Smartphones, Freedom And 2026 Childhood

Special Guest: Chelle Lucas
Roundtable Featuring: Abigail Chapman-Miller (Labour), Jacq Inwood, Maureen Jones, Aga Es and Mags Rahman. Host: Clive Hilton. 

Childhood has not just changed, it’s been rewired. One minute you’ve got kids who can outsmart an iPad before they can tie their laces; the next you’ve got parents using tracking apps because the world feels less safe, even when the data is unclear. We sit down as a cross-generational roundtable to ask a blunt question: is childhood in 2026 better, or have smartphones and social media taken something vital away?

We dig into the biggest flashpoint, the push to ban social media for under-16s. Some of us want stronger protection, others argue bans are impossible to enforce and make platforms more desirable. Either way, we all see the same pressures: bullying that follows children home, “perfect life” comparison on TikTok and Instagram, and algorithms that can serve up content no child should ever see. We talk about what regulation could look like, and why parents still need practical tech skills, boundaries and honest conversations.

From there we zoom out to freedom, risk and resilience. Why do fewer kids play outside until dark? How did parks and youth clubs empty out? What happens when community trust fades and normal childhood naughtiness gets treated as antisocial behaviour? We also touch on physical activity, wellbeing, communication habits and why fewer Saturday jobs can leave young adults unprepared for authority and work culture.

Subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review, then tell us what you miss most from your own childhood and what you hope kids keep in theirs.

Please click on 'Send a text' above & join our Facebook group to share your perspective and suggestions for future topics - Thank you for your interest! Clive.

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Sussex and Surrey Soapbox. Real viewpoints, real opinions, and a balanced conversation on the community issues that matter.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

It's the Sussex and Surrey Soapbox, and this week we're talking about childhood in 2026. Have smartphones changed everything? When people say childhood was better back in the day, are they remembering a genuine, better experience or just simply feeling nostalgic? This episode explores a whole bunch of areas. We've got an amazing round table here, uh, largely women, funnily enough. Um, it's only women and myself. We recognise childhood has changed dramatically, and we ask whether today's young people are gaining opportunities or losing something important. Right, let's start off by doing introductions, working our way around.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

Uh hi there, it's Aga. Um, a mid-aged millennial.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Still in your childhood.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

Still in my childhood era, but just.

SPEAKER_05 0:58

Hi, yeah, I'm Abigail Chapman Miller, a Labour counsellor, and I think probably the last generation to come through where my childhood wasn't full of smartphones. And I'm Michelle Bell, and I'm a child of the 80s, so old.

SPEAKER_08 1:14

Hi, I'm Max, and I will be child all of my life.

SPEAKER_07 1:17

Hi, I'm Maureen, Maureen Jones. Um, and oh god, my childhood was a long, long time ago. At school in the 60s, 70s, so yeah, a long, long time ago.

SPEAKER_06 1:27

I'm Jack Inward, I make radio programs. Um I was also grew up in the 60s and 70s and the mother of a 25-year-old man.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

And I grew up in the 70s. Um, yes, so we got a bit of a mix across the generations here.

Facebook Poll And First Reactions

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Uh, and just to set the scene, uh, we did we did ask Facebook a question. So we've got the Sussex and Surrey Soapbox Facebook group, our little village hall, and we asked in there, was childhood better 20, 30 years ago? You know, was there more freedom with less technology, or is childhood better these days with greater opportunities and more awareness and support? Now, 83% of people, and this might be the demographic of the Facebook group, who knows? 83% of people said, no surprise, it was better back in the day. 1%. This is of 143 votes, 1% uh said better nowadays. Interestingly, 12% said um, you know, it depends, you know, different challenges, different benefits, sitting on the fence a little bit, that was 12%, and 4% are saying it's dependent on the child and the family. And Cher, you've taken part in this post as well. So maybe let's start with you, Shell, a special

Tracking Kids Versus Real Freedom

SPEAKER_03 2:40

guest here. Um, what are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_08 2:43

The advent of smartphones, the internet, it's just changed the way we view childhood completely. I think children have lost a lot of independence. And I think that there's a perception that children are less safe now, and I don't actually think that's the case. I just think we're more aware of the risks. And so, I mean, all of my nieces and nephews have got this um life 360 on all of their phones, so their parents can track them wherever they go. And the parent in me goes, Yeah, that's great, that's that's a really good piece of technology that is. And then the other part of me that thinks back to my childhood when I would go out at seven in the morning and I'd go and meet my friends, and we'd go over and we'd be playing on the rope swing across the lake, and we wouldn't come home until we got hungry at six o'clock. And I think that children nowadays don't get to do that. They don't get to have those childhood experiences, they don't get those enid blight and moments where they're, you know, building forts and things. Um so I think, yeah, it it's we we're able to keep the children maybe potentially safer minimally, but I don't I think they're losing their independence. I definitely would have preferred my childhood to the childhood they get now.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Especially the sort of experimentation, the imagination, going outdoor, being not connected to the wider world through technology.

Should Under-16s Be Banned?

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Social media and smartphones, and of course, very politically topical at the moment, looking to Abby with the idea of uh social media being banned for under-16s. What do we think about that?

SPEAKER_05 4:08

Yeah, so I grew up with what I'd say is the emergence of tech. So primary school age and below, it very much wasn't a part of my life, and then as a teenager, I sort of grew up with the emergence of uh MySpace and Bebo and then into Facebook. So it sort of I grew up with it and it wasn't as in your face as it is necessarily now. In the fact of yes, my social media very much did have my close friends on it. There was no such thing as sort of reels or going out and following anything of any major description. But I still had issues with it, and I still noticed that what you struggled with, say at school, seeps out into the rest of your life. And I had a couple of friends, including myself, who struggled with bullying a little bit in that year eight, year nine age range. Um, teenage girls especially aren't always the nicest to each other, and you couldn't escape that either. So you'd be in school what nine till three and you might struggle, but then in the evenings and the mornings you'd have the continuation.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Um I think in terms of because in the past, when you left school, that was it, there's no further connection.

