‘Socially unacceptable’ for children to play out now, says laureate

Craig Simpson

CHILDREN do not have the freedom to play outside anymore because it has become “socially unacceptable” to allow them out unsupervised, the children’s laureate has said.

Author Cressida Cowell has lamented parents becoming “more sensitive” to risks, making it frowned upon to let youngsters roam free. The How to Train Your Dragon writer believes playtime behaviour that was encouraged decades ago would lead to families being reported now, with today’s coddled children enjoying less freedom than previous generations.

Cowell said that 40 years ago parents loved their children just as much as they do now, but were not preoccupied with danger and allowed activities to be free and unsupervised without the risk of gasps from other guardians.

She fears overprotectiveness could distance young people from the natural world and their own inquisitive instincts. “I think it’s become socially unacceptable to do that, I think you’d actually be reported,” she told the

Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast.

“I think it’s not just individual decisions, it’s a whole social decision.

“I think we have become much more sensitive to danger.

“We all love our children and our parents loved us back then, it was just that it was such a different climate they didn’t think about danger in that same way.

“I think there is a loss there. I worry children aren’t having the same interaction with nature as they used to.”

Cowell said that she used to take the bus across London as a child without her parents or the public being concerned, and is worried carefree exploration will become the stuff of nostalgia and far from the reality of modern childhood.

“I was brought up at a time where we were allowed to do dangerous things, in fact positively encouraged,” she said.

“We were just allowed to play completely unsupervised. It did give us a bit of a wild childhood that I look back on with nostalgia. But having your own kids, people often ask me ‘did you give your own kids the same freedom?’

“And the answer is, ‘it’s so hard to turn back time’.”