Waterproof children

There’s so much to see and do in the rain: you can study the reflections and ripples in puddles, then you can jump in them and see how big a splash you can make; you can notice how the puddle gets smaller as you repeatedly splash the water out; you can watch the way leaves and flower petals ‘ping’ as a raindrop hits them; you can wait as a drop forms on the lowest point of a leaf, trembles for a moment catching the light, and then falls; you can tip your head back and feel the raindrops falling on your face; you can catch them on your tongue, or hold out your hand and collect them in your palm; you can listen to the different sounds of the raindrops landing on leaves, or the plastic roof of the playhouse, or into a tin cup...

As a full-time parent, I have found that there are some days when it is quite simply essential to get out of the house, come rain or shine. Today was one of those days. And my daughters are quite happy with that. We bought them waterproof clothes and wellies pretty much as soon as they could walk (a necessity for Lakeland holidays anyway - Poppet, then aged 2, pictured above having a sandwich break in Keswick as we tackled the Keswick Railway Path in driving rain), and they are much happier to go to the playground like that than stay at home watching raindrops sliding down the window pane. Besides, the playground slide goes magnificently fast when it’s wet and you’re wearing slippery waterproofs! 

I was disappointed therefore to discover this week that Poppet's school still persists in the whole wet-play routine of keeping children indoors at playtime if it rains.This is despite worthy announcements at the beginning of the school year that they have an “open door to the outside” in her Foundation Stage classroom, and strict instructions that we should send our children to school with appropriate outdoor clothing...

As far as I know, people are pretty much waterproof. Modern clothes, by and large, wash easily and dry quickly. Schools seem to be centrally heated all year, and children undeniably get ratty if kept indoors all day. All this is manifestly true, so why persist in holding children captive in the classroom if it happens to be raining at playtime? I remember hating it as a child, and when I was teaching, those ‘wet-play’ days were always dreadful, with children and staff bored and full of pent-up energy by the end of the day.

Surely the perils associated with inactivity and lack of fresh air are much greater than that of getting a bit wet (Jane Bennett always excepted). So let's not be so precious about our children: put on their coats, and let them go out in the rain.