SPEAKER_05 5:26

Yeah, you could forget about it and you could just go and hang out with your friends, and I think it might you know there's the argument that school may have felt easier as well because it was just nine till three, whereas now you're you're surrounded by that social group, regardless. People are chasing um hype and clout on social media a lot, I find, and even I notice it sometimes when I very much sit in the camp as sort of somebody who is in politics that I have to have social media rather than I want to have social media, and you can get very lost in the traps of how people are engaging with it as an adult, let alone as a child. I don't sit in the camp of banning social media just because I personally don't think banning anything works, especially with young people. If you tell them they can't have something, they're only going to want it more. Um and in terms of regulation, that's another tricky avenue to go to.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

How they actually enforce it and what are the consequences uh around it. And and and some might think giving exposure to social media and and and mobile devices is probably a good thing to help teenagers. My 13-year-old uses WhatsApp and I always see you know quite a few missed messages, so it makes me wonder how busy they are.

SPEAKER_05 6:52

Yeah, I mean, my view of social media, especially other spaces such as TikTok, Instagram, even Snapchat, is people want to show their best, their best lives, right? Nobody's showing their worst today, they're not, I don't know, if it's their relationship, they're only going to perpetuate the good side of it, they're not gonna settle some people do, but the majority of people aren't gonna go, you know, we've had an argument over X, Y, or Z, or they can't afford to go somewhere. So you only see people living very perfect lives, which can then influence that comparison, and I think in teenagers we see it a lot around image, um, so that image perpetuation of wanting to look better, um stuff around weight that's always been there for years and years and years. I don't think it ever hasn't. And I know we're seeing it a lot more actually in men as well, where young boys are wanting to like build themselves up like more muscular because of what they're seeing online. So I think I think all of the issues have always been there. I think they're just deepened and heightened because it's now at the touch of your fingertips.

SPEAKER_03 8:03

It's accentuated and it's made it more more prevalent and more extreme.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Um you were saying about the bullying, for example. I saw lots on social media as well that kids are actually bullying the other kids and they're putting the that on the social media as well, which can actually lead to we had in Poland situation like that, that the girl was bullied at home by the parents, bullied in the school, and her videos gone into the Facebook and she just ended her life because she couldn't go up anymore with that.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

Yeah, I think that's a consequence um of social media and of the pressures um where people go very insular absorb it. Um Maureen, any thoughts? I know you don't work with children, but any thoughts from a psychotherapy point of view, and then over to Agatha?

SPEAKER_07 8:52

I I would say I I am really for as the social media man. I think it's a good thing. Um I have a nine-year-old granddaughter, and I know my daughter is like, oh yeah, look, I hope they bring it in as law. J and we know that yeah, maybe they'll find ways around it and things, but she said it just will spare me the argument of me saying, No, I don't want you doing that, I don't want you on that. Um, because I could just say it's against the law. And um I think Yeah, I think we need to protect our kids from you know, they're seeing awful things on Facebook and you know, videos that are going round that it's kids are seeing things they should never see, which can have really traumatic effects on them.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

I'm in a camp of not banning uh social media because just like Happy said, if you ban something, they will just find ways around it. Just like I did at a young age when I wasn't allowed to do something, I'd just find a way to kind of weasel my my way into uh into that. I think social media in general is a good thing as long as we control it and as long as we make young people aware that this is really all fake. I mean, I can paste my photo sipping cocktails on a rooftop, but in reality, my life's a dumpster fire. It's just nobody else knows.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

And as older, as adults, we can process that. Uh and more into your point, what what age, just out of interest, would you ban it for?

SPEAKER_07 10:15

I would think they shouldn't really have social media till they're 14, 15, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 10:20

Um, I think you can't put the genie back in the bottle. We are in a post-social media, a post-internet world. And I think I agree with that everyone else is saying, if you ban things, then they become desirable. And I think people saying, Well, I want it to be the law because then I can say to my kid it's against the law, that's just poor parenting. Of course, there have to be rules. Um, you wouldn't let the kid just uh eat what they want or drink what they want, and there are horrible things on the internet, but I think it's down to the parent to be educated and to make things age appropriate. As for bullying, I mean you can just block people that are horrible. And as for seeing bad things, there's terrible things on the news every night. So I think the children are living in a different world from the one that we all grew up in, and they have to be equipped for that world. I think the sudden emerge blinking in the sunlight at 14 and never having any exposure to it, I think brings other problems. So I think it's about um it's back to a topic that we've covered before on soapbox, which is which is parenting and parents being savvy, being tech savvy, and making sure the protections are there.

SPEAKER_08 11:25

I think the tech savvy thing is quite important. I think I mean I've got two nephews that are five and six, and they can work their way around an iPad quicker than I ever could. Um and I think they've been raised with technology and where we weren't. So actually, there are all of these things that they can put on phones and things now, and you can block this and you can do that, but actually none of us really know how to do them. And even if we try, the kids know how to undo it anyway. Social media, I think, gets a bad rap. It's there is already an age limit on Facebook of 13. You're not allowed on Facebook until you're 13. I know every single teenager that I knew that has been on it since they were about nine. Um, they just changed the date of birth when they sign up. They've all been on it for all of those years. So if they make it into 16, it's gonna be exactly the same. They're all just gonna change the date of birth. Um, every 16-year-old I know has a 43rd birthday, you know, it's it just happens because they've been on Facebook all that time. So I don't think banning it is gonna protect anyone or save anything. I think social media is is often blamed for a lot, but I think it's technology in general. I mean, even down to kids' TV. I remember we watched cartoons uh on a Saturday morning or Saturday night, Saturday morning live and kicking or whatever. It was on for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning, a couple of hours on a Sunday morning. You had cartoons at CBB's or whatever it was when you got home from school for an hour before neighbours came on. Whereas now there are 574 different cartoon channels, they're on 24 hours a day. You've got YouTube that they can all access, but it's just this bombardment of entertainment, if you like. But within that entertainment, there are adverts for who knows what, there are links then to all sorts of things that children definitely shouldn't be seeing. They've got access to news channels, which as I say, when I was when when I was younger, when my children were younger, it was uh CI TV and they had like a news channel on that where the news was it was modern day news, but it was moderated to be aimed at children. Like John Craven newsround, remember that? That's what I shouldn't think of. I can think of it. Exactly that it was moderated for children. Whereas now my nephew is 11 and he was telling me today about the beeheading video in Belfast. Wow. The thought that he's been watching that just makes my it just gives me goosebumps. It's just it's awful. And that's that's in their faces. I open my Facebook and it's on every single like it's just repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated. And you can blur it out all you like, you can see exactly what's happening. And that's what children are seeing.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

