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It's funny, too, how generational we are in our attitude towards child-safety. My nieces have a great deal of freedom in many ways. My brother trusts them to take risks, often physical risks (in terms of sports and rock-climbing and the like)and has done from them being quite young. So, they're in no way over-coddled. But what they don't do, not because they've been stopped, but because it was never encouraged as a practice, is hang around outside, or go off places by themselves.
Now, when I was Soph's age I was usually in the park or playing around the old bomb shelter with my mates. Same with my bro. You'd get home from school, grab some food and then bugger off with your mates and instructions on what time to be home. This is something that doesn't seem to happen so much now, especially with middle-class kids. There's seems to be a general consensus that children should be 'somewhere' not just wandering about at risk.
Kids now don't seem to explore the world outside without supervision, as freely as they once did. Although, thinking about it, part of that might be because parents these days are generally more interested in doing the exploring as well. My brother and the girls go climbing and walking and building dens in the back garden.
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