Former Springwatch presenter Kate Humble slammed our “risk assessment” culture as she called on parents to let their children collect a few cuts and bruises while exploring outdoors.
The 47-year-old said parents were now too fearful of being investigated by social services if they let kids play outdoors as she revealed her own mum and dad got a visit thanks to her and brother Charlie’s adventurous “proper childhood”.
(Ian Nicholson/PA)
“My parents were visited by social services because me and my brother were always getting bashed and scraped.
“I was very little, but my mum just thinks it’s hilarious. We had a proper childhood and somebody came and checked up,” the Daily Mail reported her saying at the Hay Festival.
She said she thought “kids should be given the freedom, they should be given the opportunities to go and test the boundaries, they should end up with a Band-Aid on their knees.”
Kate has been the face of many BBC nature programmes including Animal Park and Springwatch (Barry Batchelor/PA)
She continued: “Parents are almost more worried about the criticism they will get if their children end up in hospital, or in trouble or lost.”
Kate argued it was “a great sadness that everything has to be risk-assessed".
The current series of Springwatch continues on BBC2, Monday, 8pm
