Following a Raising the Nation Play Commission inquiry, Mariam Ghaemi looks at the barriers to children’s offline play

Trying to persuade our children to curtail their screen time has got to be one of the biggest parenting battles of our age.

Certainly in my home, when I encourage my seven and nine-year-old daughters that they’ve had enough time on TV and tablet, and they should play offline, it often leads to pushback.

Now, an inquiry by the Raising the Nation Play Commission lays out how children’s play is being eroded and lists a host of recommendations to try and address it.

The introduction to the report ‘Everything to Play For’, says: “We need to get children playing again. Our children are spending more and more time in front of screens, from an increasingly younger age.”

Born in the 1980s, the decade that the internet as we know it was created, my childhood was not one spent on screens; because that wasn’t an option.

There was no TV on-demand, no online gaming, no tablets, no smartphones.

If my favourite kids’ TV programme was on after school (Inspector Gadget, Danger Mouse and Ewoks come to mind) I’d probably watch it.

But after that short window, I was playing. I spent a lot of time in my garden with my pet rabbit, I loved drawing and writing stories, my brother and I would come up with our own games and I’d meet up with my friends.

If I was at my grandparents’ house and I ever said I was ‘bored’, my nan (a retired teacher) would reply: ‘There’s no such thing as being bored, just being boring.”

She encouraged me to think creatively about filling my time. I would help her bake, we’d play card games, I’d spend time in the garden and I’d draw and write.

With the availability of online options today, even with the best will in the world as a parent, it is not an easy task to tear our little ones’ eyes away from a screen and recreate, to some degree, the childhood we once had.

Our first camping trip as a family recently was a complete success in terms of, as I had hoped, it being five days of offline fun. The girls didn’t even ask for a screen.

Yes, you can set screen limits on apps and devices, but even so, the addictive nature of online gaming and on-demand TV means they often want more.

Many adults find it hard to limit their screen time and be present in the real world, so what chance do our children – whose brains are still developing – have at succeeding at this?

They need support from us as parents, and we in turn need to have the support of society and the Government.

While on the one hand I think it’s a sad state of affairs that recommendations for play have to be made, I agree they are needed in the world we live in today.

They include raising the digital age of consent to 16, health warnings on digital products and applications which are addictive by design, a national digital detox campaign and banning the use of smartphones in school during the school day.

I want my children to have time to play in the offline world, and I know they want it too. They just need help to make this happen.

They love playing with their dolls, being on their trampoline, making up games together and going to the local park. They also need the time to be ‘bored’ to unwind, to create and let their minds wander.

We have to protect this important time for our kids.

♦ Do you want to share your views on this issue? Please email mariam.ghaemi@iliffemedia.co.uk