CHILDREN AND SAFETY

Without doubt the world is getting increasingly dangerous for children, and everyone else; but do we make the world safer for children by removing hazards?

Can we really make their path totally safe, even by removing all hazards (if that were even possible)? Will that prepare them for meeting dangers when they meet them, which is bound to happen?

Would it not be more useful to find ways of preparing them to recognise hazards and learn how to prevent accidents and mishaps? Indeed, how do children experience the world today? What is it like from their perspective?

THE CHILD'S WORLD TODAY

CITIES
An increasing number of children live in, or are surrounded by, high buildings with a stream of motor traffic on their doorstep. The small area of ground-level space which they can see, and where they can move, is grey concrete; and they see only a tiny patch of sky. At home and at school their attention is focused on a few square feet of two-dimensional, smooth screen. This means that the visual experience of city children is metaphorically and in effect extremely small, so that their opportunity to see the real world, to gain an understanding of life, and for their imagination to expand is minimal. Their breathing space and scope for movement are similarly limited.

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS
The changes brought about by the electronic communications revolution have been so rapid and so intense that society as a whole has not had time to think about their implications for people's daily lives, much less to consider their effects on children or their safety.

As so much of their leisure time is spent with passive entertainment on the screen, children are becoming physically lazy and missing the fun of making up games and doing sport out of doors, when they would become alert and quick, acquiring the kind of physical dexterity and life skills needed for looking after themselves.

CHILDREN'S REAL PLAY
Children engrossed in constructional play, - or making dens from branches and twigs or rugs and pieces of cloth, holding onto and swinging on a rope hanging from a tree, dressing up or acting out imagined or remembered scenes, or other imaginative or constructive games, is totally satis~ing to the children involved. There are endless variations on a few simple themes which are played the world over. With these activities children are using their creativity and, at the same
time, developing a sense of judgement, resourcefulness, self-assurance, and how to play along-side others and how to co-operate.

One of the outstanding characteristics of children is their inborn sense of adventure and enterprise. It fires their imagination, leads them to experiment, fills them with enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. Once started, their inventiveness, self-reliance and confidence increase, and with it their understanding of themselves and of others, all the time finding out more about how the world works; what is safe and how to cope with difficulties. It acts as an engine to their natural learning process and provides them with real life experiences.

LEARNING THROUGH EXPERIENCE
The more their play is programmed for them and the more time is taken up with passive entertainment, and the more they become dependent on adult assistance or intervention, the less they are developing ideas for amusing themselves and the less they are learning to deal with life, and the less joy they have in life. If children learn to take risks in small situations, they are not so likely to get involved in more serious ones later, because they have learnt through experience what to expect and how to cope.

THE PLAYGROUND
We need to rethink the role that the playground could and should play in the children's lives today. The playground can be made into a positive and valuable focus in children's lives; a microcosm of the world. It will inevitably demand provision for the kind of play that offers special opportunities for them to experience nature and the kind of free and imaginative play from which they gain a balanced view of the world and skills for life and a sense of what works and what does not. Their movements become controlled and assured; they come to consider and respect others. Quarrels may break out, but the sense of satisfaction they have gained from real play, fills them with a sense of proportion and equilibrium so that the quarrel is soon seen in a sensible perspective.

The 'adventure playgrounds' of the 60s, where imagination, creativity and enterprise were given scope, and children could develop many of the skills needed for building healthy body and minds, provided opportunities to develop the skills needed for growing up. These went a long way to providing what city children need. If they could be revived and expanded to include more natural spaces, walls for climbing on and using for expressive wall art and some large covered spaces like sheds and garages for play acting, costume making and similar large, free experimental creative work, a substantial step would have been taken to provide some of the needs to counteract the disadvantages children experience today.

THE LITIGATION CULTURE
However, this kind of development has been put an end to because of the present culture of claiming compensation for even the smallest accident. Whether this is due to a fear of a child hurting itself or the opportunity for financial gain, or the short-sightedness on the part of the authorities, whatever the cause, the children are the losers.

What neither the authorities nor the parents take into account is that the more enterprising children, those that are not satisfied with spending all their time in front of a screen, might become bored, and that boredom leads to frustration and from there possibly either to states of depression or drugs, or to branching out into more exciting pastime which easily lead to making a nuisance of themselves or petty crime.

To reverse this negative development and to providing children with the right facilities, can only be achieved by fresh thinking on the part of all people concerned with children's leisure; enormous efforts being put in to change the present litigation culture to a more far-sighted view, combined with great enthusiasm.