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by Jenny
Cunningham
3 January 2002 spiked-online
A significant body of research evidence now
indicates that there has been a drastic decline in children's
outdoor activity and unsupervised play (1). For
example, it has been calculated that the free play range of
children - the radius around the home to which children can roam
alone - has, for nine-year-olds in the UK, shrunk to a ninth of
what it was in 1970 (2). Evidence
also shows that more and more of children's activities are being
organised or supervised by adults (3).
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A sobering study by Gill Valentine and John
McKendrick, published four years ago, found that it is not the
lack of provision of play facilities that limits children's
outdoor or unsupervised play, but parental anxieties about
children's safety (4). Parents
feel that children are more at risk today than they were as
youngsters. In all the studies of parental anxieties, the two
biggest fears voiced by parents are abduction by strangers and
road traffic. Yet, despite the increasing levels of worry, in
reality children have never been safer.
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Child abduction or murder by a stranger is
remarkably rare and occurrence rates have remained largely
unchanged for the past 50 years. In the UK, there are on average
seven deaths and 60 abductions a year (5).
Considering that there are over 12million children in the UK, the
chances of such a dreadful fate befalling a child are remote. The
number of children killed or seriously injured in road accidents
has been falling steadily for well over a decade. Both deaths and
serious injuries have halved since 1985 (6).
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As society becomes increasingly paranoid about
children's vulnerability, a parallel - and equally problematic -
trend has developed, which regards any risk as unacceptable and
all accidents as preventable. In June 2001, the British
Medical Journal declared that it was banning the word
'accident' from its pages because all eventualities can be
foreseen and measures taken to avoid adverse outcomes (7).
As sociologist Frank Furedi has cogently observed:
'physical injury to children is no longer accepted as an
unexceptional fact of growing up' (8).
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All unsupervised play is
regarded as high risk
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A consequence of this trend has been a drive to
remove any element of risk from playgrounds and outdoor
activities, rendering them unexciting and unchallenging. Local
authorities, educational staff or outdoor activity instructors are
too often blamed for accidents - which can only make them more
cautious about providing challenging activities for children.
There have been a rising number of litigations against providers
of play facilities and organisers of adventure pursuits. Perhaps
most damaging is that a climate has been created in which all
unsupervised play is regarded as high risk, and parents or
teachers who allow it are seen as irresponsible.
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Does it really matter that children's free play
outdoors is being curtailed and replaced by adult-led activities?
Decidedly, it does. Play is crucial for children's development,
particularly unsupervised and adventurous play with peers.
Space to grow
Why, after all, has society come to differentiate between
childhood and adulthood? The development of this distinction
across society is relatively modern, dating from the latter part
of the nineteenth century and mirroring industrialisation. This
was both a necessary and desirable evolution. It was necessary
because society needed higher levels of skill, intellectual
capacity and creativity within its productive forces. This
propelled the expansion of education and subsequent introduction
of universal education. Children were removed from economic
production and given the time, teaching and experiences necessary
to become independent and creative adults.
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This development was desirable because the
universality of childhood provided a unique opportunity to realise
the creative potential of the whole of society. It is precisely
the freedom of
childhood that provides the best apprenticeship for adulthood. An
essential part of that freedom is the scope for children to learn
through their own experiences, to practise things, to experiment
and to make mistakes. This is partly achieved through formal
education, but it is also done through the medium of play and peer
relationships.
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It is through their interactions, and their
negotiations with adults and other children, that children gain an
understanding of the world and themselves, thereby building up a
wider social knowledge. When adults organise children's
activities, they inevitably transmit or impose their own values
and rules. When children play on their own with peers, they have
to evolve their own techniques and rules, a process that allows
them to learn through practical experience how to make friends and
manage disputes. But when fears about bullying and 'peer pressure'
lead adults to interfere in these relationships, an important
element of the interaction between children is lost.
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The freedom of childhood
provides the best apprenticeship for adulthood
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We may know that play is important for children's
development, but children do not play to learn. They want fun,
excitement and challenges. The motivation for play, its structure
and role, change during childhood and adolescence.
The ages and stages of
play
Very young children show no imaginative play. Their behaviour
is governed by the physical environment and by objects. Things
dictate what the child does - every perception is a stimulus to
action, and meaning is attached to objects. Gradually, through
symbolic play, the child begins to separate meaning from specific
objects and to act more independently of the concrete situation.
For example, wooden blocks can stand in for biscuits during a
tea-making exercise, or a box can become a house.
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The emergence of imaginative play, at about three
to four years, is a very significant step developmentally. In
play, children create an imaginary situation in which rules of
behaviour are formulated. They try to behave in ways they think
they should, to fit the situation and the roles they are assuming.
Children's activity now becomes organised through their own ideas,
not through things.
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Play here is pleasurable, but it is also very
demanding. Children have to subordinate their own actions to
rules, by controlling their impulsive reactions. The eminent
Russian psychologist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky pointed out that in
play, a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his
everyday behaviour: that 'in play it is as though he were a head
taller than himself' (9).
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The intrusion of adults in children's play can
abolish or diminish this process of acting above one's age and
acquiring self-mastery of one's own actions. Paradoxically,
children exert more self-control in imaginative play than they do
in real life, where their behaviour is less conscious and more
reactive. With adults, children tend to be 'childlike' because of
their subordinate relationship.
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Children exert more
self-control in imaginative play than they do in real life
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Pretend play with peers is not only significant
for children's cognitive development. It is also important for
their social and emotional maturation. Through this type of play,
they come to understand more about different social roles and
relationships. Children need time and space to make sense of the
adult world, in their own way. Interaction with this world exposes
them to all kinds of confusing and frightening ideas and events.
