do kids make dens anymore?

[hammock monkey]

i was thinking about my hometown yesterday and i remembered that (when i was a nipper in the late 70's /80's) me and my mate must have had 10 or more "den's" over all around the town. I was out everyday and night with my mate building the new den, it would get discovered and we'd disown it or it would reach its full potential i suppose and become boring.
Some would be under peoples noses in the town and some would be miles away out in the sticks. We cooked food, sometimes camped overnight (bearing in mind we were probably 6-13 yrs old) and generally had a great time. Things could get a bit 'lord of the flies' if there were too many of us but thats par for the course. No-one ever got seriously hurt and as we went our own ways as the hormones kicked in we all ended up ok as far as i know.

My question is do kids still do that? Are they allowed to go off miles away from home and do all that stuff without the world calling out a search party and the newspapers calling for some kind of curfew?

I dont have kids yet, but when i do i hope they can do the same stuff i did, although it feels like if i let them i'd have a well meaning official visitor knocking on the door...

maybe its just because i'm from a very rural part of the uk and live in a city now?

 

[Tony]

Good question HM. My kids build dens all the time but not on the same scale we did, now it's in the garden or fairly close to the house, they don't tend to wander the village or countryside and it's not for lack of encouragement, we live in a great part of the world where i'm happy for my kids to go off adventuring, we do have a swampy marsh next to us which they play on and there's a big oak on the farmers field Thorin plays in. There's dens in the bushes and often dens in the house but they don't live the life we did.

I think there's loads of factors that play into that, for many it's that fear of letting the kids out and for some kids there's just so much entertainment at home with consoles, PC's and parents that mollycoddle that there's no desire to use their imagination or their muscles. land owners don't know the local kids like they used to so there's an automatic assumption that they're up to no good...there's loads of factors. We used to play in the hay barns, that's a no no now as are many things.

I think that general kids are more unsure of themselves (in the great outdoors) than we were as well, we had experiences from the start that helped us develop common sense, fear, bravery(stupidity) and a healthy respect for may of the things outdoors, it seems that a lot of kids now have loads of one aspect (or sometimes the opposite) of that and not a healthy combination of all.

Mine are still young though, 10, 8, 4 and 7 months so there's plenty of time for them to go further and further and as we carry on encouraging them they'll do it more and more. We should start a den building movement encouraging all parents to encourage den building

Anyway, that's my ramble on it

 

[DoctorSpoon]

Mine do They also build rope swings, swim in the river (brrrr), race around on bikes, light fires etc. My 14 year old daughter had three mates round for a sleepover Saturday night. You'd think they'd watch a chick flick and spend hours doing their hair and makeup, but no. They lit a fire, cooked their tea over it, spent ages sitting around it chatting then slept out in a tent!

Mind you we are lucky enough to live in a little village with a proper old fashioned community spirit. The kids know which farmers mind and which ones don't and folk will calmly tell them if they think they're overstepping the mark or have a quiet word with us down the pub.

I wouldn't have it any other way!
Nicola

 

[Mikey P]

Well, I sincerely hope they do.

It was an integral part of my childhood in the city and then the suburbs. My best mate had a big back garden and we ended up digging down at the end, then building a mostly-underground den with a little fire (had a slight incident when the original temporary roof was made of paper... ) and a toilet seat to pop your head out of and have a look around.

We camouflaged the top and then...er...sat in it for ages.

We certainly built more dens on holidays in the country and at the seaside.

Happy days...

 

[andy_e]

do kids make dens anymore?

... only if they have planning permission apparently, there was a story on the radio this morning about someone having to dismantle their tree house for lack of planning permission

 

[stooboy]

Unfortunately I think a lot of kids know more about the Plants, herbs and remedies in the likes of Legend of Zelda and World of Warcraft than they do about their local country side.

I certainly build plenty of dens with my mates as a kid, and recently saw a small den in the woods not far from the town i stay in, reminded me of my own play places.

Unfortunatlely the road seperating the wood from the town is rather busy, and i think this would put parents off encouraging kids to play in the woods.

I think people are much more afraid of the world we stay in these days unfortunatly.

 

[Dunelm]

We used to call them "camps", not dens. We had some very elaborate ones more akin to small lean-to's and cabins on reclaimed pit-heaps planted with spruce. But this was in the 70's/80's - when kids still roamed free.

Actually I'm taking my daughters (aged 5 and 3 years) on a "Den Building" workshop at Hamsterley Forest this weekend. I can't wait.