And this is something technology companies can do in terms of the algorithms and dishing up content to different demographics. I think that would be a good halfway house instead of actually banning it, yeah, having real penalties for these uh for these social media platforms in making sure the companies need to take some accountability and not driving clickbait, which we've talked about before, which is where that comes from, I guess. There's also reports across Sussex and Surrey that with kids, when you don't give them their phone, they start to get anxiety, it's like that attachment. Parenting is definitely in this as well. Let's have a vote. Would we would we support the current thing of banning social media for under sixteens? Hands up. So we got two two yeses and five no's. Two yeses and five no's. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 14:33

I thought them all would be in favour. Really? Yeah. And it is it's quite a populist answer, isn't it? Just ban it. Just ban it, and then the kids don't see it, and then it's I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 14:42

I think it's also about putting a statement out, though, isn't it? It's about make yeah, yeah, obviously it's going, it's I I'm not stupid. Obviously, kids are still gonna see things and find ways around it, but it's making a statement and it's making a statement to these big tech companies as well.

SPEAKER_08 14:57

That's my thing, is I want to make the people that are making money, and not just money, billions and billions and billions from it, make them accountable.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

But I definitely I would definitely support penalty on the content uh gains youngsters. And I think I would drop 16 to 13 if it was 13, but 16 might be so and as you're saying, Jack, the genie's out of the bottle. How to get, I mean, in reality, could you ever get that genie?

SPEAKER_08 15:20

Probably not, but it's a nice younger kids aren't interested in Facebook, they don't do Facebook because Facebook is just for our generation, and that's and it's really old, and they don't do Facebook, it's Instagram, but it's mostly Snapchat, which is TikTok. What about TikTok? And TikTok, and it's all YouTube and uh Telegram, I've recently learned about it.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Signals, signal for messaging, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 15:40

And there are all these these new ones that are with the disappearing messages and they're all end-to-end encryption and Lord only knows what's going on in those things because actually us adults haven't got a clue. So, yeah, actually social media as we know it is a bit old hat and they're a bit over that now. So putting an age limit on that is irrelevant.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

Well, if the age limit was slightly lower, 12, 13, just like Clive said, I'd probably raise my hand, but 16, absolutely not. A 16-year-old person can do many things. So it's bonkers to ban them from social media.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

That sounded a little bit high. And uh another poll we did on the Sussex and Surrey Soapbox Facebook group was um what do you miss most from your childhood?

Outdoor Play And Risk Resilience

SPEAKER_03 16:26

Uh so we had 196 votes on this. I thought the ZedX Spectrum would come up top, but clearly not. Uh, that was one of the lowest answers. Uh, in fact, the one that scored 45% was playing outside until dark, on your bicycle, knocking for friends, that kind of a thing. I was also surprised only 6% voted towards youth clubs. So things like scouts, and and we've seen a decline in youth services and youth clubs. I was surprised at that. Uh, 12% uh said Woolworths and the pick a mix from childhood, uh, and 14% similar numbers said blockbuster video, because we put that as an option. Um, someone said someone introduced an idea saying not being contactable 24-7. I thought that's a brilliant one. Not being contactable. Another one said uh being a child, um, so being, you know, free, no responsibilities, time with friends and family, sort of the in-person thing. So thank you to that person. Um, yeah, interesting. So let's move on to the second topic here, all about freedom, risk, and resilience. How might we allow children to be free? What's getting in the way of that these days? Technology.

SPEAKER_08 17:39

And then it's into the TV TV babysitter. As I said earlier, my five-year-old nephews can work an iPad because they've been they've been having one since the case.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Well, the scary thing is there's actually a preference to sit with an iPad uh and also communicate in text rather than vocally and and and and the other.

SPEAKER_08 17:57

Well, there are there are these little cases that are designed for toddlers for the little grips that the little toddlers can hold them and they're just plonked in the push chair with the with their iPads on and the push chairs. Yeah, and they and it's you know from a young age. And if you're on a if you're on a long plane flight or something, then I can understand that. But this is just walking around Esther.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

You know. Well, they do seem to be quite intuitive how they use this technology uh a little bit quicker than me. Uh Aggar and then and then Megs?

SPEAKER_04 18:24

So what I'm observing is that children right now are a lot less independent. Also, um, as an Eastern European, I have some comparison between uh Poland, my home country, and here. Um over here, children are a lot less independent than, for instance, I was at that age. Um, children cannot be under what 11 or 13, is it, cannot be left alone at home. That is bonkers to me. Children do not go to school by themselves. Children have to be left at the gate and the parent has to wait for the teacher to come and get them. I know somebody whose 11-year-old son won't go to bed without a bedtime story. Um, I'm wondering what has gone wrong. Is it just cultural differences? I doubt it because cultural we're not that different.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

But what about Poland today? Poland comparing it today, are there differences?

SPEAKER_04 19:22

It is hard for me to say because I don't live in Poland. So I I I'm not able to tell you. I I wouldn't really know because I don't spend that much time over here, over there, sorry. But around here, when I see how children are raised, how much independence they are given, um I'm quite concerned about what is going to happen with the new generation, how they are going to enter the society. If we have 10-year-olds who can't make themselves a cup of coffee, sorry, tea, or um a sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

I I think it depends. I I definitely think there's a cultural element. I know when I lived in Holland, people would cycle to school, take people. I think there is a sense of safety. I think I would quite like my daughter to walk to school, but um I think to an age you want to make sure that they get there safely. Um, the roads are quite dramatic, aren't they? I mean, people are not very considerate these days, it would seem. That's my personal opinion. But lots of hands up here. Let's go to Jack.

