Safe, quiet and boring – children long for more adventure

What kind of children are parents raising these days? Or more pertinently, what kind of parents are raising children.

Parents are always keen to reminisce about their own holidays in the decades gone by. The days when children were left to their own devices during the long summer holiday. The times before paedophiles were frequently reported by the media, before cars were so fast, before housing covered the countryside and bypasses divided communities.

Of course, letting young children rampage around the inner city is not ideal, but it seems children are no longer allowed to have any freedom, with safety, cost and time continuously bleated as excuses.

According to research by Elastoplast, 85 per cent of children long for more adventure in their lives.

Though 40 per cent of parents taking part in their survey claimed they didn’t have the time or money to arrange particularly adventurous activities, they wouldn’t even let their children do simple or cheap fun things such as camping in the back garden.

Play England working with Savlon, also found similar results with their own recent study.

They discovered that 72 per cent of adults played outside when they were younger compared to just 40 per cent of children today.

As well as adventure being pushed out due to safety, time and money concerns, they found that 42 per cent of today’s children have never even made a daisy chain. A 25 per cent had never rolled down a hill, a further one in ten have never ridden a bike and 29 per cent had never even built a den.

Co-Director of Play England, Catherine Prisk said: “Playing outside, getting muddy, climbing trees and making daisy chains are simple pleasures that many of today’s children are missing out on. Play – outside and indoors – is essential for children’s health, well-being and happiness now, and is also important for their future development, to build vital life and social skills. It’s important that we overcome the barriers to outdoor play by addressing parents’ safety concerns, protecting and making the most of outdoor spaces in our communities and acknowledging the pressures on family time. For families, simply building a little time to play in the fresh air every day is a great start.”

But safe, clean, fun and being seen and not heard extends to other aspects of life as well as play parks. Children have suddenly become ‘bored’ with imagination and can only cope by entertaining themselves with gadgets. Would children have become quite so ‘bored’ in the following test should parents have interacted with them more where possible? What would have happened if books were on offer and DS consoles were not dumped on children as a way of keeping their flapping cake holes shut?

PIXmania,com, worked with 27 families ahead of this year’s summer holiday to find out the entertainment value of traditional car games versus portable gadgets.

Executive director at PIXmania.com, Ulric Jerome says: ““If you believe in the old adage that kids should be seen and not heard then it’s gadgets over games all the way. When it comes to keeping the kids happy our research has shown that’s its very much out with the old and in with the new. Just remember to keep the car locked and the gadgets out of view when you’re not in it.”

The families involved tested out traditional and gadget entertainment over 20,000 miles of road during around 500 driving hours.

Very unsurprisingly, PIXmania.com, found that gadgets kept children entertained longer than traditional car games.

Results found the iPhone kept children entertained for around 3.5 hours compared to eye spy lasting just 30 minutes.

The Nintendo 3DS came second, entertaining children for two-hours compared to twenty minutes of twenty questions.

And in third place, a portable DVD player kept children quiet for 1hour forty minutes compared to 15-20 minutes of the Alphabet Game.