No Child's Play

(A Women24.com article received yesterday)

I was listening to the radio on my way to work the other day when an insert caught my attention. In England, a new law has been created to protect kids while playing conkers (that silly game where kids bang their stringed chestnuts together until one breaks); they're now not allowed to play the game unless they wear safety goggles. What next? Psychotherapy for the loser? But it gets worse; some schools have banned the centuries-old game altogether, while in other districts Chestnut trees have been cut down to be replaced by another species.

Sure, if chestnuts break there's a chance a flying piece could damage a child's eye and the parents can sue the other kid, or the school, or the people who planted the trees in the first place. But where will it end? Also in England, the £3.6m Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in London's Hyde Park was shut in July after three people slipped and injured themselves inside the stone ring. Now new fences mean access to the site can be limited if it gets too busy and signs spell out the rules in case people forget they can think. People can sit or stand in the water but not walk or run, while dogs are not allowed near the memorial.

This kind of overprotection drives me insane. Can't people think for themselves any more? I grew up on a farm where we went down the raging Berg river in a Sterri Nappi bucket; we rode on the cows while being dragged backwards through my Mom's rose creeper; I drove the farm bakkie through the fields without even being able to see over the steering wheel; I fell off a scrambler motorbike, burning my leg against the exhaust more times than my Mother will ever know. That's just scratching the surface, and sure, I've got the scars (souvenirs) to prove it, but I had the most wonderful childhood you could imagine.

Not so today. Kids are wrapped in cotton wool and over-parenting and overprotecting has become a full-time neurosis. I found a couple of real-life examples of things and activities that are being cut from everyday life: life-threatening hanging baskets that could drop and kill you without warning, renegade swings that could fly too high and fling a child out of the seat; litter patrol is out as garbage could contain dog poo or broken glass; doing the backstroke in the local swimming pool just in case they barge into someone else; riding on a donkey without a hard hat; playing football on the playground in case a kid gets hit with a ball; wearing swimming goggles that can snap and blind you, potentially lethal Celebration Day pins that could be used to disembowel a friend; snowball fights that could lead to unimaginable damage; party balloons at the school fair that can cause latex allergies and Christmas decorations on children's hospital wards that pause a fire risk. Bet you didn't think of a couple these, did you?

And that's not only to protect the poor darlings from injury, but also the parents from possible litigation. For example, and also in England, Girl Guides are being sued by a teenager who was hit by spitting fat while cooking sausages around the campfire. Madness. Research shows there's been a drastic decline in children's outdoor activity and unsupervised play - when last did you see a child playing outside? Besides the paranoia, local authorities, educational staff and outdoor activity instructors are too often blamed (and sued) for accidents - which in turn make them more cautious about providing challenging activities for the little mites. Nowadays all unsupervised play is seen as high risk, and parents or teachers who allow it are seen as irresponsible. Bad!

But research shows that if you don't expose your offspring to risks and the consequences of risk, they grow up unable to make well-balanced judgements that involve risk taking and self-determination. Combine that with a loss of physical and competitive sports, and bingo - we've got a generation of milk sop softies.

Do we really want to raise a generation of individuals who are either too stupid to use their common sense, too eager to seek financial reward through the courts or too scared of the financial consequences to have fun? Strangely enough many parents don't appear to be bothered about their kids enjoying ultra-violent computer games, under-the-belt song lyrics and over-the-top films etc, yet can't bear them to do anything that might cause a bruise or two. Perhaps there'll be a time when adults sue for the loss of their childhood.

The problem, according to Sociologist and author of Paranoid Parenting, Dr Frank Furedi, boils down to a lack of parental confidence. "When parents are told they are responsible for everything that happens to their children, they lose confidence and they become scared of drawing lines. You have a situation where children are not really challenged or confronted. They get the worst of two worlds: they're neither allowed to get on with life and explore the world on their own, nor are they given clear guidance for what they should do. So there you have it."

If you think this is enough to handle, spare a thought for former women24 writer Danelle Heyns who's going through au pair hell in America, where, and need I say more, toddlers are allowed to make their own decisions about when they want to be potty trained, but never taught to climb a tree.

What do you think - are we overprotecting our children?