Door Francine Clee

WHOEVER de bovengenoemde kinderjaren waren moet de beste tijd van uw leven zo hard door de speelplaats geraakt te zijn intimideert dat zijn geheugen nooit terugkreeg.

Natuurlijk, is het een tijd van wonder - maar het is ook een tijd van wildernisoorlogvoering. Een tijd van vendettas, ambushes, allianties en betrayals; een tijd van wordt geoordeeld op verschijningen, van wordt angst aangejaagd om naar huis van school te lopen, van bang het zijn van spoken. In het kort, maakt het deel uit van het leven.

Het is slechts natuurlijke ouders zou moeten hun jonge geitjes tegen de slagen van het leven, en in een land willen beschermen dat met meer camera's van kabeltelevisie wordt volgestopt dan een ander in de ontwikkelde wereld, het niet verrassend is dat de technologische manieren worden ontwikkeld om hun meningen bij test te zetten.

De dingen kunnen, echter, aan uitersten worden genomen.

Today’s kids are part of the most over-protected generation Britain has ever seen.

In their cradles they are fitted with monitors so mum and dad can hear them breathing - easing understandable worries about cot death, certainly, but also possibly setting everybody up for full-scale separation anxiety later.

Nurseries are setting up web-cams that you can log on to at any time to make sure little Johnny isn’t getting his head kicked-in by the bigger kids.

And when little Johnny starts school, he gets driven there and back, instead of walking like his parents and grandparents once did.

The result: little Johnny won’t get abducted by paedophiles (funny, but I can’t remember much of that happening to me or my classmates).

However, he’ll probably get fat from lack of exercise, and he’ll never get to practise the green cross code. God help him if he ever has to cross a road by himself - and that’s something I believe comes to all of us in the end.

Parents can already use satellite tracking devices to check up on their kids through their mobiles.

And kids’ mobile phones can now be fitted with a system so that parents can tell who’s been ringing their children and step in if any unknown callers start to ring. Pity the teenagers thinking about their first loves.

Encouragingly, it seems kids are finding ways around this, like putting tin-foil around their mobiles to stop the GPS bleeping. But they could soon face a new threat from parental interference.

On the telly this week, there was a discussion about child security and the development of a new, high-tech system to monitor youngsters, so that parents would know what they were up to, 24-hours-a-day.

I only caught the end of the item, but it seemed that the system might involve photography or video, so that you could physically see your son or daughter whenever, wherever, at the touch of a button.

Whether or not it is actually possible to do this yet, the time cannot be far off when it will be.

And when we do inevitably get to this stage, it will be the death of childhood.

Because one of the most important aspects of that stage of your life is the stuff that happens when your parents are not around.

The bits when you make your first decisions, even if they are only whose swings you choose to play on. The bits that gradually make you grow up - if your parents will leave you alone for long enough.

Parents should also be careful what they wish for.

One night they may tune in to their son’s or daughter’s life and find they are busy trashing a house, or having a drinks party in the park.

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