They may have designer clothes, computer games, iPods and mobile phones, but children today are being denied the freedom to play outside on their own that previous generations all took for granted, research has found.

The alarming picture of children tied to the apron strings of paranoid parents comes from the Good Childhood Inquiry, an independent investigation into the lives of young people. A GfK NOP poll commissioned as part of the inquiry found that just under half the adults questioned (43 per cent) thought that 14 was the earliest age at which children should be allowed to go out unsupervised. The adults, however, had almost all been left to their own devices when they were aged 10 or under.

Evidence presented to the inquiry from the Home Office and Department for Education and Skills backed up the findings. Two thirds (67 per cent) of eight to ten-year-olds have never been to a shop or the park by themselves, along with a quarter (24 per cent) of 11 to 15-year-olds. A further third of eight to ten-year-olds have never played outside without an adult being present, the departments said.

Members of the inquiry team said that fear of abduction, despite being very rare in Britain, appeared to be behind parents’ anxiety.

The report, the first of six due from the inquiry, comes months after Unicef concluded that Britain was one of the worst places in the industrialised world to be a child, sparking an intense debate about modern childhood.

Unicef said that British children had the worst peer relationships in the EU. The number of teenagers with no close friend has risen from one in eight in 1986 to one in five today.

Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of the Children’s Society, which set up the two-year inquiry, said that he feared today’s children may fail to form solid relationships.

The research found that early friendships last a lifetime, with 69 per cent of adults saying they still have a least one close childhood friend.

The poll was carried out at the end of March, before the abduction of Madeleine McCann from her bedroom at a Portuguese resort. Experts in child psychology fear that the case will make parents even more reluctant to let their children leave the house on their own.

Judy Dunn, Professor of Developmental Psychology at King’s College London, is chairing the inquiry and told The Times that she felt sorry for children growing up today.

She said: “It does seem the pendulum has swung too far, with some respondents in the poll even saying children should not be allowed out until they are 16, which is unrealistic.

“Of course it depends on where a family lives, and what sort of kids are around, but I would really urge parents who live in reasonable circumstances to try to be much more relaxed about letting their children do things with friends unsupervised, given how important friendship is for young people.”

Parents are not entirely to blame, according to Professor Dunn. She believes they are victims of the media. Stories about child abduction become huge international events precisely because they are so rare.

“The Madeleine McCann case has, of course, been a dreadful tragedy. But it is important to remember abduction is a very rare event and is not really something families have to fear,” Professor Dunn said.

Caroline Lloyd, 40, from Fareham in Hampshire, said that she often compares her own childhood with that of her two sons, now 14 and 13. Growing up in North Wales in the 1960s, she went out unsupervised with friends from before the age of 10.

“On a Saturday we would go off after breakfast into town and not come back until lunch time,” she said. “There was also a church which opened its grounds to the public where we all went. At that age my two sons were really limited to going to friends’ houses, or their friends coming here,” she said.

She has recently allowed them to go to a skateboarding park unaccompanied, although up until last summer she drove them there and then picked them up.

Real dangers

— Seventy children were abducted by strangers in 2002-03

— Two thirds were recovered within 24 hours

— 403 children were the victims of “unsuccessful” abductions by strangers

— 11 per cent of children say that they have had an “unwanted sexual encounter” before the age of 12.

— Only in 2 per cent of the cases was the perpetrator a stranger, according to the NSPCC

— 11,646 children aged under 14 were involved in traffic accidents in 2005-06

Sources: Home Office, Healthcare Commission

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