Interview Published, The Scotsman, 6th July, 2009

I was born in 1964, so my childhood covered the 60s and 70s. When I think back I am struck by the differences between my era and the world in which children grow up today.

When I was young there were no Play Stations, no X-boxes, no internet, no mobile phones, no hand-held computers, no digital or satellite television, no credit or debit cards; we didn’t even have a remote control for the T.V. or the C.D. player (oh, and of course we didn’t have CDs or DVDs or videos even). In fact, television channels stopped broadcasting at around 11p.m., with BBC1 playing the national anthem.

Indeed, there were only three television stations and children’s programmes were limited to an hour at lunchtime and two hours in the afternoon. Do you remember the shows we waited for in eager anticipation? The list is endless: Trumpton, Camberwick Green, The Flowerpot Men, The Herbs, Hector’s House, Jackanory, Crackerjack, Mr. Benn, Bagpuss, The Double Deckers and my personal favourite, The Banana Splits. And then, as we got a bit older, we watched the delights of The Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie’s Angels, The A-Team, Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk. Saturday night was all about Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game, New Faces, The Price is Right, the Saturday Night Movie followed by news and then Sportscene with Archie MacPherson. We really lived, didn’t we?

And yet, we really DID live because what we lost in not having modern technology and thousands of television channels and endless hours of mind-numbing American kids’ shows, we made up for in our personal freedoms. At only eight or nine years of age I remember a world in which I left my house on Saturdays just as Dickie Davies, with his shock of white hair, was introducing World of Sport. My mum would tell me to be careful when crossing the road and off I’d go. I lived in Prestwick, so my friends and I would gather and run down to the golf course and the beach, exploring local burns, church graveyards, climbing trees, wandering through derelict buildings, shouting at golfers as they addressed the ball on the first tee, and returning home either when it got dark or we got hungry.

Our parents had no way of contacting us, no way of knowing where we might be, and yet trusting our ability to avoid risk and danger. And you know, by and large, we did avoid putting ourselves at risk. Instinctively we knew what to look out for, what to be wary of – we were street-wise and we knew how to keep ourselves safe.

Today, we live in a world that is fearful. Parents have become hugely risk averse, so that their children are exposed to a back garden (under supervision, of course) at best. What really worries me, though, is that children themselves are becoming more and more risk averse. They are surrounded by Play Stations, TVs, computers, the Internet, DVDs, CDs, videos, Music Systems and i-Pods and they communicate with their friends by Instant Messenger and Text Messaging. When faced with the outdoors they often don’t know what to do with it. In my experience, you tell children to go and play in the woods and they are back in ten minutes saying, “We’re bored!”. Indeed, I have myself heard, “What if there’s a bad man in the woods?” How sad that our children have become so fearful. They are now so protected, so surrounded in cotton wool that they are in danger of being unable to assess risk at all. When that happens, and I believe that process has already begun, then our children are in real danger. We risk producing young adults that will be unable to cope with an adult world, either in the workplace or on the street.

So my plea is that each of us is, in some way, responsible for modifying these deep-rooted fears that we all share. We should not place children at unnecessary risk but we must expose them to some risk. Otherwise, we risk their future health and safety and that is something none of us wants.

Being called a name in the playground, being kicked in the shin, being excluded from a group, being made fun of – all of these experiences have happened to us all but in many ways these experiences, in isolation, help us to be prepared for a world where not everyone is kind to us, to a world that does exclude and to a world that will not allow each of us to get our own way. That is not to excuse these events when they occur and we should not tolerate that kind of behaviour, particularly if it becomes systematic and ongoing. However, there are times that we should allow children to fight their own battles before adults jump in, take over and mediate. If we always fight their battles for them children never learn to overcome problems with others and they become reliant on the adults around them. That is really dangerous – for we risk a nation of individuals who are fragile beings, incapable of tolerance, compassion or empathy.

Risk aversion also leads schools to remove trees from playgrounds and diving boards from swimming pools.

Parents can track teenagers with GPS enhanced mobile phones and monitor their email and phones. Young children have only carefully arranged “play dates” rather than risking emotional or physical bruises that may be incurred in the social labyrinth of one’s neighbourhood.

Do we really have to be so afraid? Is the world more dangerous? Despite the sensational stories in the tabloid media, the answer is probably “no.” Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but the risk of abduction seems to have risen at about the rate of population growth for decades and family members commit the vast majority. Physical harm from various activities seems similarly unchanged, although you might be surprised by some ‘dangerous’ activities. In a ‘Google search’ I found a scholarly article analyzing data related to escalator injuries in the population of under-5 boys. Read it and you will start using the stairs.

Childhood has never been risk free, but if we succumb to our fears our children may end up ill equipped to live successfully in adulthood. Protecting children from the risks of trees, diving boards, escalators, uncomfortable social situations and incomplete homework assignments is almost certain to produce adults with deficits.

When assessing the risks to your child’s long-term well-being perhaps the first place to look is in the mirror.

In conclusion, whilst you may not agree with everything I have written, we adults need to take great care, because in protecting our children we DO risk exposing them to a world less forgiving than our own.

Let’s get back to 1964, where my life began; to a time of freedom, for though there were many things wrong with that era, it was a period of history from which we can also learn.

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