Family – The report's author, Dr William Bird, the health adviser to Natural England and the organizer of a conference on nature and health on Monday, believes children's long-term mental health is at risk.
When we were kids, as long as we listened for the dinner bell (yes, we had a big bell hanging outside our door and my mother would bang that sucker hard enough that we could hear it a half mile away at least) or got home in time for dinner (did not keep dad waiting) we were good. We rode our bikes from town to town, roamed through the woods (again, from town to town), built forts, did all sorts of stuff that if I allowed my kids to do it I would probably be reported to the DSS today.
I too did all those things, explored any patch of woods we found, rode our bikes everywhere, even 20 miles away. Unsupervised, yes we got hurt, yes we caused trouble and got into trouble sometimes,got into things we shouldn't have, yes a few times I could have been killed. But that really did feel like true freedom, and when we got into trouble and got grounded, since we had no tv, video games, cell phones in our bedrooms, it felt like prison.
I wouldn't have traded any of that freedom for anything. I've been somewhat guilty of over supervising my child...you hear too much crap in the news, there seems to be so many more sickos out there, and many more people and traffic...so much developement going on, plus gov interference.
One day someone did call CPS on me, I was right downstairs of my 2nd story apt, outside, sitting, my child asleep. The eqivelent of parents sitting in the back yard. Nothing came of it of course, but what a bunch of BS.
I guess those were the 'good ole days' sniffle sniffle.
Yes, those were the good old days. I often wonder though whether our parents were more careless or more occupied with other things. I don't think there were fewer sickos then; they were just not in people's faces all the time (no TV) and we were just warned about them by our parents. There is definitely more traffic though.
The way I see it, the article deals with two issues and mixes them a bit: exploring nature and supervision. We do tend to supervise our children more, but that should not stop us from introducing them to nature and to activities that help them explore it. Perhaps they can't do it alone at the age 8, but as they get older, they can get more and more freedom, so early supervision does not have to lead to a separation from nature.
I do believe there are more "sickos" than decades ago. Where I grew up there was a "community morality". People were true neighbors and watched out for the children of others as well as their own.
No our parents were not careless or more preoccupied with other things. They had less TV for instance. They merely trusted their environment and community. Also they had a standard of obedience for their children. If we were told to be home by 5PM we were!!! We answered before the second call or paid for it!! If my children heard my whistle (I refused to yell for my children to come home from the playground) they were to respond immediately. To this day all I need do in a store to gain the attention of my adult children is to snap my fingers several times!
Not child abuse but training for proper responses to authority.
So totally true - community morality. Unlike today, adults knew right from wrong and had common sense. So did most kids. Any adult could play the role of parent to any kid who got out of line. If a kid got disciplined at school, he also got it when he got home.
Today's independence means kids flip off any adult other than a parent. Teachers who disciplne end up with parents in their face.
I think my parents were a bit naive- moving from a city to the suburbs, where they felt very safe. We left things out in the yard, we never locked our doors, we didn't lock our cars or garages. Redneck you are right-at least in my neighborhood, all neighbors watched out. It was hard to do wrong things, not only did you have to worry about your parents finding out, but also the neighbors, because there would be a phone call. For trick or treat night- there were no strangers in the neighborhood, you could go into anyones house if they invited you in. yeah some bad stuff happened- but we all survived and know how to cope with things. There was respect for authority- that means teachers, police, doctors, adults period, if you wanted to do bad things, ok, you knew you might suffer the consequences. My parents NEVER got into anyones face about dicipline from others in authority..you got a whack from a teacher meant you got another when you got home.
You are probably right. Our parents were more naive, which might have stemmed from the fact that they were less exposed to all the bad things that happen in the world. We also live not only in a more crowded world (the vast majority of the population living in cities), but also in a more mobile society. When people move on average every 3-5 years, there is little chance to get to know each other well and to really look out for each other's children.
I have to add that it's not the same everywhere. I noticed in Japan in a fairly large and busy city that children as young as 5 or 6 were going to school alone, crossing busy streets. My son explained that it is quite safe for them partly because they are very disciplined and obey the traffic signs, and partly because everybody looks out for them.
Snapping fingers..
My goodness! I'd have NEVER responded to that as a child, nor would EVER have dreamt of controlling my daughter that way.
Parents have such a tremendous head-start with their children; they'll respond joyously without any such prompts.
