When Naomi Fisher took her eight-year-old son to the country park in Birmingham where she spent much of her childhood exploring with her friends, he asked why he was not allowed to go off by himself.
“I couldn’t even give a good reason why not. It’s just isn’t done anymore, nobody lets their kids do that,” said Fisher, a community architect. “I had some conversations and it seemed my generation had all experienced that kind of play from seven or eight years old and yet it had virtually disappeared now.”
Experts have raised concerns about the growing “scholarisation of childhood” and Fisher’s experience is not uncommon, with the British Children’s Play Survey published this week finding children typically are not are allowed to play outside on their own until two years older than their parents’ generation were. “Some people think it’s a rural and urban thing, but I grew up in south-east Birmingham and had that experience,” said Fisher. “It just got me thinking, is there any way of enabling this again?”
Soon after, with the help of her friend and…
