Despite 80 per cent of children in the UK saying they prefer to play outside, our streets are empty. Cathy Spencer reports.
Just 50 years ago and groups of children happily fished for tiddlers in Wolverhampton’s canal. They played in the streets and walked hand-in-hand to the park.
But now youngsters are either too scared or too lazy to venture outside and our streets are deserted.
“There are two things stopping children from playing outside,” says Professor Ken Manktelow, a psychology expert at Wolverhampton University.
“Firstly, there are more options for children in the house. I was a child in the 1950s and we didn’t even have a television.
“Secondly, it is the parent’s perception of the risks a child faces when they go outside. Now, some of these risks are justified and some are not.”
Professor Manktelow says the increase in traffic is a big problem because children can no longer have a game of football in the streets.
“What most parents are concerned about is their child being kidnapped or murdered,” he says. “They believe there is more of it happening today than ever before - but they are wrong.
“The number of children in the UK being murdered at the hands of a stranger has not gone up since records began.
“If they think more of it is going on now, then that is just because of media interest.
“If a child is murdered in Middlesborough then we find out about it and parents believe there is an immediate risk to their child in Wolverhampton.
“This would not have happened 50 years ago.”
A survey for this year’s Playday found that 80 per cent of children in the UK prefer playing outside to playing indoors.
When asked, 86 per cent said they preferred outdoor activities, including playing out with their friends, building dens and getting muddy, to playing computer games.
These results explode the myth that the couch potato generation would rather surf the web, watch hours of TV and compete for the highest score on the latest PlayStation than do anything as old-fashioned as going to the park or the woods with their friends.
However, a Home Office survey last year revealed that as many as 33 per cent of eight to 10-year-olds never play out without an adult being present.
When they do venture out, children are increasingly ferried around in their parents’ cars for journeys that used to be made on foot.
Roy Hawthorne, who worked with Jim Dowdall on the book ‘Images of Wolverhampton’ and Ron Davies on ‘Bilston, Bradley & Ladymoor’ says he was surprised at how quickly things had changed.
He says: “When we were putting the books together we came across some lovely pictures of children playing in the streets in the 1950s.”
Pictures in the books show youngsters fishing for tiddlers in Wolverhampton’s Broad Street canal, children chatting and playing on Summer Row and youngsters playing at the side of the road in Nursery Street.
There is also a picture of children playing house on Mr Hallmark’s field in Cross Street. “The beauty in this picture comes from the children, who in a world of their own, safely play at houses,” says Roy.
“Just a few bricks and stones are placed to resemble the shape of a house, with a gap for a doorway and a simple fire place containing a few sticks and perhaps a lump of coal - such happiness that children of today will never know.
“A lot of youngsters don’t play in the streets today because of the traffic and the parked cars.
“Also, children appear to be more mischievous and adults can be scared of speaking to them.”
There has also been a steady loss of space dedicated to children’s play, to the point where for every acre of land occupied by playgrounds in England, there are now more than 80 acres taken up by golf courses.
Children’s Play Council estimates that there is an average of 2.3 square metres of public play space for each child under 12. That’s about the size of a kitchen table.
The catastrophic effect of these increasingly sedentary young lifestyles has meant one in four adults and children in the UK is obese, and the figure is rising in younger children.
The British Medical Journal concluded in 2001 that there is “an obesity epidemic in young children”.
Professor Manktelow says keeping children under lock and key is not only unhealthy but can damage them socially.
“If children are being kept in by their parents then they are missing out on an awful lot of hours spent with friends,” he says.
“They are not learning how to behave with other people and how to manage different situations.
“Not only are they missing out on fitness skills but they are not learning how to climb trees or build dens. They may know how to navigate their way around a PlayStation but these are not life skills which will help them socially.”
Popular stories:
Share this article:
What are these?