Posted on 02/17/2007 4:56:22 PM PST by saquin
Children who are cooped up indoors and prevented from playing freely suffer from "cabin fever" and are more likely to go off the rails, according to a Government adviser on children's play.
Parents and officials who believe their job is to eliminate risk from children's lives rob youngsters of the chance to develop vital skills and resilience, Tim Gill, the former director of Play England, will say this week at a seminar at the Royal Society for the Arts.
His comments come days after Bracebridge Heath Primary School, near Lincoln, was criticised for banning the game of tag at playtime because it was too boisterous, and Burnham Grammar School, in Buckinghamshire, clamped down on lunchtime kickabouts in case passers-by were hit by a football.
Headmasters have also been condemned for banning snowball fights and closing their schools in snowy weather because they feared pupils and staff might fall.
The impulse to be overly protective is having dire consequences for Britain's children, Mr Gill will say. "Children need their own space to make their own mistakes, deal with other children and push boundaries - the skills they once learnt playing in the streets or in the fields," he told The Sunday Telegraph. advertisement
"Now parents don't allow children to play out or walk to school and are scared to take their eyes of them in the park. Schools ban tag and conkers and are even banning running in the playground because of some misperception about the compensation culture.
"Not giving children space is disastrous. We are creating a kind of cabin fever. Some teenagers are out of control because they have never had these opportunities. Life is getting harder for children from all backgrounds. Some of the reason is the lack of opportunities to develop self-efficacy, the ability to self-regulate their behaviour."
Mr Gill, who led a Government-commissioned review of children's play, said teams working with young offenders reported that many had spent their lives watching television or hanging round estates and had never played outside.
"They've never been to the beach or to the park. Their opportunities to learn right from wrong, without adult intervention, to develop their everyday morality, have been severely curtailed. They have not learnt how to react if someone is making a fool of them or what to do if someone is challenging them. So much of those interactions you have to work out for yourself. Because they haven't learnt these skills when they were younger, by the time some children are teenagers they escalate situations and get their retaliation in first."
Officialdom was adding to over-protection. "Bureau-cracy and paperwork mean people are forced to complete long checklists that are more about covering people's backs than making things safer," he said.
Similar concerns have been expressed by Digby Jones, the Government's skills envoy and former director-general of CBI, and Prince Philip. Even the health and safety industry has attacked organisations that use it as an excuse to ban everyday activities. Lisa Fowlie, the president of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, said: "To ban football on the grounds of safety will deprive kids of the opportunity to let off steam and benefit from exercise. Football has been a playground sport for generations. Banning it is a gross over-reaction."
Two things to help you sort through the past and present. There were once a lot of nuts locked up in Asylums. Then came psychopharmaceuticals and the movement to empty the Asylums (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) in the 1980's. The other change can be see in old photographs of main street photos. Before the 1960's, storefronts had no security grilles. After the 1960's most did. Liberalism created a revolving door where criminals had to build up lengthy records in order to get a room in prison.
I do but that family has issues. If you saw the size of the mother and how she ate.... But it was pretty much epidemic where we used to live. I never saw so many really obese people in one community in my life. Welfare town, too.
Aside from that, though, I have to agree.
Best solution to the problem.
Many of these guys are repeat offenders. It won't stop the problem completely but the guy didn't get a chance to do it again.
"Off the rails". I love that term.
When I was a kid (in the 50s), we rarely played outside with adult supervision. We wandered aimlessly, learned a lot, and had a blast. The things we did.
My kids never got to do that and never even seemed to want to. Their childhoods were so dull compared to mine, but they seemed happy about it. I think we did about 500 times as many things as they did. When I tell them stories, their eyes get real big. Like the time we were out riding bikes and ended up near a tornado and got blown across a freeway by 100 mi/h winds. Mom asked, "What were you guys up to?" The stock answer was, "Oh, nothing much." Or the time my friend got picked up hitchhiking after his bike got stolen by the guy who wanted to... No. No more stories. Maybe tomorrow. Time to go to bed.
I guess it was our fault that they didn't get to wander.
