Thinking about children playing out.

 I was woken at about 7.00 this morning by my phone ringing. As a rule, when your phone rings early in the morning it means there is an emergency of some kind going on. This was a chickenpox emergency. Could the small boy come to our house today with his chickenpox as he couldn’t go to pre-school? Well, OK. Not a problem. Five minutes later she called back. He was going to stay at home with his big sister after all. My daughter had not asked Granddaughter Number Two initially because she is busily writing assignments for university and has deadlines to meet. Granddaughter Number Two, however, overheard the original phone call and declared that she can multi-task and would love to look after her small brother. Could I be on standby though for later in the week? So I expect we’ll have the small boy on Thursday as Granddaughter Number Two is out to lunch with friends that day. 

My sister posted this “story”, by someone called Jill Thomas, on Facebook this morning: 

““Come,” said the pencil to the boy, “and draw with me.” So the boy reached for the pencil, about to touch it to his sketch pad. “But I can show you a three-hour drawing condensed into three minutes,” said the Smartphone. 

So the boy watched the drawing of a world map, complete with oceans, seas, and capitals, finished in three minutes. 

“Come,” said the paintbrush to the boy, “and paint a river with me.” So the boy picked up the paintbrush, about to dip it into the sky-blue watercolor paint. “But I can show you a river in India, one in Alaska, and the largest waterfall in the world,” said the Smartphone. 

So the boy watched videos of the Rivers Ganges and Alsek, and clips of Victoria Falls tumbling 5,600 feet into volcanic dikes.

“Come,” said the books, “and read about a lion that battles a witch and a ship’s journey into heaven.”So the boy opened one, curled up on the couch and began reading. “But I can give you the movie,” replied the Smartphone, “and a soundtrack that stirs your soul.” 

So the boy closed the book, got up from the couch, sat at the counter, and watched the video.

“Come,” called the trees and birds outside. “Climb us, and listen to us sing.” As the boy stepped outdoors, the Smartphone called, “But with me you can play a game where you scale mountains while dodging man-eating vultures.” So the boy stepped back inside to play the game.

With his face glued to the Smartphone, the iPad next to him dinged: a text. The boy glanced at the message. Returning to his game, he heard a ping: an e-mail in his inbox. He read it and returned to his Smartphone, where a flashing Snapchat announcement obscured a bloodthirsty vulture.

Next to his iPad, the pencil lay motionless, and next to the computer, the paintbrush untinted.

And beside his Smartphone, “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” lay with uncreased pages, the lion’s roar stifled, the witch’s cackle silenced, and the gate into Imagination closed.”

A parable for our times perhaps, but it is still possible to limit how much time your children spend on electronic gadgets. You do need to organise activities though and it gets harder as they turn into teenagers.  But little kids should be running around and playing out and I’ve read a few things about it over the last few days.

Here are some statistics:

• In England, parks budgets have fallen by £350m in the past 12 years.
• Consequently, playgrounds are falling to pieces, lack crucial bits of equipment, or are simply being locked up. 
• Almost 800 playgrounds have been closed in the UK in the last decade. 
• One in eight UK children live in a home with no garden.
• there are simply not enough playgrounds for the number of children in the country.
• in some areas, a sole playground can have thousands upon thousands of children in its catchment area. 

Here’s a link to an article where UK charities warn that children are suffering because of not playing outside often enough, if indeed at all. 

“Alice Ferguson, of Playing Out said: “Compared to previous generations, children’s lives have become incredibly restricted, indoors, isolated and inactive, largely due to changes in the outdoor environment. Government could reverse this trend and hugely improve children’s health and wellbeing by making streets safer and neighbourhoods more child-friendly, enabling them to get outside and play every day.”

And I thought about the children who live in our immediate neighbourhood. The relatively new housing estate around the corner has no playing space at all. In our row of older houses we have shared garden areas. There is one family, a very sporty family, who have a basketball hoop and a football goal post (both small size) in the garden. The parents often organise them to practise their skills when the weather is fine. But I rarely see them just “playing out” whereas our children, when they were maybe between 6 and 12 or 13 spent a lot of time just playing invented games in the garden, games which involved a good deal of running and jumping and climbing and chasing. Do children still do that?

Yesterday when I was out running I saw a party of school children, probably from the local junior school out walking through one of the fields, all in their yellow reflective vests, listening to information about “wild” footpaths. And today our daughter is doing forest school, which I think involves having their lessons mostly in a shelter in the school grounds and doing hands-on outdoor activities - in the rain today!

But it’s not the same as just “playing out”. I’ve just had lunch with a friend and we talked, among other things, about roaming around in our childhood, of hours spent on the recreation ground and only going home for lunch. Of course there was less traffic then and roaming was a safer activity than it is now, but schools used to spend time making sure we knew about road safety, even before it was labelled The Green Cross Code, whose campaign began in 1970 and apparently continues to this day. Nowadays I understand it targets older teenagers, reminding them about the danger of crossing the:road while on the phone. 

We seem to have lost some of the freedom of childhood, 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!