By: Blonde One
An interesting conversation occurred recently with a friend about the fact that children spend too much time on social media. This friend was adamant that as a result of this screen time children were not climbing trees. So I decided to conduct a very Blonde survey. Normally surveys will have been carefully created with a scientific approach. The sample will have been carefully chosen and the conditions will be as controlled as possible to avoid bias and variations. Not so with this survey; it was conducted in an entirely Blonde way!
Here’s what happened …
I asked some of my classes at Trinity School who had ever climbed a tree in their life. The answer was unanimous: every single student that was asked said that they had indeed climbed a tree.
The conclusive results of this survey therefore are that the children, and their parents, at Trinity School are brilliant and are not constantly stuck inside on social media.
Disclaimer: No children or trees were harmed in the process of conducting this survey.
That’s how I started, completely unsupervised, down in Heaton Woods in Bradford where I was born – it’s probably now all covered with affordable housing. That lead on to a lifetime of outdoorsy-boy scouts-rock climbing-walking- backpacking, caving activities. Yes, I do play a lot on the computer as well.
I remember telling my boys not to let me know what they had been doing when they went off to camp (and probably jump off rocks) in the sea quarries around us. As a mum, wanting to keep your kids safe and wanting them to make their own experiences can make decision-making difficult. A swimming friend told me today of a school that takes its kids down to swim in a local sea pool in the mornings… more of that please!
Took my Dad to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham and afterwards we went and found the house in Harborne where he was brought up. He was thrilled to find the tree that he and Uncle Max used to climb as boys was still big and strong!
How lovely. I remember how sad I was when our climbing tree/boat/house disappeared once we had left the house.