According to Scotland on Sunday's survey of 910 adults, the average child now has to wait until they are eight to play out in the street unsupervised, nine to walk to school, 11 to travel by bike and 12 to travel by bus. Asked when they were granted the same freedoms, however, the adults told a very different story. They said they were allowed to play in the street at five, walk to school at between six and seven, play in the park at seven and cycle to school at nine. So, do today's youngsters really need to be bubble-wrapped, or are we just succumbing to parental paranoia? And in denying our children the opportunity to be independent do we run the risk of producing a generation of mollycoddled young adults who have no idea how to survive in the real world?

At the heart of parents' protectiveness lies their fear that Britain has been transformed from a benign haven to a sinister underworld where danger lurks at every corner. Many genuinely believe their children are at greater risk than ever before from traffic, bullies, drug dealers and, most particularly, paedophiles. Indeed, almost everyone is worried about stranger danger and - at a time when Madeleine McCann's photograph still dominates the news agenda - who can blame them?

"Parents respond emotionally to these stories, which result in them putting more emphasis than they should on some very small risks," says Kathleen Marshall, Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People.

Even as Paula McKay was talking to Scotland on Sunday, police were scouring the streets of her West Lothian village looking for a boy who had failed to turn up at his primary school. "I know the chances are he is just bunking off, but it does make me worry more about letting Christopher walk to school, even though it is just round the corner," she says.

Sheena Fraser, who lives in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire, agrees life has changed since she brought up her daughters, now 34 and 37. "They would walk to school together at the age of six and nine. But we lived in a small village. The neighbours and the shop owners knew them and they met other children as they went along the street. Now we're no longer a small village and I'm not sure I would let them out so young. Housing estates have been added on and the main road through it is really busy. The place is full of strangers who wouldn't know who all the kids are."

Frank Furedi, sociologist and author of Paranoid Parenting, says child protection agencies and even the government are guilty of frightening parents by feeding them a relentless diet of scare stories. "If you look at organisations such as the NSPCC, they perpetuate the idea that youngsters are constantly at risk," he says.

Yet statistics suggest children have never been safer. According to Marguerite Hunter-Blair, chief executive of Play Scotland, there are fewer road traffic accidents now than there were in the 1920s. The number of children abused by strangers remains proportionately low (most victims of paedophilia are targeted by people they already know) and kids are taught to yell and tell and so ought to be better equipped to deal with unwanted approaches.

Susie Andrews, of Balerno, Edinburgh, who has a 28-year-old daughter, says this message does not seem to be getting through. "You rarely see children playing in the grassy areas where I live, and I don't understand why not. There's probably no more reason now for parents to smother their children than there was 20 years ago. But parents wrap their children in cotton wool one minute, and the next, they're all dolled up in make-up and looking older than they are."

Part of the problem lies with social changes that have fundamentally altered the way communities function. With both parents often out working, there is a greater reliance on after-school clubs and less opportunity for neighbours to get to know and trust each other. Grannies and aunties, too, are less likely to be on hand to keep an eye on what's going on. "Because people aren't managing their children as part of an extended family or community, they keep them inside more," says child psychologist Ruth Coppard.

But many organisations are now beginning to realise that immunising children from all risk can have a negative impact on their development. Last month, a report by Dr William Bird, the health adviser to Natural England, warned that the mental health of 21st-century children is at risk because they are missing out on the exposure to the natural world enjoyed by past generations.

Some feel over-protectiveness can actually make matters worse. Just as cracking down on germs has reduced children's immunity to certain diseases, so excessive health and safety measures can deprive them of their ability to scent out danger. According to Hunter-Blair, for example, the accident rate in playgrounds has gone up since safety surfacing was installed. "Children don't risk-assess it properly, they think they'll bounce," she says.

Even the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, a body that exists to dole out advice on how to reduce the risk of everyday tasks, believes the pendulum has swung too far. Spokesman Peter Cornall says: "When children spend time out of doors, they learn important lessons: what hurts, what is slippery, what you can trip over. We need to ask whether it is better for a child to break a wrist falling out of a tree or to get a repetitive strain wrist injury at a young age from using a games console."

Furedi fears over-protection is already affecting our young adults. "What we are seeing is the infantalisation of a generation," he says. "There are people in their late teens who think of themselves as boys and girls rather than men and women. They are needier and less likely to stand on their own than they were 20 years ago."

Josephine Carfray knows exactly what he means. She did her best to ensure her own children were independent, but she recently heard of an 18-year-old man who was finding the transition to adulthood difficult. "A friend's son, who had left school and was out working, needed to see his doctor," Carfray says. "She phoned up and made an appointment for him. But just before the allotted time, he appeared at the door, saying: 'OK, are you ready?' He really expected his mother to go with him. When she told him this wasn't on, he asked her: 'But what do I do when I get there?'"

Parents, too, seem to sense their children may be missing out on a valuable learning process. When The Dangerous Book For Boys was published, it went straight into the bestseller lists, suggesting many of us are wistful for the days when the summer holidays were filled with adventure. But there is little evidence this nostalgia for derring do is being translated into more freedom for today's children. Quite the opposite, in fact. Furedi says that although he has been trying to highlight the issue for the past six years, he sees no sign that the tide is turning. "Many of those I interview tell me that although they realise the long-term damage too much television is doing to their children, they would rather deal with that than risk the perceived risks outside their homes."

If children are deprived of the right to roam, however, then the repercussions may be disastrous, not only for the individuals involved, but for society as a whole.

Delayed adolescence means bright young things who should be contributing their energy and ideas to improving the world are likely to be still cosseted in their family home. "If children don't develop the social skills they get from free play, they won't become creative, independent and tolerant of others, but will be home-based and insular," says Hunter-Blair. "There will be fewer risk-takers and therefore fewer entrepreneurs."

Scientists believe there will also be huge health implications. They predict one third of today's children will die of obesity-related illnesses before their parents, placing a huge burden on the NHS. But Hunter-Blair believes lack of free play will also lead to an increase in mental illnesses such as agoraphobia.

"If we don't confront this problem quickly, it could eventually lead to economic collapse - it's as serious as that," she says.

Extract from report by Dani Garavelli
1 July 2007

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1027082007

See also: "Give boys their childhood back" at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/article2010019.ece