Fear of intolerance ‘stops children playing out’
I don’t think we take the issue of children’s play anywhere nearly serious enough. In many rural places countryside is taken to equate with open and free space. Think again – there are many rural places where children are fenced out of the countryside – a great shame when combine with general intolerance of young people as this article helps substantiate:
Fear of upsetting the neighbours is preventing many parents letting their children play out, a survey suggests.
More than a quarter (28%) of 1,000 UK parents questioned feared being judged by neighbours if they let their children play unsupervised outdoors.
Almost a third (32%) believed allowing their children to play ball games or make noise outdoors would cause problems with other residents.
The poll was released to mark Playday 2013, an annual campaign for play.
One Poll surveyed 1,000 children between five and 16 years old and 1,000 parents with children the same age.
Of the five-11-year-olds, 53% said they would like to play outside more, while 40% said they could do so as much as they liked.
Of all the children, 13% said adults where they lived tended to disapprove of them playing outside, while 10% said adults thought they were up to no good when they were with friends.