SPEAKER_06 20:20

I think we've got this bizarre situation where children seem to go through puberty much younger in that sense. They physically mature more quickly, but they're really not becoming um re ready for the reasons that people have just said. I think one of the biggest reasons is parental anxiety. I think risk has increased. I think traffic has got much heavier. Um, I think I think um you know the stranger danger is real, and I think that's much worse than it used to be. And I think it's a lot of it is parental anxiety. Um, I think the but there's a perception of of danger, and I think the risk has increased. I don't think it's just a perception. Um, but I also think that children are not learning to um become resilient. And I think we just don't want to let them out of our sight. Um because of all the because of the dangers real or or perceived, and children aren't learning to negotiate risk. You know, you you're you're out on your own with your bike all day. You we used to negotiate traffic, we used to set up these ridiculous tricks on bikes and and and things, or not even on bikes, rope, swings, whatever. Will that rope get it across the stream? All that kind of stuff. And if it doesn't, you go in and you get wet, and then you probably don't go home because you're you'd be terrified of your mum finding you. So you sort of think, I've got to dry myself off or find a friend's mum who can clean this stuff up. There'd be all sorts of sort of negotiation and risk taking and and resilience and stuff like that. And learning and learning and learning. It's all gone and learning. I mean, we knew we didn't the P word, the P de for word, I don't think we knew, certainly didn't know back in the 70s. But you knew who the weirdos were, you knew who the weird guy was, and not to hang around or loiter or talk to him. It was like an instinct thing, and I think kids have lost that. I think. They are we are infantilizing them and and keeping them young for longer. And I think some of that is that they're in the school system and the education system longer. But we have completely model coddled them. And I was I've definitely with my son, I was a helicopter parent. I wanted to know where he was and stuff. I couldn't wait for him to get a phone so that I could monitor him. Track him. Yeah, but that was I didn't try they didn't have the so that the apps that we have now, but even though if he didn't respond to me within 10 minutes, like my God, has he been kidnapped, you know? And I think about parental anxiety.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

That's a good thing about the phone devices. I know some of the third-party apps are not that great, but actually Apple, the native child piece, very good in terms of screen time going down to the apps location. So I think that's a plus side for phones, but these social media platforms are not great.

SPEAKER_06 22:45

But I I think also on the parenting side, I think um I think parents then were too busy. Life was just different. That their mothers were much busier. I think everybody was busier. There was always more to do, and I think now people have more leisure time, and I think they got more more sort of, I don't know, more downtime. I think my parents sort of went to work, they weren't they were working at the job, they were working in the garden or working in the house. Life just seemed to be perhaps a bit tougher for parents back then. So kids, we probably got away with a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Not sure I agree with that because I think I think recently it crosses back to other episodes where I think we've been talking about both parents working really hard, not having time to read with the children. Agatha to your point, I think maybe reading at night time's good a bedtime story. But um the uh I think if James Tidy was here, he would agree with the we haven't got enough grit in society and resilience in kids. Igbel calm would no doubt question stuff too. Let's go to Mags and then uh over to Shell. Um Abby as well, got your hand up.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Coming back to what Aga said, I don't think there is much difference now between we were a kid in Poland and they are now. I I'm no I don't know how old are you, but I'm 1991. I didn't live in Poland for 12 years now, but I have my sister with young kids there. So they like they know where to find each other, you know? Like they they are not having the social media yet yet, but they know, for example, they have like here everyone have their own garden, but there we were meeting on the playground, so we always knew that we're gonna go there and we're gonna meet the same people which they we met yesterday, for example, and we're gonna play again, but we stopped yesterday. But today you're going on the same playground and you never know who is gonna be there. And also I'm gutted that kids now losing their imagination because of the iPads as well. Like I was saying the other day, uh we when we've been um kids, we go outside, the leaves were the money, and we was playing shop and this and that, and now when I said to my kids, oh just leave these iPads and go, because my kids using iPads as well. I said, just go outside. What are we gonna do there? I said, I don't know, just go play home, play this, but how, you know, so they have like no imagination because they they only know what their story is telling them, you know, they're not thinking for themselves like the iPad is thinking for themselves now, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

So yeah. I think just to throw in a stat here as well, children's outdoor playtime has reportedly fallen by around 50% in just one generation. So that means uh fewer than three in ten children, that's 30% of children, regularly play outside. Uh it's a shame because that creativity, that playfulness, that imagination comes from that. Um, and I I also wonder, Jack, coming back to your point with the sort of resilience and learning to play. I mean, when I was in the scouts, you used to be encouraged to run around woods with a knife, you know, you go and make a fire. Those sorts of things are very much yesterday because of all the risk assessments and all of the care and helping. How do people learn? How do people get out of their comfort zone?

SPEAKER_08 25:40

Just typical childhood naughtiness. Children can't be you can't play knockdown ginger anymore because everyone's got a ring doorbell. You can't go and you know, play around. Well, it's it's you know, it's it's just silly little things that just no, not me, because I wasn't very But it's it's that thing is like everywhere there's a camera everywhere, and there's if it's not your parents, it's someone else's parents, and then they're straight on social media going, whoever's children these are, they're throwing stones into the lake. Okay, or they're throwing stones in the lake. It's they're children, let them be children, you know, don't throw them at the birds, but you know, but it's I just think it's that it's this there's so much supervision that it's almost stifling. Um you know, let them be children or something.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

A little bit too mummy cuddled. But I know when we did the knife crime on the other end of the spectrum, there are a few kids where there's no mummy cuddling and there and it goes the other extreme or something.