Authority?
Its completely irrelevant compared to love and respect and TRUST.
My daughter had a haphazard education in several countries on different continents, speaks several languages fluently including a Slavic language, and under her own steam became an Oxford Scholar.
Yes, yes, yes. That is the approach I tried to follow with my children and, as far as I can tell, succeeded. I've never been very big on authority even in my own dealings with authority figures, and I'm definitely not one of the "young people today." Respect, which has to be earned, is much more important to me than authority, and in my experience, if children are treated with respect, they reciprocate.
I agree with you 100% that respect is it!
They are all different characters though and we need to meet them that way.
I had the most joyous experience in my life of catching my daughter when she was born. The "labour" consisted of her flying out 20 minutes after her mother woke up thinking that she needed a bowel movement. She looked me right in the eye and her eyes said "I KNOW you".
I'm 27 and my oldest will be 8 next month. the 3 who live with me listen well like that... in public. At home they drive me batty with questions. and they have freedom to an extent. fenced yard with a tree to climb, multipurpose-game/art room. No T.V. Only a projector where they watch a movie every day or two.
When I was a kid I also had the luxury of being about to walk, ride a bike and just play in the dirt. When my children were little we moved out to the boonies and they still had a chance to play and enjoy nature. Now I live in a small city and I have no little kids but I do see the young ones in the neighborhood and they are unable to leave the street they live on. It is sad how things have changed but safety comes first since we have unsavory people out there you got to protect you kids.
When I was a kid the island of Montreal was my playground, nothing or nowhere was out of bounds, as a teenager I hitched hiked across Canada 7 times, to and from Ottawa, never a problem. Not chance of this for my kids though and it is sad.As a kid and a young man your word and a handshake was more than enough to settle a bargain, now you need 20 lawyers and it still isn't a sure thing, what a flipping mess progress is
The difference between my own childhood and today is so stark that I sometimes wonder if I imagined many of the things I used to do. We used to wander about as far as we wanted to, so long as we could make it home in time for dinner. These experiences were mainly in small town/country environments so I don't know how much things are changed for people who live in the concrete jungles of cities.
We never even used to lock the door of our house until the 80's. Now we fear even our shadow (which I've noticed has been suspiciously following me lately, so I'd better contact homeland security and report it).
"Now we fear even our shadow (which I've noticed has been suspiciously following me lately, so I'd better contact homeland security and report it)"
yeah, I've been recieving threats from my shadow. Tried to report it and they all just laughed. Now I'm stuck in this 5by5 room with it, eating stuffing from the walls!
LOL
Kids are missing out on alot of things. I use to go to the local creek, sane for minnows, catch crawdads, dug up worms, then went fishing in the local pond.( I was a tomboy..lol)
I buy my grandkids balsa wood airplanes to put together & play. (just recently my son & grandson spent 4 hours playing with two of those balsa wood airplanes.) I also have shown my grandkids how to use a blade of grass to make a whistle.
The other day, two young boys that live on this lake, they have made their own raft from pieces of wood & foam. The were paddling around the lake edge and fishing. The used a shirt & a stick for a sail and a small board for a paddle. I thought of Mark Twains books, while watching the two boys on that raft.
Without the freedoms to roam, one loses imagination, the adventure & creativity, sad for kids today. Nature trails & visit to a farm would help kids today!
I agree that kids are missing a lot but time has changed and so has the overall scene. You can't allow your kids these days to just go and bang!
ameliog said- our imagination was as large as the outdoors itself!
And then it was GIANT, time seemed to go slow, now it seems to goes fast and the world seems to have shrunk :-(
and the things we used to eat.and without all the perservatives now days...OMG, now there are all kinds of warnings, poisons, worry worry worry!
what progess has really been made, when you have to give so much up.
The world is still huge for kids today because they know so little of it and they are little themselves. Time also goes much slower for them because compared to what they have already lived, every hour is a fairly big portion, whereas for the old folks it's a very small part indeed. (Well, that's just my theory, so don't take it seriously.)
It does seem that we worry more though. Those out there who have grandchildren, did you worry as much about your children as your children worry about your grandchildren? Did you give your children more freedom? There is no doubt that the world of children has shrunk, I'm just wondering how much of it is real and how much is illusion.