They did lock them up for longer, and in fact, rape (particularly of a child) was a capital crime in the 1950s. So some of the creeps simply went bye-bye.
I grew up in the 1950s and 60s, and I knew you had to be careful - but at the same time, there were cetain standards and most people adhered to them. My kids grew up in the 70s and 80s, and they had to be more careful, but I tried not to be too paranoid. We lived in New York City (I had grown up there), which actually I believe to be a little safer than some suburbs and more remote areas.
That said, I have mixed feelings now. I think way too many parents are "smother mothers" or "helicopter parents," but at the same time I think things are more dangerous than they were were we were kids or when my children were small.
We need better judicial enforcement. A family member is a detective in a large city department, working in the child abuse area. She says the problem is that the police arrest the abusers very efficiently - and the judges let them go just as efficiently. The cops went to court and pleaded with a judge not to give a child back to the mother and boyfriend who were abusing him, but the judge did and two weeks later, the child was dead. Back in the 50s, that child would have been in an orphanage - and alive.
When I was a kid, and even though a girl, I was always out playing, or wandering about. I'd take a book, and I had a favorite tree to climb in an empty field. I'd climb up, perch in the crook of the branch, and read. One of the differences then as versus now, is that most women were stay-at-home mothers. Everyone in the neighborhood kept watch on everyone else's kids. It was hard to get into too much trouble or danger, as there was always a home to run to where someone would be home, and the whole neighborhood was watching your behavior, as well as watching over your safety. And you actually got punished or yelled at, by anyone's parents, not just your own, and your parents all backed each other up, rather than try to sue each other. And yes, there were some creeps around (like Peeping Toms), but they were much fewer in those days, and when caught were actually locked up. I'm so glad I was brought up in the late 40's and then the 50's when young. My teen years were in the 60's, and that's when things started getting dicey.
Very true.
The only time you should force your children indoors is for homework, dinner, bed(time), and (sometimes) daydreaming.
Good article and comments. I favor a slightly longer leash and some protection training. As a Scout leader, I get to do some safety training for the boys. I teach them to stay away from strangers and if anyone grabs them to forget everything their parents taught them about fighting fair. Kick, punch, gouge, scream, bite, poke the eyes and kick 'em in the nuts.
In every case, their parents looked on with approval.
I'd probably go to jail for murder if someone tried that with my kid.
LOL!! Sounds like ME!
We live in a tiny, 900 square foot house with a gigantic back yard. My kids know that if they don't want to go outside, DON'T run in the house! The minute they start running, I shove them outside to either ride their bikes, or pick up limbs in the yard or just to play.
I may keep it short is the temp is in the teens or hundreds.
;-D
When my children were younger they would sometimes complain about being bored. Me being in tune with their delicate rise to selfhood and their need for empowerment. Gave this sympathetic reply.
" Find something to do or I will find something for you to do". And you know, funny thing they usually always stopped being bored at that point.
I guess the thing to do now is try to do more with your children, as much as you can. I took mine golfing, on the bike path, etc., after work and on weekends. I notice some parents around here try to do that, make things a family affair.
Too much tv and video games are not good for kids. They get a skewed view of the world from technology. They need to learn about the birds, trees, bees, rocks and flowers, the beautiful outdoors that nothing can simulate, not to mention fresh air is so good for you.
It bothers me that so many kids are growing up surrounded by plastic. I saw a schoolroom with all bright colors and plastic everywhere. I think mine was better with the wooden desks and mosaic fishpond in my kindergarten room (the latter is long gone).
I agree - I think kids need lots of contact with their parents and lots of real, simple, enjoyable things to do. Even playing a silly card game like "Go Fish" or "I Doubt It" is fun when the whole family is there doing it, yelling at each other, nudging or shoving (in the case of my kids) and laughing.
But I think we need a little more judicial protection from the monsters in our society. Nothing is ever going to totally prevent them from attempting to do their evil, as your son's experience shows, but at least they should be discouraged from it by being presented with the possibility of serious punishment (death). Now it seems like there's virtually no punishment.
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