Trust

Kate Moorcock: teacher and author of Swings and Roundabouts

Parents are in a no win situation. After years of campaigns, information and guidelines on how parents neglect their children, abuse their children and let them run about in the traffic without proper supervision we are now being told we are over-protective and bringing up a generation of battery reared children.

Parenting has always involved anxiety. What has changed is that in the past parents had more confidence in trusting their own judgement or the common sense of friends or relatives as to when a child was ready to take the next step towards independence.

Our self confidence has been undermined by the mountains of information, advise and support all raising our awareness to a range of problems from bulimia, bullying and baby Walkers to sweets, strangers and smacking, to mention a few.

A recent Mori poll found that 80% of parents said they would not let their children go to the park alone. However, the most recent observational study found that children are playing out at the same rates as in the 1970s. They are just not allowed to go very far.

Parents are saying they are keeping their children in more than they are because to say you let your child out to play unsupervised is increasingly seen as irresponsible. A social worker from Stratford told me that letting a ten-year-old out to play unsupervised in the park is seen by some in her trade as a sign of child neglect.

In contrast to parental fears it is the case that every aspect of our children's lives is safer and more healthy than in previous generations both inside and outside the home. For example, there were nearly 480,000 outdoor play injuries that resulted in a trip to hospital in 1996. However what is less well publicised is that most of these accidents, 53%, were bumps, scrapes and bruises. A person under 18 years has a 0.01% chance of staying in hospital as the result of an outdoor play accident.

Although there are still too many road accidents these too are in decline. If one looks at child pedestrian deaths per mile walked that takes account of decreased mobility they declined by 34% over the 6 years between 1985 and 1992. The reasons for this involve progress in road design, car design Accident and Emergency treatment and driver awareness. It is also probably the case that more children are accompanied when they cross the road.

We are passing our fears on to children and making them cautious too. Leeds City Council found such an increase in pedestrian injuries each October that they have had to design a road safety skills programme for under graduates coming to their city. They are having to teach adults to cross the road because already people have not had the opportunity to practice these skills in childhood.

We do not trust children to be able to develop well by themselves. We are very good at providing them with computer games, videos, trips to stimulating theme parks and museums, games clubs, art clubs and dance lessons and all these things are wonderful.
But we just can't leave them alone. We worry that they will come to harm, get into trouble or not make the most of this vital time.

The trouble with supervised activity, no matter how fun, is that the adult direction or intervention reduces the emotional, psychological and physical risk taking and risk taking is a developmental necessity. Doing something new is a risk and for children everything is new. When a grown up resolves an argument, or defines the rules of play then children will not do these things for themselves.

Really responsible adults have to recognise that developing into an adult in modern society is a complex and sophisticated task that takes two forms of care. Children need the food of education, adult stimulation and a variety of experiences but they also need to be left alone to digest these for themselves.

What we really have to monitor, watch and constrain are our irrational fears and trust children to do the things that will be of use to them. Good grown ups ignore children at times. We need get a grip and trust parents and most importantly trust children to do what is best for the next generation.