rural play

I want to talk about both ends of the age spectrum in Hinterland this week. I have long celebrated the fact that our kids have still been able to experience the grazed knees, nettle stings and soggy wellies all of which go with a childhood in a big safe open space. This makes their life in the countryside increasingly special according to this article which tells us:

“Figures released by the National Trust earlier this month paint a picture of a generation of children disengaged with nature and outdoor play, largely ignorant of the joy of unbridled exploration. According to the charity, fewer than one in ten children regularly play in wild places compared to almost half a generation ago, a third have never climbed a tree, and one in ten can’t ride a bike. But has children’s play really changed in recent decades, and if so, how?

According to a body of commentators and parenting authors, numerous factors have altered the landscape of children’s play – from the increase in road traffic to parents’ longer working hours, from the rise of ‘stranger danger’ to the growth of new technologies. Of course, “children play in the same they always have done. It’s an innate biological thing, it’s part of who children are,” says Cath Prisk, Director of Play England. “But their freedom to play has changed over generations with being interfered with”.

The key question going forward in relation to this issue is how long will the ability to play outside pertain in rural places in the face of the onset of new modes of entertainment and distraction which increasingly assail young minds including the dreaded XBox! One serious additional point to make however is the fallacy that all rural places are open for access and play. In many intensively farmed parts of rural England genunie access for all to the countryside is highly restricted and something to bear in mind lest we get too seduced by an idealised bucolic vision of rural England as the ultimate children’s playground.