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FAMILY HOW TO GIVE YOUR KIDS A 1970's Summer Andrea Mynard gets excited about allowing her daughter a free-range summer holiday THE SUN IS SHINING, THE summer holidays are beckoning and l’m starting to daydream about children climbing trees, having picnics and camping out in the tree-house. Images of my own 1970s childhood flash into my mind: cycling off with friends to a nearby brook to find tadpoles that we attempted to bring home in jam-jars, making treasure maps and dens and generally running wild with the three children who lived next door. We did have a couple of planned days out each summer holiday but what I remember best is competing to see who could climb to the highest point in the apple trees, making camps with deck chairs and sun-loungers, sleeping out in the garden in a tent and daring each other to creep into the house to find extra penguin biscuits. Or just setting out for an ‘adventure’ on our bikes, jam sandwiches in our rucksacks. I wasn’t even growing up in the countryside but in the suburbs of a Midlands town, but perhaps thanks to being an avid reader of ‘The Famous Five’ and ‘Children of the New Forest’ I revelled in the freedom to play outdoors in our garden, in the streets around us and on the patches of waste ground leading to our favourite brook. In my head I think my siblings, friends and I were exploring treasure islands, romantic prairies, a vast undiscovered wilderness. My indulgent nostalgia has partly been prompted by reading Raffaella Barker’s ‘Come and Tell Me Some Lies’ a wonderful, semi-autobiographical novel where she PHOTOGRAPH David Handley 'I REVELLED IN THE FREEDOM TO PLAY OUTDOORS IN THE STREETS AROUND US AND ON THE PATCHES OF WASTE GROUND LEADING TO OUR FAVOURITE BROOK' draws on her own wild, 70s childhood in Norfolk – growing up with many brothers and sisters, grumpy donkeys, goats, dogs and rabbits in a house up a long track with fields and woods behind it. She describes waking up to the birds and thinking, what are we going to do today? Yet already many of this year’s precious summery days of freedom are filling up with planned play-dates, there are suggestions of trips out, kids’ summer activity clubs to think about and my daughter’s school bag is full of literature about exciting days out nearby offering ‘family fun.’ All very tempting but if I’m not careful those days of waking up with no particular plan for the day are going to be non-existent for my own family. Cramming Activities? When I consider all the wonderful kid’s activities on offer these days, it certainly seems as if we’ve become more child-centred in focus than during my own 1970s childhood. Obviously a good thing, but coupled with our fear of letting children become bored, it can lead to a tendency to cram too much in. It’s easy to feel guilt when our children are left to get bored. I can picture many times when I’ve promised trips to the playground, qualified with 'Just let me finish the ironing/ do the hovering/answer a few emails and we’ll go,' and felt terrible as it takes longer than planned and I can hear disappointed groans and moans in the background. Allowing the Real Fun Yet actually, when children are unintentionally left to become bored, it’s often when the real fun happens. In my own home, it often revolves around potions. Murky ones, found lurking in corners of the house much later – in good weather there’ll be ‘perfume’ made in buckets outside, on rainy days there’ll be a request for a tea bag, the chalk will disappear, the bathroom door will close and I’ll know there’s a stinky potion being concocted. I may miss the sunny prettiness of all the primroses in my garden when they’re de-headed for perfume and groan at the clearing up to do after indoor potion-making but I have to smile too as this is exactly the sort of play that reminds me of my own childhood games. Rebecca Fossett, who lives with husband, Joe, and children; Leo and Daisy on a small farm from which they run camel treks in Warwickshire, also remembers enjoying a 1970s childhood and is appreciative of the self-reliance and spirit of adventure that it’s instilled in her (she went on to work with lions in a circus > 18 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015 www.thegreenparent.co.uk
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FAMILY

HOW TO GIVE YOUR KIDS A

1970's Summer

Andrea Mynard gets excited about allowing her daughter a free-range summer holiday

THE SUN IS SHINING, THE summer holidays are beckoning and l’m starting to daydream about children climbing trees, having picnics and camping out in the tree-house. Images of my own 1970s childhood flash into my mind: cycling off with friends to a nearby brook to find tadpoles that we attempted to bring home in jam-jars, making treasure maps and dens and generally running wild with the three children who lived next door.

We did have a couple of planned days out each summer holiday but what I remember best is competing to see who could climb to the highest point in the apple trees, making camps with deck chairs and sun-loungers, sleeping out in the garden in a tent and daring each other to creep into the house to find extra penguin biscuits. Or just setting out for an ‘adventure’ on our bikes, jam sandwiches in our rucksacks. I wasn’t even growing up in the countryside but in the suburbs of a Midlands town, but perhaps thanks to being an avid reader of ‘The Famous Five’ and ‘Children of the New Forest’ I revelled in the freedom to play outdoors in our garden, in the streets around us and on the patches of waste ground leading to our favourite brook. In my head I think my siblings, friends and I were exploring treasure islands, romantic prairies, a vast undiscovered wilderness. My indulgent nostalgia has partly been prompted by reading Raffaella Barker’s ‘Come and Tell Me Some Lies’ a wonderful, semi-autobiographical novel where she

PHOTOGRAPH David Handley

'I REVELLED IN THE FREEDOM TO PLAY OUTDOORS IN THE STREETS AROUND US AND ON THE PATCHES OF WASTE GROUND

LEADING TO OUR FAVOURITE BROOK'

draws on her own wild, 70s childhood in Norfolk – growing up with many brothers and sisters, grumpy donkeys, goats, dogs and rabbits in a house up a long track with fields and woods behind it. She describes waking up to the birds and thinking, what are we going to do today? Yet already many of this year’s precious summery days of freedom are filling up with planned play-dates, there are suggestions of trips out, kids’ summer activity clubs to think about and my daughter’s school bag is full of literature about exciting days out nearby offering ‘family fun.’ All very tempting but if I’m not careful those days of waking up with no particular plan for the day are going to be non-existent for my own family.

Cramming Activities? When I consider all the wonderful kid’s activities on offer these days, it certainly seems as if we’ve become more child-centred in focus than during my own 1970s childhood. Obviously a good thing, but coupled with our fear of letting children become bored, it can lead to a tendency to cram too much in.

It’s easy to feel guilt when our children are left to get bored. I can picture many times when I’ve promised trips to the playground, qualified with 'Just let me finish the ironing/ do the hovering/answer a few emails and we’ll go,' and felt terrible as it takes longer than planned and I can hear disappointed groans and moans in the background.

Allowing the Real Fun Yet actually, when children are unintentionally left to become bored, it’s often when the real fun happens. In my own home, it often revolves around potions. Murky ones, found lurking in corners of the house much later – in good weather there’ll be ‘perfume’ made in buckets outside, on rainy days there’ll be a request for a tea bag, the chalk will disappear, the bathroom door will close and I’ll know there’s a stinky potion being concocted. I may miss the sunny prettiness of all the primroses in my garden when they’re de-headed for perfume and groan at the clearing up to do after indoor potion-making but I have to smile too as this is exactly the sort of play that reminds me of my own childhood games.

Rebecca Fossett, who lives with husband, Joe, and children; Leo and Daisy on a small farm from which they run camel treks in Warwickshire, also remembers enjoying a 1970s childhood and is appreciative of the self-reliance and spirit of adventure that it’s instilled in her (she went on to work with lions in a circus >

18

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015 www.thegreenparent.co.uk

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