SPEAKER_06 26:27

It doesn't yeah, it's one extreme or the other, isn't it? It's either too much or not enough. I think some of it society

Saturday Jobs And Work Ethic

SPEAKER_06 26:32

is to blame as well. I mean, I've worked since I was 11. I had paper rounds, and then I think I started working in a shop when I was 14. I was so glad not to do the paper round anymore. Um, and then always worked in school holidays, always worked Saturdays, even through university. And then kids stay, they can't get, you know. I used to coach people, I do graduate sort of um coaching to help them get top, top jobs. And there are some people they come all the way through university and they've never ever had a job. Their parents would be, oh, you've got to get your A-level grades, you've got to get your two one or your first. And uh there are people that would be 21 had never ever had a job, and I think partly that's the law, and people um often wouldn't employ people because of you know insurance, employer liability insurance, you know, got to be above a certain age and training and risk assessments. So partly it is does reflect society.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

It's sad in a way, isn't it? I remember my little you just made me remember my newspaper round with the Arcus. Um it was a little bit, you know, it was only a few pounds, but you you you got out and did some work, and also running the Scout Tuck Shop that taught you about trade, you know, selling, buying suites in and making a small margin on it. I think some of this pragmatism has fallen by the wayside, and when people go out to work, it's another topic entirely, but it's almost companies are sponsoring someone's life, and the idea that there's some work that needs to happen in in return is a surprise to kids in the workplace, right? That they think, well, aren't you just paying and then I choose what I do here? Not kind of, but not fully.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

It's funny what you guys are saying because I have reached, I believe, a grand old age of 23 without having worked a day in my life, uh, because that simply wasn't my thing to do. My parents were funding me. Uh, and then I had to enter the workforce, and my work ethics was absolutely horrendous.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

What was the biggest what was the biggest shock for you? So 23, you were looked after sort of by parents. Uh you went into the workplace. What was the biggest shock that you were unprepared for?

SPEAKER_04 28:30

I think it was accepting somebody else's authority and the fact that somebody else may know more than me. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 28:39

I see a lot of this actually in university, so I do a lot of guest lecturing at universities, and there is a real difference between those students who have done jobs that nobody wanted to do, and I I've definitely been in there. I wasn't very good at the paper round when my first one I came off off my off my bike head over. I was never really got into that. But I, you know, I worked in the local chippy, I worked in Weatherspoons, I sort of just had jobs where you were on your feet from start to finish, not really getting treated very nicely by others, but you just got on on with it, and you know, you had you had a bit of an income to those that hadn't worked, but bringing also into social media into this, I see a lot of pages where people are actually in politics, there's quite a few. It's like how to get your first job in politics. I really roll my eyes at those pages, I'm sure they are have great intentions, but actually, to get a job in politics, just go and work in the real world and understand the real world first. But what you're creating is a sense of entitlement in people that they can leave university or even education and just get to the top really, really quickly. And actually, in my opinion, if you get to the top really quickly, you're probably not going to be that good because you need to understand every rung of that ladder to respect it. Um, some people will disagree with me on that, but I really think it's important that kids can get out there and get jobs in defence of those kids. It is really difficult to do so. I know that you can't get a paper round now, even sort of working under the age of 18, I think is near impossible. Um there might be a few places here, there, and there where you can get a Saturday job, but it'll be for X amount of hours.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

That would be great, right? If it was possible for youngsters 14, 15 to do to do newspaper around to get exposure to that. And I think um to your point, having some of these jobs where you have human interaction, conversation, being able to deal with difficult customers and know how to navigate that, I I think will serve them well in the future. But those those opportunities aren't there. And and to your point on graduates, if we just fast track beyond childhood, graduates leaving university and being surprised at the number, you know, feeling lucky to get a rejection, I think people are saying, um, and and going to work for you know Starbucks or whatever. Back to childhood.

Fear Culture And Lost Community

SPEAKER_03 31:09

What can what can parents listening to us do? I think the apps on the phone, it's good the native app with Apple and same for Android. What other be uh maybe let go of control? Are we saying that it would be good to let go of control slightly and allow that outdoor play?

SPEAKER_07 31:26

I think if parents are just driven by fear these days. And I think in the last, you know, a lot of it is there's so much communication that wasn't there when I was growing up. You know, you had the BBC news and local news and papers, but you know, this constant, oh, you know, this has just happened in Newcastle, you know, man's tried to do that.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

And to a degree, these things were happening all the time, but it was just reported more freely now.

SPEAKER_07 31:49

Yeah, you'd hear about you know, if a child was murdered or something, it would make the national news, obviously. But you know, you weren't bombarded with this sort of um you know, this paedophilia thing all the time. Everyone's talk about paedophilia, especially on social media. Social media, so it's it's I think news program.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Remember Crime Watch UK, the chap at the end, you always said, you know, that this doesn't happen, or you used to give us statistics, isn't it? This happens one in in the million, so don't lose sleep tonight. Um but that that caveat doesn't go with all the social media, and and so it's very much in our faces that fear, fear, fear. And so of course you're gonna look after your children, right?

SPEAKER_08 32:24

And I think there's a there's a loss of we've lost community. Yes. So when you your children used to play out, you used to know all the other kids in the area, and you used to know, right, hang on, let me take you back to number 12 because I know that's where you live. You don't have that anymore. You don't I don't know who the children are in my street, I don't know who the children are playing with. So as a parent, it's scary to let your children play out because you don't know who they're playing with.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

And there's less accountability. So with that community spirit, there becomes a sense of accountability that instead of just calling the police to deal with something, they a neighbourhood will look after each other a little bit more, being more considerate, which I thought we did get during COVID. We seem to have lost it.

SPEAKER_08 33:03

Oh, there's a the the strange man that lives at number eleven. You know, every every every community had, you know, the the funny creepy guy from the end house. Whereas now everyone's a creepy guy and everyone.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

You sound like Jack there. The weirdo guy. Well, you've got to be careful. I mean, even by saying the weirdo guy, I think that's not politically correct anymore. And people would say, Well, we should call him a PEDA. I don't know if that's helpful.

