look it's simple - there is a combination of fairly simple factors:
l - parental distance (length)
t - parental distance (time)
F - Lord Of the Flies coefficient
d - diversity of other children within reach
TotalPositivePlay = (l x t )
-------- raised to power of d
F
in short, if a group of parents take their children to a park and can see them a hundred yards off for an hour,
only have to intervene once to stop them bullying the snivelly kid, and almost every race, creed and class are represented in the kids - it will be a great day out.
So build for open or natural spaces, with good lines of sight and minimal killers like cars, allow parents the time to relax and realise its ok for Jimmy to run off for an hour because the shopping can wait, and then let them teach kids not to follow their instincts but actually respect others smaller and weaker then them, we might get over our fears.
yes we lean too much to DVDs and so on. but two weeks ago my kids and I painted cardboard dragons, picked blue series from a bush, ran off and hid in the woods, fell off swings and slides, made two meals and fought with foam swords. oh and I felt I just put them in front of the TV all the time.
lighten up FFS. Cars, commuting and the easy lure of the TV has hurt how we bring up children - but they also don't feel isolated, bored, or unprepared for a rapidly changing new world.
but yes, lets cut back on the organised activites and just to to the park more often.
So build for open or natural spaces, with good lines of sight and minimal killers like cars, allow parents the time to relax and realise its ok for Jimmy to run off for an hour because the shopping can wait, and then let them teach kids not to follow their instincts but actually respect others smaller and weaker then them, we might get over our fears.
yes we lean too much to DVDs and so on. but two weeks ago my kids and I painted cardboard dragons, picked blue series from a bush, ran off and hid in the woods, fell off swings and slides, made two meals and fought with foam swords. oh and I felt I just put them in front of the TV all the time.
lighten up FFS. Cars, commuting and the easy lure of the TV has hurt how we bring up children - but they also don't feel isolated, bored, or unprepared for a rapidly changing new world.
but yes, lets cut back on the organised activites and just to to the park more often.