How children lost the right to roam in four generations

[fgoodwin]

How children lost the right to roam in four generations

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462091

http://tinyurl.com/yt6geg

 

By DAVID DERBYSHIRE

 

Last updated at 01:03am on 15th June 2007

 

When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere.

 

It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision.

 

Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom.

 

He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride his bike and can roam no more than 300 yards from home.

 

Even if he wanted to play outdoors, none of his friends strays from their home or garden unsupervised.

 

The contrast between Edward and George's childhoods is highlighted in a report which warns that the mental health of 21st-century children is at risk because they are missing out on the exposure to the natural world enjoyed by past generations.

 

The report says the change in attitudes is reflected in four generations of the Thomas family in Sheffield.

 

The oldest member, George, was allowed to roam for six miles from home unaccompanied when he was eight.

 

His home was tiny and crowded and he spent most of his time outside, playing games and making dens.

 

Mr Thomas, who went on to become a carpenter, has never lost some of the habits picked up as a child and, aged 88, is still a keen walker.

 

His son-in-law, Jack Hattersley, 63, was also given freedom to roam.

 

He was aged eight in 1950, and was allowed to walk for about one mile on his own to the local woods. Again, he walked to school and never travelled by car.

 

By 1979, when his daughter Vicky Grant was eight, there were signs that children's independence was being eroded.

 

"I was able to go out quite freely - I'd ride my bike around the estate, play with friends in the park and walk to the swimming pool and to school," said Mrs Grant, 36.

 

"There was a lot less traffic then - and families had only one car. People didn't make all these short journeys."

 

Today, her son Edward spends little time on his own outside his garden in their quiet suburban street. She takes him by car to school to ensure she gets to her part-time job as a medical librarian on time.

 

While he enjoys piano lessons, cubs, skiing lessons, regular holidays and the trampoline, slide and climbing frame in the garden, his mother is concerned he may be missing out.

 

She said: "He can go out in the crescent but he doesn't tend to go out because the other children don't. We put a bike in the car and go off to the country where we can all cycle together.

 

"It's not just about time. Traffic is an important consideration, as is the fear of abduction, but I'm not sure whether that's real or perceived."

 

She added: "Over four generations our family is poles apart in terms of affluence. But I'm not sure our lives are any richer."

 

The report's author, Dr William Bird, the health adviser to Natural England and the organiser of a conference on nature and health on Monday, believes children's long-term mental health is at risk.

 

He has compiled evidence that people are healthier and better adjusted if they get out into the countryside, parks or gardens.

 

Stress levels fall within minutes of seeing green spaces, he says. Even filling a home with flowers and plants can improve concentration and lower stress.

 

"If children haven't had contact with nature, they never develop a relationship with natural environment and they are unable to use it to cope with stress," he said.

 

"Studies have shown that people deprived of contact with nature were at greater risk of depression and anxiety. Children are getting less and less unsupervised time in the natural environment.

 

"They need time playing in the countryside, in parks and in gardens where they can explore, dig up the ground and build dens."

 

The report, published by Natural England and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, also found that children's behaviour and school work improve if their playground has grassy areas, ponds and trees.

 

It also found evidence that hospital patients need fewer painkillers after surgery if they have views of nature from their bed.

[Gunny2862]

You can see it in just the 8 year gap between me and my next oldest brother.

 

And like the article states - is it a reality or public perception that leads us to fear the abduction of our children?

 

I knew never to get in anyone's car while I was still in my limited out and about areas - but I was still out of sight for 2-3 hours at a time. The most my poor child gets is 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes without at least a cell phone check in.

[BrotherhoodWWW]

This subject has perplexed me ever since I became a father. Times have changed and with that so have laws. For better or worse is subject to debate. There are now laws governing the age at which children can be left home alone. Where the line is drawn between allowing children freedom and neglect is murky. My parents did not neglect us but we had plenty of freedom growing up. We walked about a half mile to grade school, over 1.5 miles to junior high and exactly 1 mile to high school. This was in a city. I now live in a fairly small town 13,000 residents at last count and If I allow my children to walk or ride their bikes to their middle school, which is about 1.5 miles away, I'm sure there will be those that think I am neglecting them. Although for most of the way there are not sidewalks or even wide sholders, but when I was in grade school I was allowed to walk along county roads with speed limits far above the 35 mph of today.