SPEAKER_08 33:25

I don't think they ever weren't necessarily pedophiles. They were just creepy old guys that were slightly eccentric or just wanted to be left alone, frankly. But because they were different to the rest of the community, they always stood out. Um whereas now we're just assuming that everyone's got some ulterior motive. You can't look at your social media without someone posting, why was this man knocking at my door at 11 o'clock? Maybe he was delivering a letter, you know. Open the door, you find out. But because we've got all of this technology and everything's just everything's supervised and everything's recorded now, everyone's just on high alert all the time. And so I think that plays into parents' fears over what hap what happens with their children if they dare let them out of their sight.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

I I I've always tried a couple of principles. I I've tried giving new experiences wherever I can and wherever I can afford it. Uh, second is giving confidence. So I'm less wedded to what what choices are made, but more around experiences out of comfort zone, confidence. I think confidence is eroding, right? Kids these days are less sure of themselves, how they're perceived with others because of social and because of what people say at school. Uh so I'm quite I I think it's more difficult growing up these days than it was back in the past.

SPEAKER_08 34:43

I think there's I think there's a very like a sharp rise in kids that have got anxiety and they're growing into teenagers with quite severe anxiety issues because they're not socialising. They don't you don't come to tea with your aunties on a Sunday afternoon anymore. So you don't they don't learn to communicate with adults, they don't really go and spend, as you say, you don't get a Saturday job from the age of 14 where you've got to actually kind of communicate with the rest of the public. They they go to school, they spend some time with their peers, they go home and they sit on an Xbox or a or an iPad or whatever. So they're not mixing with people, they're not learning these communication skills, real life communication skills. They're fantastic, they can send an email, that's great, but they could they can't just be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

But do we say do we sound old? Is it that in 10, 20 years' time maybe people won't be using their mouths and talking? Maybe we'll all be more digital, which I think is sad because we are analogue humans in this sort of digital world that need that connection. I I I don't think we're evolving as quickly as the world around us, and um that is scary.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

What I find really scary is how the language deteriorates because of social media. Now we have this text speak where we um use emojis instead of words or instead of full sentences, and now I can see uh how people maybe 10, 15 years younger than me, how they communicate, how I was building a sentence or leading a conversation when I was their age, as opposed to what I can see from people right now. And I'm honestly scared, and I think this is absolutely down to social media to communicating via text or WhatsApp rather than calling somebody or simply knocking, you know, knocking on your neighbor's door. They're sometimes sitting in the same room and still texting to each other.

SPEAKER_06 36:31

Oh, yeah, that's very true. We really, really are in a digital world, and uh it will just continue with AI.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

And it's a shame back in the day, you used to have YTS schemes, used to be apprentices. Uh, you either go down the academic route, go to and do A levels in university, or you go out to the workplace and get that experience. And to be fair, I think there's just because of the economy, there's just less opportunities and more people sat at home, unfortunately. And maybe that's a topic in the future. This definitely links back to send. Uh, you know, through the COVID period, we saw that rise, and with the lack of communication, that probably has something to bear on this with ADHD and other aspects coming up. So that's a send gentle parenting is always a bit dear to our heart, that episode.

SPEAKER_06 37:13

I think one of the things I often think about is when I was a kid, you'd walk down the road and there would be people outside, there'd be people tinkering with cars, there'd be people, I don't know, doing their gardens, and all the gardens are tarmaced over and have got cars parked on them. No one tinkers with their cars anymore because they're all too technical. And I don't think necessarily that childhood has got worse. I think it is just changes in society. I'm you know, the point was made earlier about you used to know who your neighbours were, and um, I'm very lucky I live in a rural community, but certainly my my father's lived in his house now for over 60 years, and I now say he's the father of the street because he's the oldest person on the street. Um, and we used to know who everybody was, and we don't know who they are now, and they don't sort of potter in their gardens or with their cars. So I don't know if it's childhood per se, I think it is society has shifted.

SPEAKER_07 38:02

Yeah, I think it's definitely a loss of community and that you know, people people looking out for each other's children in a street. Um that doesn't happen so much now, does it? Everyone's very busy after work, you know, that we have this synonymous society. Um someone else's problem. Communication just seems harder these days, isn't it? There's this sort of oh fear of actually phoning somebody, it feels like you're being a bit intrusive if you actually call someone, which is ridiculous, isn't it? You know, you're there and you're typing away, texting war and peace. And sometimes I think, oh bloody hell, why don't I just phone the person?

SPEAKER_03 38:34

I agree with the phoning. My phone's always on silent though. I thought the idea of running to a device that's making a noise just uh but I agree, people should talk more than text. No, youngsters don't.

SPEAKER_07 38:46

That's just a no go, isn't it, for them completely.

SPEAKER_06 38:48

But they don't, and they're also they're driven everywhere. So um I I drove my dad back from visiting a relative yesterday, and we went past my old junior school, infant school, and drove to my dad's house. And I thought, I used to walk this every day with a couple of mates, and I lived the furthest away. So the last sort of 10 minutes I was on my own completely as the other kids peeled off into their houses. But you got to know people, and there'd be old people that you'd nod to. We're all driving. I mean, if I if I lived in that house now and my son had gone to that school, I'd drive him. I wouldn't have walked, I wouldn't expect him to walk. Mainly because of time, maybe shortness of time, maybe because back to the risk assessment, or it's too dangerous crossing that road. Um, but that's how you got to engage with people, it was a community, and uh and I think the old people used to look forward to it seeing the kids walk past and they'd wave to you. And it has it has changed. Everyone's got a car, or a lot of people have cars. You don't even walk hot lady anymore. Just press a button with the pin.

SPEAKER_05 39:46

So I'm I'm from really rural sort of area of Surrey, and my wife is from Bromley, and we were driving up in Bromley, and I I saw my first lollipop lady in my entire life yesterday. Wow and I was blown away that they still existed.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

And I think part of the Lollipop lady or lollipop person.

