26 Aug When did children stop playing out?

When did children stop playing out?

It is a date that is difficult to pinpoint but appears to have been a gradual decline that began back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and now decades later the far-reaching effects are manifesting themselves in young people’s lives.

Until the 1980’s children regularly played in the streets and fields around their homes, often disappearing for the whole day only venturing back when the light began to fail or hunger pangs struck.

Only now are experts beginning to recognise the far-reaching effects of a lack of play on a child’s development, something I had not personally thought about until I had a chat with Lesley Perrin from Play Torbay, on my weekly Community Champion Show on Torbay Radio.

Lesley has stepped into the large shoes worn by the amazing Tanny Stobart who was our overall Torbay Community Champion last year, having retired from her role after a lifetime of campaigning for families in the Bay.

Tanny continues to lobby at a national level on the importance of play and its effects on wellbeing, learning and creativity on children helping them to be happy, healthy and engaged.

Her erstwhile colleagues at Play Torbay are also continuing to fly the flag with children here in the Bay providing adventure, fun and friendships for generations of children and their families.

The reasons for the change are numerous – more traffic on residential streets, and a heightened awareness of stranger danger due to a heightened media awareness and focus on child safety.

Huge swathes of potential play areas, both formal and informal have also been ripped up or buried under concrete to meet the ever-pressing needs for more housing. Add to that closures of youth clubs and the outlook looks dire.

It has led to long periods of confinement for children increasing their reliance on computer technologies not least social media, YouTube and the internet, which is ironic given the dangers that lurk online.

A recent report produced by Play England seeks to redress the balance by focussing on creating conditions that allow children to play both in and beyond the school day in safety.

Or put another way, give children their childhoods back.

The report notes that the challenges are huge:

• Low levels of physical activity (55% of children achieve at least 60 minutes a day, 30% of children with SEND)
• Rising levels of obesity (22.1% of Year 6 children) and Type 2 diabetes
• Declining fine and gross motor competence affecting both learning and wellbeing
• Dec lining mental health (20% of children aged 8-16 with a probable mental health disorder)
• Increased anxiety
• Poor levels of attention and engagement
• Poor emotional regulation
• Increasing levels of disruption in lessons due to poor behaviour (7 of every 30 minutes lost in secondary schools)
• Persistent absence (18.62% of pupils)
• 30% rise in children with Alternative Provision since 2020/21
• Widening inequalities (31% of children in relative low income) with lower levels of physical, social and cognitive development for children in deprived areas
• Rise in the number of pupils identified with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reaching more than 1.7million in 2024/25 (19./5%)

Hard to believe that something as simple as a lack of the opportunity to play can have such devastating and far-reaching consequences. But it does and we are quick to criticise and often slow to understand.

Tanny recognised it decades ago and her successors at Play Torbay continue to fight hard to reverse the trend, but it has been and continues to be an uphill battle despite all the evidence now available.

We are lucky here in the Bay to have champions like Tanny and Play Torbay who continue to make huge differences to the lives of not just children but to their families as well.

Lesley has evidence of the benefits in spades, but the pressure to keep children indoors continues to stifle their innate creativity, something which is potentially developed throughout young lives once the seeds are planted.

It is easy to blame schools, but they remain under enormous pressure to deliver an ever-restrictive curriculum that eats into the potential breaks and playtimes. Furthermore, a relatively few still have large playgrounds and the lucky ones, forest schools.

It is estimated that in the last decade alone the time children spend outside has declined by 50%. That means less creative play and the loss of the building blocks that become life skills.

Shocking.