Unwrap the cotton wool and get real

I’ve ranted about cotton wool kids before, both in the USA and here in Australia. It’s not new in the UK either, and I note that in Scandinavia, helicopter parents are known as “curling parents” (sweeping obstacles aside for their kids).

And it’s a real shame that with the best of intentions, “panicky parents are breeding a generation of ‘cotton wool kids’ too afraid to climb trees or ride their bikes”. Don’t parents remember their own childhoods?

Worse, it seems that we’ve reached a point that the sight of children playing outside is considered suspect.

How did this happen?

Why can’t society accept that kids actually need some risky play in their lives?

‘Children are not being allowed many of the freedoms that were taken for granted when we were children,’ said Adrian Voce, director of Play England. ‘They are not enjoying the opportunities to play outside that most people would have thought of as normal when they were growing up.’…Voce pointed out how irrational some of these decisions were. Last year, almost three times as many children were admitted to hospital after falling out of bed as those who had fallen from a tree.

And here’s another thing that I hadn’t thought of: it turns out that too much indoor play could be bad for children’s eyesight. If mollycoddled kids rarely go outside into the natural light and rarely have to look further than the computer screen, is it really surprising that they are at risk of becoming near-sighted?

“We ‘ad it tough…”

When I was a kid, I’m sure my parents had exactly the same concerns as today’s helicopter parents, but their approach was quite different: they taught us things like how to swim, to watch out for snakes, and to respect other people’s property. The rest was up to us, more or less. Mum just had to know who we were mucking around with and that we’d be home for dinner. [And if you're reading this, thanks Mum.]

There’s an old story in my family about how our parents had to choose holiday destinations that were in close proximity to a hospital, because I would inevitably need to be hauled off to casualty to be stitched up or have a limb put in plaster. The reality was a little different. Oh sure, I was sometimes (often?) injured on our holidays, but I can remember some pretty long drives from remote locations to small country hospitals. Maybe I was accident-prone or maybe I was just a kid having some real-life adventures. Either way, that didn’t stop my folks taking the whole tribe well-and-truly off the beaten track. For the record, those childhood holidays were bloody fantastic and recalling those old adventures (and accidents) make great stories. [Again, thanks Mum.]

I guess I sound like one of The Four Yorkshiremen, but here’s my point: no one wants to see their kids get hurt, but it’s entirely possible that shielding them from real experiences is far, far more harmful. Sheesh, get those kids outside—let ‘em climb trees and ride bikes—sure they might get hurt, but they will definitely experience something far more important: a real childhood.

More on related topics

• What precisely is wrong with playing on the road?
• Pedal-powered Pong?
• ‘Bicycles are the new cars’
• Kids mount-up in Benalla
• Fat-arsed schoolkids