Why? Why can't we let our kids do this? Did the world really change so much in 20-30 years that they can't enjoy what we did? If they can't, what did we work for? A bigger TV? What kind of world do we want to leave them, and our grandkids?
I hear a mother say that her child would NEVER be without supervision until they were 18. She beamed, proud that she was a "proper", attentive parent. I wondered to myself, "and what will your child do on her 18th birthday? Quiver alone in her room, afraid to leave the house when her mother steps out to go shopping for the first time?
When I was a child, my curfew was nightfall. I had a light on my bike, but I wasn't supposed to be out so late that I needed it. When I as about 10-11 years old, I'd ride a big loop nearly every day, one that was about 10 miles long, and took me over 4 miles from my home. I'd hang out with friends, visit the local airport (private field), etc.
I was a child of the 80s (born in 1980) in suburbia, not a lot of nature. My big adventure was going to the local convenient store ( 2 or 3 blocks away) and buying a slushie. We used to hop fences and play in each others yards. It was recent enough that the neighboorhood parents were really worried about strangers though. We got the stranger danger lecture at least once a day. Now my nephews have to stay on their street and are driven to school and everywhere else. It's a hard line to toe, over protection/supervision and saftey.
I was letting my son walk to school (15 minute walk) in a small town and the school called DSS on me. I explained that we have no vehicle and no bus stops that close to the school. After looking at my son, seeing he was well fed, not abused and generally happy, they just snickered at the school's antics. Then again recently they came for a visit, because something my son said got totally turned around. Those DSS people are a pain in the butt, yet pretty nice.
Good grief, it's the parents who make their kids fat by driving them everywhere who should be up for child abuse!!
Our schools only let you take a bus over 1 mile for jr high and 3 miles for sr high, and nobody wanted to be caught dead being driven to school.
We lived in a suburb on the edge of farm and woodland. We had the run of the place and nightfall/dinnertime as curfew.
I think one big difference was that most families there were one or both parents working from home - either stay-at-home moms or farmers or whatever. Also there was a fair sprinkling of grandparents, in whose yards and barns we hung out. No yards were off limits, we just went from one to another. So it was pretty easy to track down a kid, somebody always had see you. I don't know if there were more sickos or not, but in any case even city kids I know had pretty tight neighborhoods were folks knew each other at least by sight. That makes a huge difference on safety. And sense of community.
i'm blessed that we have 400 acres in the middle of nowhere so my kids spend every day like the "good old days". i don't see them til dark, they graze out of the garden & just spent the afternoon making & flying paper airplanes. of course, it also helps that i run a dog rescue with 40 big dogs so the kids are never alone. because of the dogs, everyone except the idiot jehovah's witnesses know enough to stay off our property. even they have been warned that the next time they show up, if the dogs don't get them, i'm holding them til the cops get here on trespassing charges. i don't want anyone near my kids, especially religious nuts!
mary, can I come build a house on your property? My kids & I will help with the dogs! We LOVE animals.
Just kidding.
But I can't wait for my camping trip!
bring your poo forks!!! but no shooting my snakes:~) & i've since been informed they aren't paper airplanes, they are birds! again, kids imagination at work. i wasn't as thrilled with them building spears & bow & arrows but they are doing stuff outside without adult involvement. h***, most of the time, i don't even WANT to know what they are doing.
This is a good article. And I saw one the other day about how violence against children peaked in the 70's and has gone down ever since then and how now children are the safest they've been ever. Maybe that's because they don't go out. Another phenomena the author didn't explore is how families had large numbers of children, and today we dote on one or two. Years ago, up to half the children would die from childhood diseases by the time they reached adulthood due to lack of simple antibiotics and vaccines. I think people also accepted childhood death as a painful, but prevalent way of life. Interesting. I personally let my kids wander--take the bus, ride their bikes, but my husband is part of the "drive them" themesong, which I think makes them more dependent and less able to function on an adult level. oh well.
it is sad how kids no longer play outside. it's even sadder that parents make "play dates" for them. what the hell is a "play date"? let the kids make their own friends!
as koranagirl noted, kids are safer today. stranger abductions are rare. there aren't any more "sickos and perverts" out there now, we are only more aware of them.
children can't be protected from everything. make them aware of the dangers of the world and turn them loose. The kids that live on my block are lucky. They get to play in the street. They ride their bikes, they jump rope, they play basketball, they chase each other around.
But then about three quarters of the people on my block are new to the United States. They haven't learned the rules of don't let your kids be kids yet.
