Hey parents, leave your kids alone

Kids should be allowed to eat sweets and watch TV — in moderation — according to the UK’s National Centre for Social Research. At long last someone is talking sense, says Suzanne Harrington, who advocates a ‘healthy neglect’ approach to parenting.

REMEMBER that Pink Floyd chorus “Hey teacher leave those kids alone”? Now that it’s the summer holidays, perhaps we need to change the words: hey parents, leave your kids alone. Step away from the schedule, resist the over planning. In this era of helicopter parenting and tiger moms, whatever happened to benign neglect? What ever happened to unstructured mooching?

Benign neglect is very different from actual neglect, which on any level — physical, emotional, intellectual — is never a good parenting strategy. Benign neglect, on the other hand, is just letting kids get on with it. It is long-leash parenting within consistent boundaries. Because while obviously we mean well, is structuring their summer holidays down to the last tennis lesson, the last museum visit, ever a good idea? Do we have to patrol childhood so much?

We live in hyper-stimulated times, where parenting has become fetishised and perfectionism is rife. We are risk averse, over protective, and punch drunk from a media that tells us there is danger lurking on every corner, in every cornflake box, so that if our kids much as stub their toe, they will be traumatised for life and it will be totally our fault. No wonder parenting has become more neurotic. And now we have to entertain them for the entire summer holidays whilst balancing our own jobs and relationships — perhaps even social lives if we’re lucky — on our overworked, over-committed noses.

Or do we? Do we really have to meaningfully entertain our children all day every day, like some kind of parental circus performers? Can’t we just bung them a tenner and tell them to bugger off until tea time? (Or is that just me?) Does everything have to be planned and organised? In Britain, the National Trust has published 50 Things To Do Before You’re 11¾, which sounds exhausting and intimidating until you actually read what they are.

Here is a random selection: climb a tree, roll down a hill, camp in the wild, build a den, run around in the rain, skim a stone, fly a kite, eat an apple straight from the tree, play conkers, go on a bike ride, make a mud pie, play in the snow, make a daisy chain, have a snail race, jump some waves, pick blackberries, visit a farm, go for a barefoot walk, swim in the sea, ride a horse, cook on a campfire. The only unethical one was ‘catch a fish in a net’, and the only one I had to google was ‘find a geocache’ (it’s an outdoor treasure hunt where you use your phone’s GPS to find stuff).

Apart from the digital treasure hunt, this list is basically normal childhood stuff — so why list it? Why make it a thing? Because these days our kids are more likely to get repetitive strain injury in their thumbs from playing computer games than spraining their wrists falling out of an actual tree. It seems to be a developed world phenomenon — as far away as Australia, only 40% of small children walk unsupervised from school, despite chances of being murdered by a stranger standing at one in four million. (In Japan 80% of kindergarten kids walk home unescorted, because Japanese society is less individualistic and kids are regarded a communal responsibility.)

Our over protection is not doing our kids any favours. Benign neglect makes kids more confident, independent, active, socially competent and better at assessing risk. If the only peril they ever encounter is online in World of Warcraft, what happens when they encounter some real peril outdoors? It’s not like they can click ‘game over’.

This is not to get all sanctimonious about the evils of the electronic babysitter. New research from the National Centre of Social Research in the UK tells us that moderate screen time is fine, even if sweets are involved. “Being happier and lacking worry does not mean never having sweets, snacks and television,” says its ‘Predictions of Well Being’ report. “In fact, there was some indication in the results that higher well being was more likely when these were enjoyed in moderation. For example, well being was lower among children who never watched television and among those who watched it the most, higher among those who watched television, but for less than an hour a day.”

Nor is it sensible to censor kids’ viewing too much. While not advocating letting your four year old view The Exorcist (as my partner did, but luckily it turned out okay — his son is now a film student), the best person to judge what is suitable for your kids is you. ‘Mild peril’? Bring it on. Kids love a bit of emotional complexity as well — think Maleficent or Frozen, rather than the twee moralising of so many TV cartoons. Kids love baddies. They love being scared. They love hiding behind cushions. Let them do it. The odd nightmare won’t kill them.

Let them go out too, and get filthy dirty, and fall over and hurt themselves — this teaches risk assessment. If they want to go to the shop by themselves to buy sweets, it probably means they are ready, unless they are a lone toddler and you live on a dual carriageway. Send the dog with them, or a younger child — it will give them a sense of responsibility. Set them challenges — to take a train, to catch a bus, to meet you somewhere away from home.

My 13-year-old has already taken the train to London several times without an adult — mobile phones mean you don’t have to sit at home sweating. Show them how to do things — cross the road, order food in a café, go to the cinema — and then let them do it. Without you. That way you don’t spend your summer hovering, worrying, or tearing your hair out because you can’t get anything done. Trust them, and trust yourself.

Also, as a single parent it is gratifying to see hard research showing what you already knew quite well — that the kids of single parents or step parents are just as happy as kids living with two biological parents. 12,877 kids were surveyed by the UK’s National Centre of Social Research, which concluded its report: “It’s the quality of the relationships in the home that matters — not the family composition.

“Getting on well with siblings, having fun with the family at weekends, and having a parent who reported rarely or never shouting when the child was naughty, were all linked with a higher likelihood of being happy all the time among seven-year olds.”

Being with other kids is crucial, especially in the summer holidays. This does require some degree of parental organisation, but then back off and let them get on with it. Every August my kids and I drive to the south of France and pitch a tent by the beach — this year there will be eight parents and 12 kids aged from toddler to teenager.

They will run free, taking responsibility and looking out for each other, sorting out hierarchies and disputes themselves, and coming back to the camp only when they have run out of ice cream money. This kind of activity need not cost much, yet in terms of freedom it’s priceless. And more fun for you too.