 

It is for these reasons that I think todays youth need Scouting perhaps more than ever.

[baden]

My Father who is 82 was a Boy Scout in the late '30's. He was amused at the two-deep requirement when I became the SM. When he was a Scout their Summer Camp consisted of the SM driving the Troop out to a sandbar on the river. All the boys rode in the back of a flatbed truck. The SM got them settled in, gave my Uncle (the biggest kid and probably SPL) a dime. If they had any problems he was to walk to a country store a couple of miles away and call him. Then the SM left. At the end of the first week the families drove out and they had a fried chicken dinner and then they left the Troop for another week. They roamed freely and had a great time fishing, swimming, and camping. Most of them brought .22 rifles or BB guns and big honking sheath knives. How many violations of the Guide to Safe Scouting can you spot? The deal is though, they were expected to be responsible for themselves. A very few years later all of these boys were in the service. My Uncle was piloting a C-47 Transport plane over the "hump" when he was 20. Some of these boys invaded North Africa in 1942 and were captured at Kasserine. Some were killed. Boys grew up faster back in the day I guess.

[Gunny2862]

BrotherhoodWWW makes a good point.

I was a Latchkey kid.

My brothers were either out of the house, in the military, or working from the time I started school. My working parents couldn't pick me up during their working hours and we were always somehow 5oo feet inside the bus rider margin. I remember my middle brother walking me back home from 1st grade once or twice but I know I walked the 3/4 mile, one way, to and from grade school the 1.5 mile to and from junior high unless I rode my bike - which didn't work well with 6 inches of snow on the ground.

 

During those years the "expectation" was that I would go straight home, check in with one or the other parent and then I could play within 2-3 blocks with an "hourly" check-in until someone was home. Which occasionally wasn't until 7:30 - 8:00 PM. Yes, I knew how to make my own dinner from early on.

 

This was not out of the ordinary for my neighborhood but how many of us would look at the same thing today and not have the alarm bells going off?

[OldGreyEagle]

The neighborhood I grew up in was bounded on one side by a creek, the back by a county forest preserve and the other side by a major county road that had no access to the neighborhood. In the afternoon we would play baseball, well, a verison of it, with a limted pool of "talent" "pitchers hands out" was the rule of the day as was most likely right field out or left field out, you got to call it when you came up to bat. Pitching was overhand with an arc as no one had catchers equipment and the pitcher was expected to cover home plate during a play.

 

The field was at the entrance to the neighborhood and games would go until Rick saw his dad's car and then things would break up as that meant it was time to go home for dinner. Dinner may have been the first time any of us had been home since breakfast, perhaps catching a PB&J sandwhich somewhere along the line. After a few hours of playing ball perhaps a drink was in order and off to the County Park we would go, Biking on a path through the woods. Of course we would pass by everyones house on the way to the path and the pump that was our destination was about 1 mile in, but when we got there and pumped, the water was the best tastingest, coldest and most refreshing water I have ever known. In the fall we played football, tackle no equipment, it was rough getting tackled on the infield. In the winter it was hockey on the creek.

 

Almost all of the Moms stayed at home and you could be sure of a friendly face at about 75% of any home as you had visited there many times.

 

This was the beginning of suburban sprawl. The men just back from the war were anxious to start lives and families. COmmunties sprang out of farmers fields and just about every household had the same story, dad had been in the Army, Marines, Navy, etc and they wanted to enjoy life. No one got out of line, well except for the neighboorhood bully, because we knew if we did something wrong, not only would mrs smith give us the back of her hand, so would dad when he found out what mrs smith had to do.

 

I think at one time you could walk down the street and each house averaged 3-4 kids, one always about your age who you knew because you were at his/her birthday party and they at yours. We have lost that, neighborhoods are much more heterogenous now. You have older retired people living next to newlyweds next to a family of teenagers. For a child to find an appropriate aged playmate, you may have to go three-four blocks or more. Did our children lose the right to roam, or did the composition of neighborhoods change so its not as easy anymore?