When I was younger I spent many hours swimming in the creek that runs through two miles of pasture we own,I would climb trees and walk for miles. When I was in my early forties my kids would have friends over and we all would go swimming in the creek in the evening just before sundown, last week one of my oldest son's friends came home from Alberta and stopped in for a visit we sat and talked for quite awhile and just before sundown he asked if I still went swimming in the creek, I replied to him that I still do, he promised to come back some evening before leaving to go for an evening swim. I'm lucky because the world has changed so much but that creek and pasture are the same as when my grandfather swam there many years ago. I have two sons that still like to come home in the fall when we bring the cattle in because when we go out to get them it is all done on foot, to them this is a freedom that very few people know.
I guess I can say my kids are lucky. We live on 11 achers of woods. We live 5 miles from the nearest gas station and all between us and it are some farms and houses. Now I don't let the younger ones roam around by themselves so much. 7, 6, and 5 just isn't quite old enough for that but they get outside every day and can explore the edge of the woods. They pick the wild grapes and Blackberries for me and fish the crawdads out of the creek. If you took away our phones, tv's, satalite, computers, they would live a very 1920's kind of life. Freedom to be children and explore their world while still being required to learn the importance of disipline and hard work.
I'm faily young still so the only time I was allowed to roam was on weekly camping trips. It was good for me. When I mentioned that i wanted to go camping so my 7yr old could do the same, my mother was aghast! My dad tried to console her reminding her how good I did roaming the woods' always finding my way back. But she would hear none of it. So then I suggested that the first few trips I'd accompany him so that he could become familiar with the surroundings, My dad laughed, saying I wasn't as young as I used to be and that there are snakes out there. Ha ha, there were snakes then too, I used to shoot at them with my bb gun. They were more afraid of me than I was of them!
I'm not sure if there are necessarily more sick people per capita. I knew of several serious incidents growing up that were kept hush-hush because people just didn't talk as openly about these things. e.g. if a school employee was suspected of sexual misconduct, they were quietly dismissed and it was never spoken of again; if somebody's parent seemed a little "off" you simply weren't allowed to play at that friend's house, etc..
I believe there has always been a certain level of danger but thankfully it's not a taboo subject anymore. My mom did an excellent job teaching us to avoid people that made us feel unsafe and her lessons helped me in more than a few situations.
When I was a child in the 60's we just had to be home before dark. Now, unfortunately there is too much danger around to allow children to 'roam'. It's a sad reality.
Is there more danger, or better (and more sensational) reporting of it? With 24/7 news networks, any story quickly gets saturation coverage
Not sure SJ some of both? But the the time the man poisoned his kids one Halloween everthing seemed to change. I can tell you that as a child we didn't lock our doors but now that would be unheard of.
A couple of months ago during the peanut butter scare, I was eating a peanut butter/jelly sandwich (whole grain bread and natural peanut butter for the health food police out there, BTW) and a friend nearly freaked out. When I told her that the brand I'm eating wasn't the one affected, she said that she still wouldn't take the chance. I'm not the bravest person in the world, but I'm starting to OD on all the warnings about how dangerous things are.
I feel sorry for kids who won't ever get a chance to go door to door every Halloween in their weird outfits trick or treating. Nowadays, Halloween is an adult holiday. If I were a kid, I would be p-ssed! ;-)
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i have a friend in his 60's who rode his bicycle ALL over london as a child, and that was still common among his friends.
this is a very huge issue for the present and future political world we will live in, and it gets almost zero attention.
We smother our children with supervision. When do they have time to develop their imagination?
I'm not sure it's a case of smothering them with supervision. I think it's more like micro managing their lives to achieve status. So oft heard: My (child) is doing (laundry list of structured, scheduled activities). And it's usually said the way people talk about the importance of job, new house, new car, vacation, etc. It's as though we've made our kids into yet another status symbol.
I coach little league. In our championship game last week, I lost 4 kids half way through. 2 to a soccer game. 2 to a pool party.
We made a calculated effort not to over manage our kids. TV, computer, video game time was limited from the start. They can choose two things. Period. They each chose a sport. One chose music lessons, the other dance. Otherwise, they've been encouraged to be outside, ride bikes, play in our yard or friend's. I think we did right. We have the dustiest Playstation in the world.
What is wrong with our society today!?