A new centre at the University of Exeter has launched with a deceptively simple question: what has happened to children playing outside?
Its first found children are now nearly 11 when they first play outdoors without adult supervision, more than a year later than their parents’ generation.
The Outdoor Play Research Centre, led by child psychology and play expert Professor Helen Dodd, is funded by a philanthropic gift and will study how homes, neighbourhoods, schools and wider culture shape opportunities for play.
The aim is not to recreate somebody’s sepia-tinted childhood by decree. It is to understand what would make outdoor play realistically safer and easier for today’s children.