Battery children... and why, trapped in their computer-filled bedrooms, they'll never know the joy of a free-range childhood
By STEPHEN MOSS
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Growing up in the Sixties, I was a free-range child — we all were. From the age of eight or nine, at weekends and during school holidays, my mum would pack me off to explore the outside world. As I went out the door, she gave me one simple instruction: ‘Be back home for tea.’
For me, and for all the boys and girls of my generation, this was a passport to freedom. We climbed trees and built dens, picked flowers and played conkers, and filled jam-jars to bursting with frogspawn.
Occasionally we indulged in more dubious pastimes, such as scrumping apples and taking the odd bird’s egg.
Free-range: Children are not getting the chance to experience the joys of heading off into the countryside and making up their own fun. (Posed by models)
I don’t want to give the wrong impression — that we lived in some kind of rural idyll, like something out of Swallows And Amazons. In reality, I grew up on a housing estate on the edge of London’s suburban sprawl.
We used to play in the scrubby strip of woodland that ran along the back of my house, which we called ‘the forest’, or the local gravel pits — for us a real-life adventure playground.
For the past few months I have been writing a report for the National Trust called Natural Childhood.
It asks how we can reconnect Britain’s children with the natural world. Along the way I’ve discovered some pretty terrifying statistics about childhood today.
In a single generation since the Seventies, the area around their home where children are allowed by their parents to roam has declined by 90 per cent.
Fewer than one in ten children play in wild places and, most depressing of all, 11 to 15-year-olds spend half their waking life in front of TV or computer screens.
Back in the Sixties, my friends and I weren’t posh or privileged, with doting parents to take us on country walks. Exploring the natural world was just one of the things we all did to quell the constant threat of boredom.
Harmful: Too much time in front of the television and computer games is bad for children
Remember, children’s TV was only on for a couple of hours each afternoon, and mobile phones and home computers were still decades into the future.
We would often come home with grazed knees and torn trousers, much to our mums’ annoyance.
Sometimes we got caught in the rain, and on one memorable occasion I plunged waist-deep into muddy water in pursuit of an escaping frog.
But most of the time we simply had fun. Unlike the modern generation, we were fit rather than fat, and discovered all sorts of things — not just about the natural world, but also about ourselves.
Climbing a tree was a great way to learn about judging risks — going up was easy, but getting down could be a lot trickier.
Building a den involved working together, solving problems, and occasionally arguing about what we should do next.
Looking back, I realise that this gave us the kind of leadership and teamwork skills that companies pay a fortune for their employees to learn today.
That’s because nature doesn’t come with an instruction manual, and unlike many modern pastimes, it really does force children to use their imagination.
Bygone times: Previous generations took for granted being able to potter around in the outdoors. (Posed by models)
I have another reason to be grateful for my free-range childhood. From a very early age I became obsessed with birds.
Years later, I managed to turn my passion into my job: as the producer of TV’s Springwatch and the author of many books about Britain’s wildlife.
So as you can imagine, when I became a father in the late Eighties, I was determined to get my sons, David and James, interested in the natural world. But I am ashamed to say I failed.
My first mistake was to try to turn them into birdwatchers. I would drag them off to a nature reserve in the middle of winter, where we would shiver in a freezing cold hide, while gazing at distant flocks of birds. No wonder they didn’t catch the nature bug.
But my biggest mistake was never letting them out on their own — at least not during those crucial years from the age of seven to 12, when children’s minds are most open to influence.
I think this was in keeping with what other parents did at the time.
Playing outdoors simply went off our children’s agenda, and we never really got it back. By the time my sons became teenagers and finally had the freedom to explore, nature no longer held much attraction for them.
I do remember David coming home one day and excitedly telling me that he and his mates had built a den in the local park.
My response was sheer panic: ‘Did anyone see you?’ I was worried that he might be arrested for vandalism, which by then had become the standard response to any group of teenagers messing about outdoors.
Off the agenda: Playing outside is not a priority for some parents. (Posed by models)
But unlike most parents, I have been given a second chance. Having remarried, I was blessed in late middle age with three more children. This led to another major life change: six years ago, we moved out of London to live in the Somerset countryside.
For Charlie, eight, and seven-year-old twins George and Daisy, life could hardly be better.
In place of our postage-stamp London garden we have an acre of land. They can explore their own patch of nature — and crucially, can do so on their own.
They spend summer days catching butterflies, blowing dandelion clocks and playing on rope-swings. Because they are out of sight of adults, they can enjoy that first taste of freedom, so crucial to growing up. And because they are still in our garden, they can do so safely — without fear of being mown down by a speeding motorist.
To my surprise and delight, my two older sons enjoy playing outdoors with their younger siblings, making up for experiences they missed out on when they were growing up.
But most British children aren’t so lucky. As I look around me — even here in the heart of the countryside — I don’t see many children enjoying the great outdoors.
To most, the natural world is a foreign country: alien, frightening or simply irrelevant.
When I was a child, being sent to your bedroom was a punishment. But for today’s children, the bedroom is the centre of their social life.
They can play computer games, stay in constant touch with their friends and never need to venture outdoors again. They may not realise it, but they have become prisoners in their own homes.
The consequences of this are frightening. Our nation’s children are suffering from an epidemic of obesity, depression and behavioural problems, all of which have risen rapidly in the past couple of decades. They are also missing out on the joys of exploring the natural world and the lifelong benefits this can bring.
Alien environment: For too many children, the natural world is a foreign country: alien, frightening or simply irrelevant. (Posed by models)
It saddens me that our children have less freedom to roam than free-range chickens. Think I’m exaggerating? Well consider this: three times as many children are taken to hospital each year after falling out of bed than from falling out of trees!
So who’s to blame for this sad state of affairs? Let’s start with over-protective ‘helicopter parents’, who never let their precious children out of their sight and hover over them.
Then there is the media, whose reporting of the incredibly rare cases of abducted children stokes irrational fears of ‘stranger danger’.
And what about over-zealous authority figures, who ban games of conkers on spurious health and safety grounds?
People like me — those who love nature and desperately want to encourage children to do so — must also share the blame.
For years, conservationists took the view that children shouldn’t pick wild flowers or climb trees because this might be harmful to nature. And yet these are exactly the kind of unstructured, natural activities that should be part of growing up for every child.
But in the end, finger pointing is not going to help. What we need is action. The good news is that almost everyone out there — parents and grandparents, teachers and health professionals, conservationists and politicians — agrees that something must be done.
They are quite right. If we do not reverse this trend towards a battery-hen childhood, we risk storing up a time-bomb of social, medical and environmental problems for the future. And just as children need nature, nature needs children, too.
As Sir David Attenborough has pointed out: ‘No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced.’
We need to join together to kick-start a new way of life for our nation’s children. They need to experience the freedom enjoyed by their parents and grandparents: the freedom to explore, enjoy and learn from the natural world.
The alternative — generations of children condemned to a living prison, away from fresh air, sunlight and birdsong — is too awful to contemplate.
n To have your say on Stephen Moss’s Natural Childhood report, visit the National Trust website: nationaltrust.org.uk/naturalchildhood
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127088/Battery-children--trapped-filled-bedrooms-theyll-know-joy-free-range-childhood.html#ixzz1sUcgduwb
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