It has been reported that parents are too scared to let their children play outside; are they over-reacting?

Originally posted here by the Next Best Thing To Mummy

The children have gone back to school now after the long summer break, but we still have a good month’s worth of light evenings were children could play outside if they are allowed.

When I was a girl, my sisters and I would play outside with our friends when the weather was fine,we lived on a housing estate so were in a safe environment.

Our favourite pastime was a game we made up ourselves;which we called block 1,2,3, it was a take on hide- n- seek. There were about 12 of us, the only real issue was that my dad who was (and still is)proud of his garden wasn’t keen when we all ran across his front lawn!

My husband tells me that he and his siblings were ‘kicked out’ of the house in the morning and didn’t come home until evening.

 

I think that the reasons parents are afraid to let their children out to play is the fear that something will happen to them or someone taking them away.

When I was growing up we didn’t hear of such incidents as much as we do now:the internet tells us news from all around the world: good and bad.

A police officer has said that the greatest danger to children playing outside is being knocked over. Read my post on road safety here

When my boys were young   I let them play on their bikes on the pavement outside my house, we lived on a quiet road so they were safe.

 

The neighbours children did the same and all the adults kept an eye on the children from our windows.

When we moved to another house and my son’s were older we let them do a similar thing, they were allowed to ride as far as the lamppost with the neighbour’s children with all the adults looking out at them.

Going back to my childhood; my friend and I liked to make what we called perfume. It was actually rose petals ( that we collected from everyone’s gardens along with a few earwigs) soaked in water.

 

Back then we didn’t have the games consoles and i pads that children have now so we found playing indoors boring.

Children also need to learn about stranger danger before being permitted to play outside. Read my post here  

I would be interested to hear if parents let their children play outside, please share any thoughts.

 

As always questions and comments are welcome.

Until next time.

Karen

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