few days with no plans or agenda.
I don’t where we’ll stay, I don’t know what we’ll do, I don’t what we’ll eat, and I don’t know if we’ll bath (well we will, but not enough). He’ll learn some road skills, we’ll have a lot of fun, and we’ll get away from the women (just like the women need to get away from us).
THAT IS AWESOME!! Have fun. There just isn’t enough of that anymore. My 13 year old just got back from a road trip to Colorado with four girls her age and one girl’s parents and another girls mom (I couldn’t go as I had to freakin’ go to Houston on business).
They had a few nights backpacking/camping in Rocky Mtn Nat’l Park and a couple days in Boulder no real agenda and no real plans. I was jealous.
They need to do that and get the opportunity to get out and be adventuresome.
BTW I jumped over ten kids lying down on my bike when I was young, My dad came out at just the wrong time and saw me. On the record I was grounded for a week, off the record he was pretty impressed.
“Conkers” is where you each have a chesnut on a string and take turns bashing them into one another (one holds theirs hanging while the other swings and hits) until the loser’s breaks.
“Apparently I’m a terrible parent since my kids had scabs on their knees and elbows, I let them eat crap (and they learned to like good food), I didn’t hydrate them with the correct fluid replacement regime, let them watch mind rotting cartoons on Saturday morning, and bathed once a week whether they needed it or not.”
Yup, gotta love the definition of a horrible parent for actually being a parent while still letting children be children.
This week’s Opus cartoon is a perfect example of what a kid should be.
The article was more on what we would let our kids do, not what we did as kids. My Mom used to play in bombed out buildings in London during the war, certainly not something any of us would recommend today. I think each new generation coddles the next more than the previous – perhaps until some upheaval like war or famine. We’re lucky in that we have a relatively safe street and kids play on it somewhat like the old days. There are more parents “on guard” but we’re all a little more paranoid than our parents.
Perhaps we should be pointing our parental fingers at the media that makes the world seem a nasty dangerous place for us and our families? Statistics don’t support the impression that the world is going to hell in a hand basket…
Half the fun of being a kid is injuring yourself severely. I’ve cut myself twice so badly that I bled like an open faucet, I’ve broken two bones, stabbed myself with a scalpel, given myself a 3rd degree burn on my thumb, and had a homemade firework blow up in my hand.
Ah, memories.
You guys are a bunch of pussies, I used to catch crabs & fishes at a river where the raw sewage was dumped directly into it.