Let Our Children Play

You may have seen this but I thought I would share it with you.

Judith Hackitt who is Chair of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) wrote a blog post on her blog on the 7th June that will ring true with any person involved in Scouting. We as a society are starting to drift into a world where Common Sense is not so Common and it is nice that some one from an organisation such as the HSE as said “Let Kids be Kids”

In HSE, we are focused on health and safety in the workplace, but it is clear that attitudes to risk are formed long before young people enter the world of work. Play – and particularly play outdoors – teaches young people how to deal with risk. Without this awareness and learning they are ill equipped to deal with working life. Our health and safety system in Britain requires workplace risks to be managed, not eliminated, and gives people responsibility for their own wellbeing. We simply cannot afford to exclude outdoor play and learning from our children’s education.

Young people are curious, and they learn quickly. We should not deny them the opportunity to learn by taking risks. Seeking to protect them from every conceivable hazard, rather than sensibly managing the genuine risks they face, ultimately leaves them in harm’s way, not to mention robbing them of memories that last a lifetime.

The whole post is here.

Wayne Bulpitt has even given his take on the post here 

I can tell you that my time is scouts taught me a few good lesson about risk assessment things like

• Don’t drop rocks on your head or you will have to have stitches
• If you wind someone up on a rope swing for them to spin stand back there is a chance they will vomit
• Running through Nettles is not fun.
• Test each branch of the tree before you add your full weight.
• When using a penknife you will cut yourself at least once,
• Keep you penkinfe sharp it makes the cut cleaner
• Never walk behind some one wielding a peg mallet
• If your going to use your foot to steady the Tent peg wear boots not flip flops

There is just a few of my lessons learnt. Tell me in the comments what did you learn only to do once in Scouting.