This week I was amazed when I heard about these parents who are in trouble for letting their kids, aged 10 and 6, go to a nearby park alone during the day. After I finished rolling my eyes I started reminiscing about the things I did as a kid, like rollerblade in the carpark of a nearby church, that kids are missing out on these days. 

1. Spend most of the day outside, unsupervised. If it wasn’t raining we were sent out. We’d play in the dirt, eat random plants, make up new games, argue about old games, fall down, get back up — all without our parents knowing.

2. Actually, go pretty much anywhere unsupervised. I’d grab my bike or strap on my rollerblades and just wander off for awhile. I never went too far…

3. Except for that time we rode our bikes into the bush to swim at the creek (and jump off that giant rock into a dark pool below), sans adults. Oh, and my friend who wasn’t wearing shoes on his bike scraped the skin off all of his toes when his feet slipped off the pedals. Luckily he was pretty accident-prone so his mum knew what to do — sigh, accept, prepare a bucket of Dettol solution. Fixed!

4. Play with toy guns that actually looked like real guns. (Although maybe this one is for the best, what with kids picking up real guns and accidentally shooting people. That’s just too awful for words).

5. Drop by to visit the neighbours. Particularly at my grandma’s house we’d occasionally do a tour of the court, going from house to house just dropping by to introduce ourselves and invite ourselves inside.

6. Lose at sport and not get a medal or a participation certificate or anything.  We just sucked it up and started a new game, or changed the rules as the game went along.

7. Play in the street (literally). If a car was coming we’d pick up our ball and get out of the way.

8. See other kids playing outside and just go join in.  And maybe hang around making noise outside when we wanted the neighbour’s kids to come out. Quick way to make new friends!

9. Wait in the car if we didn’t want to run errands with mum. Didn’t lock the doors or anything ’cause that’s how we rolled.

10. Be praised when we did what we were told. Apparently we shouldn’t do that anymore because we’re telling kids when they should feel proud instead of letting them feel how they want to feel. Saying nothing is a good alternative, so I’m told. Urgh.

11. Enjoy books and nursery rhymes in their original format (and not grow up to be racist or intolerant). I especially enjoy this rant about Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree because it IS ridiculous to change the character names. Just because grown-ups are immature about someone called Dick (*giggles*). And don’t get me started on that poor eliminated black sheep!

12. Be at home alone after school or while our parents ran errands on the weekends. Memorable moments include the time my sister was being a mega-cow and slapped me with the rubber sole on a slipper (which HURT!), so I tried to maintain the rage until my parents got back to get her in trouble. Except they took too long and I got over it, phooey.

13. Pretend to smoke cigarette-shaped lollies. Although one time my stepdad caught me and told me off. Probably a good move on his part.

14. Play contact sports in primary school (which may or may not have resulted in me breaking my arm and getting rugby banned at my school at lunchtime. Don’t worry though, we just played British Bulldogs instead, and when that was banned we swapped to American Chihuahuas. SO clever).

When I was looking around the webs on this topic I came across some great lists of things we used to do, like this one about parenting in the 70s, and had a good giggle. But I do wonder if kids these days are missing out from our over-protectiveness.

Maybe the world has changed, although a few commentators I came across pointed out that in fact crime rates aren’t so different, we just have a sensationalist media that heightens our fear and uncertainty.

When we were left to our own devices, and mostly outdoors, we were adventurous, creative and resilient. We invented new games and new rules and when we got in a fight (“you can’t be invisible, that’s MY special power!”) we had to sort it out for ourselves.

Part of why we enjoyed such freedom is because (for the most part) we were good, responsible kids. Our parents were comfortable with us playing outside unsupervised because we could look after ourselves and knew what not to do — run in front of traffic, wander off with strangers, that kind of thing. Plus we had siblings, friends or cousins with us, so we were all looking out for each other.

Perhaps it’s time to give our kids more freedom, in an age-appropriate way of course. Let them test the limits and figure things out for themselves?

What do you think? And what do you remember from your childhood that doesn’t happen these days?

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