SPEAKER_05 40:07

Well, it's another one.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

Because a lollipop lady isn't, isn't it? Is a man, yeah, is actually a man, which is supposed to be a good one.

SPEAKER_05 40:13

I mean, they were lollipop ladies, but it was it was something that I'd never I'd never seen before. And I think part of that was because I just you wouldn't don't really need them in Hurst Green in Surrey.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

But it's got to be a brave job. Try and stop the traffic and just stand down with a little board that those days are gone.

SPEAKER_05 40:31

In the middle of Bromley, I wouldn't want that at all. But yeah, those sort of people are you know, I'm 30 years old and I saw my first yesterday. So they don't exist. I think that just shows.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

I'll tell you what, I've just been looking at

Fitness, Food And Overweight Kids

SPEAKER_03 40:46

another stat here. It's not just mental health, also physical health, because around 28% of young people these days in England are classified as less active, achieving under 30 minutes of physical activity per day. So that's not good from a physical health point of view. Um and it's got more stats here. Um baby boomers. I'm not quite in the baby boomer, uh, just before you think it's me, but it's uh 71% used to play outside of baby boomers, whereas 27% we're talking earlier about children playing outside agar.

SPEAKER_04 41:19

If we're talking about physical health, uh you guys both grew up in the 60s. Did you have fat kids? And I I apologize if this is a very ignorant question, but so many children are not only not moving a lot because they sit on their phones all day, but so many kids are overweight. And I know there are many factors that will contribute to it, but I have a feeling that even in my childhood, which was 90s, 2000s, there weren't that many overweight kids.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

I love the way you just say it. I was sort of gently alluding to it, sitting here rather long. You just you just say it as it is. I like that kids.

SPEAKER_07 41:59

Uh uh no, we didn't have fat kids and we didn't. I can remember one girl that was tether, you know, when I look back now, slightly little chubby little cheeks. And she was, you know, everyone called her the plump one, you know, and and sh but she wouldn't even know and look at her twice now in comparison to the kids. There we go, looking at me.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

It must have started in the 70s and 80s, then.

SPEAKER_07 42:20

I don't think that's inept. I think that's just that's a lot of diet, isn't it? We didn't have McDonald's and we didn't have snacking and fast fish.

SPEAKER_08 42:28

Primary schools, you do they're losing playgrounds. I mean, there are schools now being built in old office blocks and things, and there aren't playgrounds, so they don't have outside playtime. They don't and when they do go outside, they just sort of sit down and they all chat. They don't really run around and play. It's not proper outside outside tag, isn't it? Remember tag and those things?

SPEAKER_03 42:47

Marbles, marbles on the drain. I think they're probably marbles.

SPEAKER_08 42:50

I remember the last time I saw somebody with a skipping rope or you know they're dangerous, you might trip up. Well, that's it, you know, they're self-discurrently those.

SPEAKER_06 42:57

I was talking to us. We used to have a butcher's shop opposite school. We had a lollipop ladies see us across the road, then there'd be a butcher's, and and the boys used to get out of school first and they would get pig's eyes or the chicken claws, and they would chase us all the way home. And my mum says, You're home early. And I think, I've just run all that way because boys have been chasing me. Can you imagine now? It just wouldn't, it's just unheard of.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

Very, very protective. Even sports day, you think sports days are just coming up now, you won't find three-legged races anymore because that's uh apparently dangerous. Uh the sack, you know, you jump around the sack also sort of egg and spoon's still there, so that's good. Um, Abby.

SPEAKER_05 43:35

I just think on sort of defense of the kids, is that actually, and I remember it even growing up, um, as a teenager, is that when you've got a group of kids now playing, running around, everyone's assuming they're doing something wrong. So I, you know, would we were quite lucky in the fact that we had a community police officer who understood who we were, but uh every day that we Be out, and we'd go to Master Park, which was literally just round the way, round the corner from our secondary school, and it would be full of kids after school, that's where everyone went. Nobody really goes there anymore. But constantly you would get questions from the police. Now, somebody's called, there's a group of kids, what are you doing? Now that's exacerbated by the fact that I must see on local Facebook groups all evening, Oh, there's a bunch of kids in this park doing X, Y, or Z, or the latest one has been, Why is there a bunch of teenagers hanging around at the skate park? Well, the answer is it's a skate park, you know. Respectfully, you're probably not going to get other age demographics hanging around in a skate park. So kids also don't want to go out because they're just a lot of judgments. There's a lot of judgments. There's issues both sides of the coin. Um, and I would love to see the park full of kids again. And yes, you know, there might be little left and there might be a bit of antisocial behaviour, but they're out and about and off their screens.

SPEAKER_08 45:00

But that's just it though, isn't it? We c we call, as I said earlier, childhood naughtiness is now antisocial behaviour. Just kids being kids, you know. They're gonna kick the ball against the wall. That's just what they do. That's that's how they entertain themselves. And okay, it's a bit annoying, and but they're kids, they don't have that anymore. It's all antisocial behaviour, it's all all these thugs.

When Kids Being Kids Looks Suspicious

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Who was the naughty kid around the table? You just got me one because Shell keeps bringing it up and we're just wrapping up here. All the hands have gone up.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

Um are we keeping it P or Yeah, whatever. I'm just saying it as is.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

You've got used to say there's no nostalgia with you with this sort of stuff, and and yeah, just what's the naughty that you'd want to share with us, obviously.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

At school, you mean as a child? Yeah, as a child. Um we had uh we had a teacher's book, um, like a logbook, because obviously all the grades were probably in a um in a paper form as opposed to online, what we do right now. So I would nick dash logbook and uh give myself some good grades.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Oh, so you upped the grades in the logbook very good.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

I I I upped my grades. Did you get called times? No, I haven't. It is, yes, yes, it is. Have you done the same?

SPEAKER_03 46:14

There's a Poland thing to do to give yourself better grades. There we go.

SPEAKER_05 46:18

Ah, there's probably a lot I I wouldn't say here.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

I go on, tell us one of those.