Through fantasy play, children can readdress these issues in
activities with other children. They can act out feared situations
and rehearse various practical and emotional responses.
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In middle childhood, rule-based play becomes
closely mirrored by real life, as children are in school and
conform to its rules. Here, friendships and conflicts become
important in extending children's understanding of the content and
meaning of categories and concepts, such as friendship, loyalty
and fairness. It is well known that friends experience more
conflict than non-friends. Children initiate disputes when friends
do not live up to their expectations. Through arguing, children
get a better idea of what they can expect of each other, as well
as developing shared values and beliefs.
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Children have to negotiate the terms of their
relations with peers and friends in ways that are not possible
with adults. In these relationships they meet as equals
and have to work out the rules of engagement - which involves
compromise and cooperation.
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In adolescence, peer relationships are an
important means for clarifying values, ideas and self-identity,
through a process of mutual reflection. Young people tend to
discuss their problems, feelings, fears and doubts with best
friends rather than with their parents. Peer relationships also
provide the framework through which teenagers can develop
self-sufficiency, independence and responsibility for themselves
and others.
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Continual adult supervision
can act as a brake on children growing up
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Adult-child relationships are obviously essential
for children's development and education. However, they cannot
provide children with the whole range of practical or personal
experiences they need - to become more aware of their physical
abilities and limitations; to become more conscious of their own
and other people's ideas and feelings; to develop their own
judgement about social or physical dangers; and to make
friendships, those uniquely equal and fulfilling relationships
with peers.
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In fact, continual adult supervision can act as a
real brake on children 'growing up' to become self-motivated and
independently creative in solving difficulties or achieving goals.
What can be done?
So what can we do to encourage free play? There seems little
point simply providing more 'child friendly' or 'safe' play areas,
while parents are so preoccupied with children's safety that
nowhere is regarded as secure except the home and no activity
without a chaperon is acceptable. The following are a few
suggestions that may be more successful:
-- Challenging the false perception that children are more
vulnerable today requires that commentators and professionals
express a more critical attitude to the inflation of risks and
panics about child safety. In particular, this means refuting the
notion of the 'risky stranger' and encouraging children to regard
unknown adults as potential allies. The more adults that children
meet and relate to, the greater will be their powers of discerning
a sinister character.
-- Probably the most useful thing that play advocates can do is to
get parents together with other members of a community or
neighbourhood to discuss how to provide children with greater
freedom to roam and with more challenging play environments. The
key issue is getting agreement among adults that they will take
responsibility for other people's children - that is, that
everybody can be trusted to 'look out' for all children in the
area. Similarly, discussions between young people and community
members could go some way towards resolving the tensions and fears
generated by teenagers hanging out on the streets at night with
their friends.
-- An open debate is required among parents, professionals and
local authorities about the negative impact of 'litigation
culture' on children's play opportunities. We have to insist that
accidents do happen - fortunately very rarely serious or fatal -
and nobody is to blame. Exciting and challenging experiences
necessarily involve an element of risk. However, they also contain
the vital elements of learning how to minimise risk or injury and
of taking responsibility for yourself and others.
Above all, we need to recognise that meeting a personal challenge
brings the exhilaration of achievement, which inspires us all to
raise our expectations of ourselves.
Jenny Cunningham has
been a community paediatrician in Glasgow for 18 years. She works
in one of Glasgow's four Child Development Centres and her
particular expertise is in neurodevelopmental disability and
autism. The article is based on a paper presented at the Play
Scotland annual conference 2001: 'The State of Play in Scotland'.
 
Read on:
(1) Gaster S, 'Urban Children's Access to their
Neighborhoods: Changes over three generations', Environment and
Behaviour, January 1991, 70-85; Hillman M (ed), Children,
Transport and the Quality of Life, London: Policy Studies
Institute, 1993; Valentine G, Stranger
Danger: parents' fears and restrictions on children's use of space,
Sheffield: Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, 1996;
Wheway R and Millward A, Child's
Play: Facilitating Play on Housing Estates, London: Chartered
Institute of Housing, 1997
[Back]
(2) Wheway R and Millward A, Child's
Play: Facilitating Play on Housing Estates, London: Chartered
Institute of Housing, 1997
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(3) Barnodo's, Playing
it Safe, London: Barnado's, 1995; Ennew J, 'Time for children
or time for adults?', in J Qvortrup, M Bardy, G Sgritta and H
Wintersberger (eds) Childhood
Matters: Social Theory, Practice and Politics, Aldershot:
Avebury Press, 1994; Hillman M, Adams J and Whitelegg, J, One
False Move…A Study of Children's Independent Mobility,
London: Policy Studies Institute, 1990
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(4) Valentine G and McKendrick J, 'Children's
Outdoor Play: Exploring Parental Concerns About Children's Safety
and the Changing Nature of Childhood', Geoforum,
28(2), 1997, 219-235
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(5) Families for Freedom, The
Kids Are Alright!, London: Families for Freedom Factsheets on
Children's Safety, 1997
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(6) Moorcock K, Swings
and Roundabouts: The Danger of Safety in Outdoor Play Environments,
Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University Press, 1998
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(7) Davis R and Pless B, 'BMJ bans
"accidents": Accidents are not unpredictable', British
Medical Journal, 322, 2001, 1320-1
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(8) Furedi F, 'The Parents' Guide: Play', Scotland
on Sunday, 9 September 2001, 12-13
[Back]
(9) Vygotsky L, Mind
in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes,
M Cole, V John-Steiner, S Scribner, E Souberman (eds), London:
Harvard University Press, 1978
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