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Recorded at the Batle of Ideas 2015

In a week where opprobrium has been heaped on the parents of a four-year-old child who had to be rescued from a gorilla enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo, while the parents of a Japanese seven-year-old boy face charges after abandoning him to wander in the woods for a week, listen to this session from the Battle of Ideas 2015 where Lenore Skenazy argues that far from being obsessed with what our kids might be up to, we must give them the freedom to roam and explore without constant adult supervision.

The term ‘cotton wool kids’ has become part of everyday language. Indeed, many parents, academics and others share a concern that children have become over­protected. The worry is that youngsters no longer have enough freedom to explore, to get into scrapes, have accidents and work out how to deal with situations when they don’t have adults telling them what to do.

Discussions about this problem often focus on Mum and Dad: the blame, it is said, lies with irrationally fearful, overprotective ‘helicopter parents’. Yet when parents do try to give their children more freedom, they can face a great deal of hostility and even legal action. In the US, the parents of so-called ‘Free Range Kids’ have been charged with child neglect, while UK parents who let their young children cycle to school on their own have become the subject of protracted public debate about whether this is neglectful. Parents are told almost daily that their children’s health, welfare and safety are at risk, not just from strangers lurking in the park but from adults they know and thought they could trust, including family members, teachers, doctors and volunteers – and the apparently ever-growing menace of online grooming and abuse. Given this state of affairs, how could parents not end up being fearful and paranoid?

How should we, as adults collectively, think about how best to protect and care for children while at the same time challenging and testing them in creative ways? Why do we find it so hard to agree on a ‘commonsense’ approach to child-rearing? Are projects that focus on letting children ‘run free’ the answer? Or are these becoming just another parenting fad, accessible mainly to middle­-class parents who can weekend in the country? Is it possible, or even desirable, to change the way we raise our children in a more profound way? How might we find ways to develop character, determination and independence of thought and action in future generations?

Dr Helene Guldberg

Lisa Harker

CHAIR