Shorts day it was most definitely called at my then 11 year olds primary school and at the same time, my pal who’s son he felt was being ‘molycoddled’ the pal being an ex para military sort and probably co source of boys being dumbed down intel. There was no competition, it was all teams and no winners, no losers, sorry a fact, along with the no sheath knives no axes scouts thing. Conkers however were not banned and girls and boys played equally, but I gather elsewhere were not as lucky.

This is red herringing and you appear to have your dereks crossed, my real name isn’t derek, nor ever has been.

Think I’m leaving this now, not looking for accusations of troll or a thought crime ban.

Heres a hyperthetical question for you before you go. If the Para mentioned above could have instigated a high stakes game of pass the parcel with some hand grenades. To toughen the liittle buggers up.. would the girls have been allowed to play?

Actual 😆 at that, yunki, thanks for that. (-:

Conkers however were not banned and girls and boys played equally, but I gather elsewhere were not as lucky.

The Daily Mail story: One in six schools bans conkers over elf ‘n’ safety fears – and leapfrog and marbles are also under threat

The Grauniad: The conkers-with-goggles story was a myth. I know – I started it

The HSE reality: Myth: Kids must wear goggles to play conkers: “.. the risk from playing conkers is incredibly low and just not worth bothering about”

This is red herringing and you appear to have your dereks crossed, my real name isn’t derek, nor ever has been.

It should be pointed out that we established on a different thread that tyionl1 is in his late 60’s to early 70’s.

I seem to remember derekrides was a fair bit younger than that, so either he is a deep-cover method-troll or they are separate folk. I’m not sure which.

My pleasure cougar – although feeling a bit guilty about not respecting my elders now in light of Graham’s link to the driving thread 😳

Generally we played out on the street locally, cul-de-sac just around the corner, quiet estate, back in the mid to late 7Os…i played out from the age of 4 until 10, as the years went on we tended to gravitate a little further out – even further out to parks to play with primary school friends at 10 onwards.

I organised a 3 stage, one day tour de kinver race when we were all about about 13, it involved cycling miles from home, along main roads and all sorts.

There were a lot less cars around then, but i don’t feel its any more dangerous on the street apart from that.

I was in more danger from one of my mates who got his hands on a pen knife one day and seemed more intent on scaring us with it!!! lol

I’d say once they are at secondary school they are easily old enough to look after themselves.

Wrapping them in cotton wool does more harm than good in my eyes and could potentially lead to issues later on.

(reference here to Boy Scouts banning sheath knives and the carrying of hand axes)

Think that might have more to do with legalities and insurance than boys being hand wringers these days.

That story is very worrying.

I grew up on the grounds of mental hospital, as it was thus called back then, there was old farm buildings, fields and woods surrounding it and town was 1.5 miles away. At a very young age I was allowed out to play in the ‘streets’ there was no real streets but really, this was in a a very small radius.

At age 4 we moved to a large house on the grounds which was next to the old farm buildings. There was an old granary with an uncovered floor hatch, my parents asked us to keep away if we were playing in there. The inevitable happened I got too adventurous playing excitably nearby with my toy cars one went near the hole. I ran over to pick it up and fell down the hole 30′ onto concrete. Smashed my skull and spent the entire school holidays in hospital and many months/years recovering.

We were still allowed to play outside in the grounds but my parents learnt a hard lesson. As we got older were allowed further afield at age 8 my brother 11 we were allowed to go into town but had to be back strict times.

Irony of it all was that in this hospital were know paedophiles who had been incarcerated many years before into the hospital as was the norm then. My Dad would tell us to keep away from certain ‘patients’ if they are we were on our own.

Oh and my kids take conkers to school every year and I’ve never heard of shorts day.

quite honestly the only ones that spring to mind were the boy scouts since that body I always felt brought a controlled sense of adventure to that age group, with the chopping down trees, building fires and general scout craft which believe me is lost these days as a young man of my acquaintance a scout leader frequently points out to me.

Maybe your acquaintance should remind you it’s not the boy scouts, just The Scouts, as all are welcome and treated equally. Also knife, axe and bush craft skills are taught.

Maybe your acquaintance should remind you it’s not the boy scouts, just The Scouts, as all are welcome and treated equally. Also knife, axe and bush craft skills are taught.

Or send the boys to Brownies or Girl Guides where they can still use knives, axes, chop down trees and light fires. You know where girls aren’t overprotected and are allowed out before they are 18.

Graeme by any chance?

Graeme by any chance?

looks like it. The windsurfing and snowboarding gives it away, knock that on the head and you’ll stay undercover for longer.

He was also a Derek yes but not Derekrides.

Err. I’ve not really been keeping pace with this, but a quick scan seems to reveal a lot of knives and axes.

Why?

Do gooders have banned boys from playing with them when it should only be girls, apparently.

Why?

Girls can’t use knives and axes because their ovaries get in the way, so the feminazi hand-wringers have banned anything sharper than a plastic spoon in a typical lefty PC-garn-mad bid to emasculate boys.

Or something.

Drac.

Thanks for trying, but, I’m still lost, bit like this thread, perhaps?

As for the original question. I’m not best placed to answer. Perhaps there isn’t one size fits all, definitive, blanket rule/answer to such a decision?

Thanks for trying, but, I’m still lost, bit like this thread, perhaps?

The answer is buried in the thread but I’d not worry about it.

Locke Park is actually quite a nice little park.

Dunno if it’s worth responding to the OP given how the thread seems to have gone, but fwiw I don’t think you can or should have hard and fast rules, there’s different locations, risks and, indeed, children.

I wouldn’t rule out letting a 7 year old roam those distances, but would be very hesitant in some environments.

My two have matured differently, and as a consequence we’ve been far from consistent as they’ve passed through the same ages. The younger one (9) is currently allowed to do a few things, and go further, than their sibling did at the same age.

Don’t know if it adds anything, but since it’s come up, the child that’s allowed to roam further is female, and the elder sibling that wasn’t allowed the same at the same age is male. In neither case was gender a significant factor in the decision making.