HT, Patna 4/8/2008
Kids need to indulge in ‘risky games’
London Aug 4, 08 THE NEXT time you find your kid playing some risky games, do not intervene.
A new study has revealed that parents can harm their children development if they deprive them of such pleasure.
Researchers in Britain have found that for their own development, kids need to explore adventure in their childhood and test and challenge themselves in plays involving a certain level of risk.
Yet millions of children are being deprived of such pleasure because their parents are nervous about exposing them to any risks.
Some mothers and father are going to such extreme lengths that they have even said ‘no’ to hide-and-seek, the study has found.
"Children are not being allowed many of the freedoms that were taken for granted when we were children. They aren’t enjoying the opportunities to play outside that most people would have thought of as normal when they were growing up," The Observer quoted Adrian Voce as saying.
Adrian Voce, the Director of Play England, part of the UK’s National Children’s Bureau that commissioned the study.
The bureau found that it is becoming a "social norm" for younger children to be allowed out only when accompanied by an adult.
"Logistically that is very difficult for parents to manage because of the time pressures on normal family life.
If you don’t want your children to play out alone and you have not got the time to take them out then they will spend more time on the computer," he said.
Voce claimed that the tendency of parents to wrap their children in cotton wool has transformed how the toddlers experience childhood.
