Later

After walk....

Following on from yesterday’s blog (as always the forerunner in current affairs!) it comes as no great surprise to hear, on BBC News this morning, that a survey has found that while most parents played unsupervised as children themselves, they wouldn’t dream of letting their children do so in case they were seen to be neglectful parents. The piece was then followed by various interviews wondering why this is so. I would have thought anyone with half a brain could work out that the media coverage of first Holly and Jessica, and now Madeleine McCann, has a huge part to play in this.

Surely the obesity problem is linked to this? If we don’t allow our children to run around and play, we keep them inside where we can keep an eye on them. So they put on weight. They don’t let off steam, so their problems become internalised and come out in other directions. And what about children’s imaginations? How do they use them if they’re cooped up all the time? How do they get to meet other kids and run around like kids should do, go swimming or running, fall over, get up again – all the things we need to learn about to grow up. It seems this society’s problems go round in every decreasing circles, fuelled by the media and paranoia.

But how do we get away from this 24 hour news coverage? I worked for one of the first 24 hour TV news channels, and of course then it was such a novelty. Now it’s par for the course. Perhaps we should all chuck our TVs into the sea, turn off our computers and stop reading newspapers. But I can’t see that happening, can you? It’s too addictive…..