SPEAKER_05 46:25

No, I I think mainly I was I was the kid that never made it to school from a certain age. So from year ten and eleven, um my parents had to drop me off at school because to make sure. Make sure I'd go, and then I'd wait for the car to leave and come back out and go off again. Um but yes, I wasn't that interested in the grade side of things at school.

SPEAKER_03 46:50

And we don't condone that. Any children listen to this, that's a bad idea doing that.

SPEAKER_08 46:54

I wouldn't either. No. Uh well my children's favourite story of my naughtiness was I I grew up in an inner London housing associate uh housing estate, and on the edge of the estate was an allotment, and that became very slowly it became a little city farm. And um I was walking home from school one day and I went in and I always used to go past and feed the horses. And um I went in because I wanted to see the pigs and the new piglets, and I went in and left the gate open and the pigs were running all around the estate, and yeah, so that was that's their favourite story of my naughtiness. You released the pigs. I let all the pigs out, yeah. Well, yeah, but then the pigs kind of ran running riot all the way through the the allotment zoo and uh farm, and then so they broke the gate to where the chickens were, and then the chickens were out, and then it was it was a bit of a yeah, and now you look after dogs, people give you their dogs. I have a dog room, and I own horses, and yeah, I know, I know, I don't know why.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

Clearly, you learned from the childhood very good mags?

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Well, I don't understand, I don't remember one story, but there was a period in my life when in secondary school when my parents were called to school at least once a week. So there was always when something was happening, there was lots of boys and mags, you know. So yeah. My teachers remember me by this time when sometimes I'm seeing them because they were living in the house.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

You had a reputation.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

When my because I'm the oldest one from my siblings, but my my youngest one is 15 years um younger than me. So when he went to school, there was the same teacher, and because of the surname, she still remembered me. And he said, Are you Magdalena's brother? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

Good thing you wished there, we'd have to bleep that out. That's very good. Yeah, yeah, well done. Um right, moving around, Maureen. Hello. Back in the day.

SPEAKER_07 48:41

I think when I was a child, that was quite good. I mean, when I'm probably 13, 14, you know, first couple of years at secondary school, I sort of found my pal and we got we got up to naughty. Well, I say naughty, so it was more bit for rebellion, really, because we went to a convent and the the You went to a convent? I did go to an all-bell's convent. What was that like? Yes. It was um uh well we had there were uh normal teachers, they weren't all nuns teaching, but it was, yeah, um it'd been there for years, this old convent. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:08

Um and uh And what's the naughty thing you did in the convent? Well, we used to What would be the punishment in a convent? What would be the punishment?

SPEAKER_07 49:14

Uh much the same as any other school uh through the country. Which was what's and things like that. I think

Childhood Naughtiness Then And Now

SPEAKER_07 49:20

the church that was can uh the convent was connected to was right opposite school. And we used to remember we used to and it must have been something it's quite psychological when you look at it. We used to delight in putting things in the priest's confess side of the confessional box. So we'd like shoplift something and then leave it. We took taking a sandal from outside a Lillian Skinner store one day, and we remember Lillian Skinner's the shoe shop, and they used to put shoes on racks of one shoe, didn't they? So we took this sandal and then put it in the confessional box, and then we used to do um her dad used to get the sun, so she'd bring yesterday's page three girl in and then we'd we'd put that in the pre-confessional book. I don't know what we thought we were doing.

SPEAKER_03 50:03

It's just lots of giggles to just wind people up, basically.

SPEAKER_07 50:06

We used to do that to the male or teacher that we sort of sort of had a crush on, you know. Okay. We'd all we'd and we'd tell everyone and he'd walk in and and i he'd open the register and he'd just tucked and shuffled, you know.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

Well, I'll tell you what, if that happened today, if that happened where a teacher opened up and saw a naked woman, I think I think that would be that would be it's funny, isn't it? How times it's funny how times have changed and and how we look and think about these things. Jack, is this so you would have been really naughty?

SPEAKER_06 50:33

I wasn't, I wasn't. I was terrified of my parents. You know, my parents just used to thump us for anything, really. So I was terrified of my parents, and I loved school. School was a real escape for me. I absolutely loved it. I never had a detention, it was really, really good kid.

SPEAKER_03 50:46

But we didn't make me sick. You must have been done something back. It couldn't have been a golden child.

SPEAKER_06 50:51

No, I got to I got to 13 and then I just realised that my my home life wasn't really normal, and um, so then I used to make up stuff. So it was really weird. I did a an interview on the radio for a guy who um was the original bass player in Squeeze, and he was talking about the gig that he'd done. His first gig, he was 15. And I worked out I'd gone to that gig because it was like the first first or second band I'd ever seen, and I was 13. And so um my parents thought I was revising it a friend's for a Latin exam. And I was at the Hammersmith Odion, so really, really good until I think I hit 13 and just thought, nah, I have to have my own my own life. So can you imagine now if they had one of those apps, they would just say, What do you think this is in Hammersmith? What do you mean? But yeah, I just thought you were staying here. Yeah, I just started to live my my own life at that point, and uh yeah, and I'm still friends with the guy actually, but yeah, but 13, just thought, right, London, here we come.

SPEAKER_03 51:45

There we go.

Where To Find Us Next

SPEAKER_03 51:46

That's our views of childhood across Surrey and West Sussex on the Soapbox uh Childhood and 2026. Do come and join us on our village hall Facebook group, Sussex and Surrey Soapbox. Uh, also come and follow us on Spotify. Links back to gentle parenting. Also, send many other episodes as well. Uh, and of course, we're gonna see lots of children in a few weeks' time at Tessa's Tea Party on the 11th of July. Looking forward to that. Uh, to have some fun, outdoor play, all sorts of things on this topic as well. Um, Aggar, Abby, Shell, Mags, Maureen, and Jack, thank you very much. That's the Sussex and Surrey soapbox. See you next week. Tell us what you think.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Leave a comment below or click on send a text. Thank you for listening to the Sussex and Surrey soapbox.