If safety police won’t let kids throw snowballs ‘they might as well be in captivity’

Leading child psychologist Professor Tanya Byron warned that youngsters no longer know how to fall over, are still being driven to school at age 12 and are banned from throwing snowballs due to fears about grit.

She said that a risk-averse culture has resulted in levels of paranoia that are “insane”.

Speaking at the North of England Education Conference (NEEC) in Sheffield, Prof Byron raised concerns that children are now being raised in captivity.

“We live in a risk-averse culture, the levels of paranoia about health and safety and wellbeing are insane,” she said.

“Most children spend most of their childhoods being raised in captivity.”

Today’s children are “hugely, hugely restricted”, she told delegates.

“There are no more predators on the streets, no more paedophiles, then when I was growing up in the 1970s.”

There are better systems now for tracking those people who have “wholly inappropriate relationships around children”, Prof Byron suggested.

Children today are “rarely seen out”, she said, when youngsters used to play outside all the time.

Rising numbers of children are attending A&E and minor injuries units because “kids don’t know how to fall any more,” she said.

“They tense themselves up when they fall, so they sprain.”

Children used to fall all the time and scabs were seen as a “badge of honour”, she said.

Prof Byron claimed she had also heard of directives in schools which said children cannot play with conkers without goggles, or throw snowballs because they may have grit in them, and that youngsters are being driven to school when they are 11 and 12.

She told the conference: “Children are being raised in captivity, children are not free range any more.

“They are taking risks we are not preparing them for. They are having a blast in this fantastic global space. I would argue they are more vulnerable there than if they were hanging out on the street.”

Prof Byron raised concerns that too much emphasis is being put on a child’s IQ, suggesting that emotional intelligence also needs to be considered.

“IQ is something that the Government is very interested in and see IQ as determined by exam results.”

She said anyone who has spent time researching the subject knows that “exam results are the least reliable indicator of intelligence”.

Prof Byron also told delegates: “If we do believe that the only way to get the education system back on track is to take it back to the 1970s, we’re completely delusional. It’s letting children down.”

Children need to be allowed to develop their emotional intelligence, she said.

She also suggested that children learn in different ways, and this needs to be taken into account in the classroom.

Her comments came the day after ministers announced that in future primary schools will be encouraged to teach pupils to work out sums using traditional methods like long division and multiplication, or setting out figures in columns for addition and subtraction.

The move is a bit to stop schools using techniques such as “gridding” and “chunking” which have become increasingly popular in recent years.

Ministers insist that these newer methods are “clumsy, confusing and time-consuming”.

Under the plans, pupils who use traditional methods for working out sums will be rewarded in tests, even if they get the answer wrong.