Mum's the word: Set our cotton wool kids free to run in the rain for six and a half weeks

Published on Thursday 2 July 2009 12:28

SCHOOL'S out and it's a jungle out there for our cotton wool kids. How will they cope with six and a half weeks of freedom from the health and safety police? Able to run in wet grass, chew gum while walking, use glue sans goggles, wipe their own . . . all manner of pursuits they're protected from at school.

Maybe the schools are complying with local authority rules and fear litigation but it's a shame to move a sports day indoors when it rains in case some numpty slips on the grass. Using beanbags instead of javelins because you're in the school hall?

Back in the dangerous days before some schools banned running in the playground (possibility of falling), toilet roll modelling (unhygienic), egg box sculpture (salmonella), plasters (allergies), conkers ("you'll have someone's eye out"), homebaking (what could be lurking on the cake stall?), snowballs (fun), we used to play hockey in the snow (especially in the snow) and if you got a snowball in the mouth, woe betide you to whine to teacher. You learnt to move faster next time. Never did us any harm, apart from the odd dental implant and glass eye.

We live in Scotland. Should our kids not be practising their running in the rain techniques, a life skill that will come in handy?

It's not just the sports day for softies that worries me. Youngest Child's school trip was switched from the beach to a country park because of "health and safety". The staff hadn't done the course yet and neither had the parent helpers. Decades of sand, sea and sickness experience counted for nothing.

The 1999 Health and Safety Act says risk assessments must be done for every activity but also requires a "reasonable approach". So don't our mollycoddled offspring need to take reasonable risks to learn to deal with them? Health and Safety Executive Chair Judith Hackitt says legislation is "not to stop them running, jumping and falling over. It's to stop them doing really dangerous things: like fighting and getting really nasty with one another." So will I stop them fighting and getting really nasty with one another?

No danger. That's what summer holidays are for.