Thread: Children's Right to Roam

Yep, we used to mess about on building sites and start fires and other good stuff like that. I remember getting in trouble for making money out of fake bob-a-jobbing - I think I was constipated at the time.

While today's kids might be safer, I suspect that they are much less able to deal with pain, adversity and the unexpected. When kids grow up expecting a safe world they have little idea what to do when it turns a little bit nasty.

One of my greatest regrets was telling my daughter she had to wear a helmet when riding her bicycle. Of course, none of the other Saipan kids wore helmets so she just let her bike rust in place. No telling what fun she missed out on because I got sucked into the safety trap.

maybe she did not want to ride her bike....

but yes, no kid wants to be different or singled out

I think the massive media influence today does scare parents. Whilst child abduction and molesting has always occurred, the coverage in papers and TV makes us all very aware it is going on and does make parents more protective.

That and the disapproving looks of other parents when they find out that you let little Johnny walk to school by himself.

Originally Posted by DrAndy

I think the massive media influence today does scare parents. Whilst child abduction and molesting has always occurred, the coverage in papers and TV makes us all very aware it is going on and does make parents more protective.

That's the reason. Surveys show that people think sexual child abuse has doubled over the past ten years while in fact the criminal statistics show it has dropped even though cases are much more likely to be reported than in the past because of increased awareness (not want to say hysteria).

i seem to be quite young on here, and have been a kid quite recently, in my dads opinoin still am lol. my parents warned us against all sorts, dont talk to strangers dont get in cars all the usual stuff. they never stopped us going out and having fun though. there was a street we could go no further than butthat was half a mile away.
the media and schools panicking people are to bame. at my school parents were called in one evening to be told how to watch and keep there children safe at nights. my parents were not impressed and didnt go.

I was at school with a girl who was one of "our crowd". She had a very protective father who was always around when we were at her place. We found out years later that her father had been sexually abusing her from the age of 6.

I think that sort of thing is still happening but maybe the children of today can get more help. There was a case last week in which a girl told the authorities that her mother , father, uncle and assorted friends had been sexually abusing her for years. She was brave enough to face the media rather than stay anonymous. She said she was happy that those who had abused her were going to prison, but very sad she was losing her parents. Difficult situation.

Going camping can help alleviate stay-at-home cabin fever.

Nature calls, but our kids don't listen

July 14, 2007

As kids, we had a dozen destinations within two miles of home, places we'd visit regularly, like the river, the sand pit, Mankins' Grove, the Fox Hole, the jungle, the fort, the trees.

As I get older and faces and events fade, I'm surprised to find that what grows more vivid in my memory are these outdoor places.

Maybe it's because for 35 years, I've spent 48 of every 52 weeks behind a desk, and my inner park ranger is rebelling. Maybe it's because it's July, when I become hopelessly romantic about my childhood summers on a Nebraska farm. Or maybe it's just because Colorado air has been so glorious it makes you glad just to be alive.

For whatever reason, weekends find me outdoors for no gainful purpose. I survey my vast tomato holdings about 15 times a day, overwatering my six plants, pulling weeds, walking the dog at all hours, cruising the neighborhood on my bike.

I crave the outdoors because I bonded with nature as a child.

Or that would be Richard Louv's theory, I suspect. Two years ago, he wrote Last Child in the Woods: Saving Your Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, in which he argues children today are deprived of the outdoors to their great physical, mental and spiritual detriment. Kids today can tell you all about the Amazon rain forest, Louv says, but don't have a clue what's behind their backyard fence.

He cites a couple of interesting studies: One showed that by 1990, the radius around the home where American children were allowed to roam on their own had shrunk to one-ninth of what it was in 1970.

Another, in 2005, showed American children spend an average of 60 hours weekly in front of TV or computer screens, and that 68 percent of kids have TVs in their bedrooms.

Louv believes this nature deficit contributes to several modern childhood maladies, including obesity, anxiety and depression.

As a society, we're still fixated on "stranger danger," he writes. Since 1975, violent crimes against children have decreased 38 percent. What's increased, on the other hand, is 24-hour news coverage of a few tragedies.

"Society is sending an unintended message to children - nature is past, electronics are the future and the boogeyman lives in the woods," Louv wrote in a 2005 article in The Oregonian. "The script is delivered in schools, families, even organizations devoted to the outdoors and codified into the legal and regulatory structures of many of our communities. This message is effectively banning much of the kind of play we enjoyed as children."

Outdoor classrooms have proved to curb attention deficit disorder, and they also boost test scores, grade-point averages and problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, Louv writes.

Organized outdoor instruction is expensive, I suppose, and "nature" near urban areas is increasingly lost to development.

But there's a lot of truth in Louv's theory - that we impoverish our kids' lives when we lock them indoors. Great religions and thinkers have always stressed the value of solitude and introspection, and that path for many is through wide- open spaces.

My grandmother saw to it that I attended Bible camp at St. Paul's Lutheran Church for at least two summers in my youth, but the places that fed my spirit, in fact, were the pastures and fields and wild places.

The Platte River may have been my favorite.

I'd pedal to it two miles south of the farm, over gravel roads and the Interstate 80 overpass, through a small pasture and a wooden gate.

A wall of giant cottonwoods lined the banks. Beyond it flowed the wide, warm, lazy Platte. Sometimes the water was ankle deep, so you could walk from sandbar to sandbar, digging your toes in the sand, inspecting minnow pools, dragging a stick in the sand just to see the imprint. Other times it was deep enough for a canoe adventure. The Platte was our seashore, endlessly entertaining.

Generally, there wasn't another soul in sight. Just the clatter of cottonwood leaves filling the giant sanctuary, where meadowlarks and mourning doves and an occasional scared deer helped me see how benevolent the world could be.

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