by Julie Hall at ProgressiveKid
Parents are a jumpy bunch these days. Even before I had my daughter I was troubled by the prevailing attitude among parents that the world has become a place too dangerous to let kids be kids anymore. Popular opinion seems to be that it is now too risky to let children do time-tested things like play outside unsupervised, climb a tree, explore on a bike, or walk to school alone, all things my friends and I enjoyed as kids. Once I became a mother I began to witness first-hand the stifling paranoia among other parents about their kids’ safety and to see the effect it was having on kids. Not surprisingly a new major study by Play England, part of the National Children’s Bureau of Great Britain, found that half of all kids no longer climb trees and 17 percent have been instructed by their parents not to play tag or chase. Although 70 percent of adults reported having had their biggest childhood adventures outside in natural settings, only 29 percent of children have such opportunities today. Depressingly, most children reported having their biggest adventures in playgrounds. Continue reading
Filed under: living green, parenting, social issues, television | Tagged: Abduction rates, animal selves, “perverts on the loose”, child molestations and abductions, children’s safety, depression, disconnection from nature, faith in nature, Free Range Kids, free-range parenting, high-functioning adults, kids’ safety, Lenore Skenazy, Media fear-mongering, media hype, National Children's Bureau, natural cycles of living, negative media messages, obesity, online mother’s forum, outside play, parental fear, Play England, raising kids free-range, Richard Louv, risk-taking, sexual and physical abusers, the alienation of children from nature, the American Psychological Association, The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from N, the resilience of children, U.S. Department of Justice, violent crime against children | 1 Comment »