It was like something out of an Enid Blyton Book...

Well like an Enid Blyton book with polyester football shirts.

I was on the daily commute on a bridle path through the woods when two kids in said polyester football shirts asked if I liked their camp. I looked around and they had made an honest to goodness camp in the woods out of branches and dirty stuff. There was not a playstation/xbox in sight, it wasn't even a build your own camp simulator on the wi. What was even stranger was that they were outside in the fresh air! It lifted the spirits and made me think that there is hope for man kind after all.

Lashings of ginger beer all round indeed!

pip pip

summer is here, my kids love making camps, they do it whenever we take them camping too, set up a base in near by woods, you don't see them for hours.

if our kids did that they'd probably get shouted at by some busybody...

sad endictment of our times

I was over at a friend's house last week, for an afternoon of grown-up conversation and perhaps a sneaky beer disguised as allowing our children to have fun.

We sat there, surrounded by a battery-powered go-kart, scalectrix, dvds, remote control car, swimming pool .... and two boys, aged 4 and a bit were doing a drawing while the girls played dressing up.

So I jumped in the pool to play on the inflatable crocodile.

Kids always love making camps and are amazingly imaginative if allowed!

Sadness I think is that many parents won't allow kids out on their own because of worries about their safety ..... strange people on bikes going past and all that......

my two saved for months to buy the ds console each.......nagged for ages to get them....guess what they play with all the time.......yup ...got them 1 each as stocking fillers .....turns out they love them more.the ds doesnt get used yet they sit there after 2 hours of bouncing on the 8ft trampoline twisting and going yay i did a side...

CAS":1xr3cagk said:

Kids always love making camps and are amazingly imaginative if allowed!

Sadness I think is that many parents won't allow kids out on their own because of worries about their safety ..... strange people on bikes going past and all that......

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Absolutely spot on, whats kids enjoy hasn't changed it's simply the opportunities to do it.

My Mum happily let me and my mates disappear off all day as long as we were home for tea. We were supposed to stay within a certain distance of home but we always went miles further than we should, never came to any harm, no mobiles or anything to check up on us.

I absolutely blame media coverage of isolated incidents for instilling fear in parents minds. Yes bad things happen, there is a risk of them happening in the home, why deny children their childhood because of the tiny likelyhood of them happening?

As for getting told off building camps etc. that always happened, there's always some NIMBY who will have a moan, no change there!

And the rate of child abduction is lower today than (alleged golden age of) the 1950's.

Just lots more hysterical newspapers and 24 hour news channels with airtime to fill.

Kestonian":19g50ia2 said:

I was over at a friend's house last week, for an afternoon of grown-up conversation and perhaps a sneaky beer disguised as allowing our children to have fun.

We sat there, surrounded by a battery-powered go-kart, scalectrix, dvds, remote control car, swimming pool .... and two boys, aged 4 and a bit were doing a drawing while the girls played dressing up.

So I jumped in the pool to play on the inflatable crocodile.

Click to expand...

It's got even better now. Today it had an old BBQ and computer dest someone had thrown away. I might be moving in soon.