Opinion: To the point - Unfree and untrusted

On New Year's Eve, the Guardian reported that 14 under-fives are excluded daily for violence against teachers or fellow pupils. We should, of course, expect under-fives to have the greatest difficulties in behaving acceptably in school. Many young children have passionate feelings, with little thought for consequences. Yet this has usually been balanced with a strong desire to please adults, to be liked and accepted in school.

So what might be causing the present problems? Some possible answers will come quickly: the increasing pressure on little children to learn to read and write through formal instruction, the stresses experienced by parents as they try to combine work with family life, perhaps the growing targeting of children by advertisers.

But I would like to suggest another factor: the culture of fear around childhood and young children. This is problematic in every way. In some nurseries and reception classes, children are hardly trusted with the most elementary responsibilities or freedoms, because adults are so fearful of the consequences. Children are kept in sight, confined to rooms and seats, and regulated in ways inconceivable a few decades ago. While some children can tolerate this type of custodial schooling, there are others who cannot. What might have once been boisterous behaviour in the playground or indoors, unseen or wisely ignored, might now escalate into a confrontation.

Paradoxically, this fearfulness about what children might do if they were a little less regulated goes along with a great deal of nervousness about setting limits on behaviour that children need as they grow up. Many parents are afraid to say no, afraid of public reaction and a 'scene' if they try to curb their child's behaviour. Similarly, swimming pool attendants, staff in parks and shops and the like who would once have upheld standards of public behaviour are afraid to do this now. I think they may be afraid that a parent will turn on them, or that they will be accused of some sort of child abuse.

But if we cannot overcome our anxieties about children having freedom, and worries that they will be somehow damaged by ordinary adult interactions, then we can only expect to see a continuing rise in school exclusions, together with damage to children far beyond our worst fears.