 

[xylaria]

It seems quite common around here. Mine will build tempory shetlers but not dens, they don't like 'leaving nature messed-up'. They built one where they used to live and a grumpy old bat complained to council of kids messing up the hedges. The den would of required a gurka tracker to find it was that well hidden. They do look untidy but useally they are made with flytipped rubbish. They play on rope swings as well, but they can get funny looks from people like they are doing something wrong. Disgarded Hippo bags are really fun when used with rope swings.

 

[Zammo]

Yeah in inner city London most kids make dens, crack dens.

 

[Tadpole]

Yeah in inner city London most kids make dens, crack dens.

bolding mine*
With a population that is somewhere in the 7.512 million range, (only a quarter of them being children under 16 (1.81 million)) , So with only about 50,000 crack addicts in total in London, I think that is a exaggeration worthy of the Daily Wail

 

[Rebel]

My kids make dens. Usually by the brook that's a five minute walk from our house. Usually their dens get smashed up by some other kids though and occasionally someone will come along to bully them.

I used to make dens all the time too. Usually by the edge of the ditches in the fields near where I grew up. Climbing trees (and falling out of them) was a favourite activity too.

 

[firecrest]

We used to make dens back in the early 90`s at the back of a factory. We made a rope swing from the elder tree that over hung the factory wall and we made elderberry wine from the tree when I was 10 .my aunt made us climb the tree and gather them and we helped make the wine , which we drunk when I was 22 after forgetting we had left them in the loft.
We also used the tree to climb on the roof and ride skateboards round on a flat bit that nobody could see from the ground.
where there's a will theres a way huh!

 

[mr dazzler]

The best one we made was me and a mate dug right down into a (luckily for us) disused firing range and built a "bunker" It had pole rafters branch purlin's and farm bags for a roof covered with sand from the range, our imaginised version of a trench I guess. A bonus was the spent bullets, we got buckets full probaly 1000's my mates dad melted them down for sea fishing weights and pirks. I made another inside huge concrte sewer poipes we had a small furnace made from a steel gate post and clay we set afire to a field that put the s###s up us I can tell you. I can remember as far back as 2 or 3 yr old making bedioun tent's from blankets and clothes horse. Another from small poles piles of twigs, bracken etc it turned out to be showerproof.

 

[ol smokey]

And he is 72, but they keep being discovered and wrecked. I must get int the real wilds away from the local vandals. Any other recycled teenagers still around?

 

[Shambling Shaman]

My eldest is always making dens - mainly in the house using chairs and blankets, but now with there first hammock are first overnighter is on the cards (soon as the house move is over)

 

[spamel]

I've tried to instill the den making bug into my kids, but they don't seem interested unless I make it for them! Bunk beds make excellent space craft once the sides have been draped with all available duvets, and blankets make all sorts of tentage when utilised with the odd chair and table. Maybe kids don't have as vivid an imagination as we hadd when we were young, probably because they have computers and awesome films which they don't need to imagine quite so hard with.

I still think my brain works in a child like fashion sometimes, I have a very vivid imagination. When I was at the recent EMCCU meet and was shooting cans with Andys' BB firing H&K G36, I was no longer Spamel, father of three and Gas Man from Silkstone, I was John Peston, Cleric of the Tetragrammaton and Master of the art of Gunkata!

 

[DoctorSpoon]

I still think my brain works in a child like fashion sometimes, I have a very vivid imagination. When I was at the recent EMCCU meet and was shooting cans with Andys' BB firing H&K G36, I was no longer Spamel, father of three and Gas Man from Silkstone, I was John Peston, Cleric of the Tetragrammaton and Master of the art of Gunkata!

Yes, you and my 11 year old son both

 

[Big Bad Stu]

I hope my Tom will, I can't wait!

We had a belting den, I must go and have a look at it this weekend.

Stewey.

I have just been told by Mrs. Big Bad Stu that he has a den at the child minders under the rhododendron! Hurrah!

 

[stevesteve]

Mine do, with or without me!
Given a choice of going into the office or building a den...

Cheers,
Steve

 

[wolfshead]

Coming from a small mining community it was part of our heritage, we used to come in from school and hang our clothes on the floordrobe, we had to, otherwise mam would have hung us. Then grab a bite to eat and off down the woods, everyone had a knife or axe of some description and wherever we went there was a fire. Camps were a part of growing up built from whatever was lying about at the time. We wouldn't be back in the house untill it was dark, inevitably stinking of smoke, black as a crow and ready to eat a buttered brick
Nobody got stabbed.and the only injuries we suffered were falling out of trees and strangely enough nobody got sued for that either, It was called life. and it's up to us to give that back to the next generation. Anyone else want to climb onto the soapbox?