 

I think 24 hour News Channels help the hysteria. I am sure from 1960-1970 many children were abducted or murdered, but unless it was local, I wouldnt have known it. Now, a girl disappears from a Wal-mart in Pasadena and the world knows about it in 3 hours along with the boy in Arlington, Texas. I think there is an increased awareness of child abduction, I am not sure there has been an increase of child abductions

[kraut-60]

I believe the over saturation by the News media/business of cases involving child abduction and abuse have fuelled the hysteria and phobias many parents have succumbed to in wanting to protect and care for their children.

 

Kids arent allowed to be kids as I was a kid back in the 60's. No more Trick-or-Treating on Halloween night in many communities..now there is daylight on the sunday afternoon closest to Halloween here where I live. The ever increasing lines of mini-vans and small SUVs with a single parent in each outside the schools to pick-up a single student. The parents who wont allow their son to go camping with the troop, because something might happen.

 

Some parents are effectively smothering their kids in a misguided effort to save or protect them from the over hyped dangers they see reported by the news.

 

I am all too aware that evil does exist and it harms children,...but are we to succumb to fear and isolate kids from the world and its wonders in order to "protect" them at all costs? Even if the cost is their health and well being by being able to grow and develop to adulthood by being being active in the outdoors and not living in mortal fear and terror of the unknown.

[LongHaul]

When I was a 1st grader in the mid fifties I walked a mile each way to school unsupervised. So did everyone else in my neighborhood. Within a block (1/8 of a mile) of my front door I'd meet up with 1 or 2 others and by the time we got to school we were in groups of 6 and 7 a few feet apart from another group of 6 or 7. I had a prairie directly across the street that was a half mile square. We'd back a lunch and be gone most of the day in weeds twice our height.

When my youngest was a 1st grader he was drives 3 blocks to school every morning and not let out of the building until an adult arrived to pick him up. Because of traffic? Because the news media has created a false phobia? Personally my decision was based on the fact that child molesters are back on the street in 2 years and rapists in 4. In the 50's if you molested a child and ended up in prison the inmates would be less than welcoming. Today rape and molestation are credits to a persons status in prison. We have lost the ability to intimidate the offenders. Our children are not safe because we as a society have lost the ability to protect them from those who would do them harm. The best we can do is seek retribution against the offenders and we are not even doing that in some cases.

LongHaul

 

[John-in-KC]

I agree with LongHaul.

 

Over and above that, when I went to school, it was a mile to my elementary (I walked or rode my bike), 2 1/2 miles to my jr high (I rode my bike), and 1/10 of a mile to my HS (I walked).

 

My Eagle... his elementary was 1 1/2 miles away across unprotected 55MPH 2 lane state highway. His middle school was 7 miles away along that very same highway (it becomes 4 lane and 45MPH 3 miles east of us), and his HS is 10 miles away, along 4 lane 55MPH highway.

 

Further, Columbine, VA Tech, assorted other incidents with weapons... when I was a Scout I could carry my Boy Scout knife to school. It was a tool. If he carries a double edged razor to shave in the school bathrooms he's at risk of mandatory suspension and alternative school. The penalty for a genuine live blade is expulsion.

 

I'll ask the quesion in issues and politics. It belongs there!

[packsaddle]

Only one generation in my case. I had an unlimited radius from my house but, for practical purposes, usually about 5 miles. There were hills, forests, fields, lakes, rivers. I pretended to be dozens of pioneer figures that I read about in school. Books supplied the fuel for the imagination and the woods supplied the setting. It was wonderful. Today, in that same area, such latitude is unthinkable...it's a traffic-congested suburb contributing to sprawl of the worst kind.

 

But my son, a quite different personality, also had this ability. We relocated to a school district that had some very rural territory and bought a house in the country. He had opportunities similar to mine. But the real limits were provided by the lure of new technologies (video games, etc.) and peer pressure. His childhood was still full of wonderful experiences and scouting helped in this. But it was a quite different childhood from mine.

Regarding child abuse: it existed back then but it was more hidden, either by the community or by the victims. That aspect of growing up was, in some respects, a lot rougher back then. Just my personal view.

I confess I have been very much more protective of my children as a result. I'll respond to the spun thread now.