The Government are attempting to encourage parents to allow their young children to play outside without supervision. They argue that a child playing outside increases their social skills and increases their ability to deal with tricky situations. They usually back this up with talk about when they were children and how they stayed out all day from the age of 2 and no harm ever came to them.

We all agree on the benefits of children playing outside but he times they are talking about is usually pre decimalisation. Society and our way of life have changed dramatically since then.

*Question; Why is it illegal to leave a child under 14 in their home unsupervised but is legal to allow a child under 14 to be unsupervised on the streets?

An example of modern times.

I live in a fairly quiet street; the local school is within spitting distance reached via public footpath through the school playing fields.

2 young boys aged 9 and 11 who live in this street wanted to play on their new bikes. Their father said they could ‘play outside’ but only as far as the playing fields.

Within 10 minutes the eldest son rang his father from his mobile in an obvious state of distress saying a group of teenagers had attacked them, throwing sticks at them and threw their bikes into the muddy stream.

He immediately went to them, less than 30 seconds it took. There were about 9 lads and 1 girl aged about 15 standing slightly away from the stream where his 2 lads were pushing their bikes up the river bank towards the path. The group were quiet although one of them said ‘top of the morning to you sir’. Fuck off wanker’ was his reply.

The father wanted to go over the group to ‘remonstrate’ with them but his first concerns were for his sons, they were upset enough without further violence.

Pushing the muddy bikes back home, the youngest asked why they had done that, ‘they said lets have some fun’, replied the eldest, ‘I hate teenagers and I will never be like that when I am one’. He also admitted embarrassedly that he cried when they threw the bike in.

That was the start of the Easter holidays. The boys did not want to go out after that.