Childhoods under canvas: Campgrounds as spaces of resistance to protective parenting

Abstract

Camping is an important activity for many New Zealand families, with half reporting to be regular campers or intending to camp. We explore the role of camping in the lives of 69 families undertaking this activity at five campgrounds over summer in the South Island of New Zealand. We argue that campgrounds are places that encourage children’s freedom, sense of adventure and experience of outdoor activities. The social capital evident in campgrounds enables families to adopt a less pressured and ‘hands-off’ parenting style which acts as an antidote to the pressured safety consciousness that prevails in their usual daily lives.

Keywords

Camping families children freedom New Zealand

Introduction

Research on children’s independent mobility (CIM), freedom and exploration has identified an erosion of experience in all these dimensions for children in much of the developed world (e.g. Pooley et al., 2005; Ridgewell et al., 2009; Valentine, 2004). Studies have also noted the erosion of contact with the natural world for those growing up in urban areas, including New Zealand (e.g. Ergler et al., 2013; Freeman, 2010). Children’s lives in New Zealand have become characterised by significantly lower levels of freedom to walk, cycle and play outdoors especially in public places such as parks and on the street.

Camping is an important tradition in various Western countries including New Zealand where it conventionally facilitates an alternative set of childhood and family experiences. As Collins and Kearns (2010) suggest, ‘The campground is deeply embedded in the New Zealand psyche’ with market research showing that the vast majority of New Zealanders (91%) consider access to places to go camping to be either ‘extremely important’ (60%) or ‘important’ (31%) (p. 62). Some 80% of New Zealanders have been camping at some point in their lives, with most campers having childhood experiences of this activity (Mobius, 2006, in Department of Conservation [DoC], 2006). Children’s campground experiences commonly include activities such as swimming, exploration, climbing, cycling, fishing and kayaking. However, the availability of accessible and affordable campgrounds in New Zealand is declining.

Numerous campgrounds have closed since the mid-1990s. This loss has mainly been due to escalating coastal land values. Furthermore, many campgrounds are becoming increasingly commercialised, focusing on the more lucrative international campervan market rather than on domestic tourism. The net result is that camping has become an increasingly expensive holiday choice. In 2011, the Consumer Price Index showed prices at campgrounds and holiday parks had grown several times faster than prices of hotels and motels during the previous 5 years (Dominion Post, 2011). Recent studies have highlighted the impacts of campground closure (Collins and Kearns, 2008) and commercialisation of the coast (Freeman et al., 2005) on families. These trends are not unique to New Zealand. Elsewhere, coastal and scenic destinations in countries as diverse as Australia and Ireland have experienced rapid development, through privatisation and commercialisation (Burnley and Murphy, 2004; Norris and Winston, 2009), resulting in similar declines in their access to families. In New Zealand, concern over this decline has been expressed at a national level, such that the DoC (2006) was asked to ‘review the availability of family-friendly camping opportunities for New Zealanders, particularly in coastal areas’ (p. 5).

The implications of declining campsite accessibility for families wanting to access these destinations for their holiday are surprisingly overlooked and under-researched, as is the role of family camping more generally. We aim to address this research gap and report on a study undertaken in the summer of 2010–2011 (December–January) which examined the family camping holiday experience, with particular reference to children. Our goal is to enhance understanding of the outdoor play experiences of children as well as the factors influencing parenting practices in the campground environment. We explore the values of outdoor play and independence offered at campsites, using notions of ‘autonomy’, ‘social capital’, ‘environmental affordance’ and ‘risk’. We ask why is it that campgrounds seem to present opportunities to adopt a freer less controlled parenting style that is valued by parents and children alike? First, however, we explore some key changes that are occurring in children’s home lives and that may contrast with experiences at the campgrounds.

Outdoor experiences: Trends in declining independence, play and environmental connection

Academic studies, together with a number of more general publications (e.g. Children and Nature Network, 2009; Furedi, 2008; Gill, 2007), indicate heightened academic and societal concern regarding declining independence and outdoor play as well as weakening environmental connectivity in the lives of many children in Western society. This trend is typified in the decline in independent travel to school, which was first highlighted by Hillman et al. (1990), who documented decreased rates of walking in Britain and Germany. Since then, many studies confirm children’s limited independent mobility (e.g. Alparone and Pacilli, 2012; Fyhri et al., 2011; Villanueva et al., 2012). Factors contributing to this decline include parental concerns related to the physical environment (e.g. traffic) and social factors such as fear of strangers (e.g. Prezza et al., 2005). Deterioration in parents’ own social ties to their neighbourhood has been identified as escalating perceptions of these dangers, leading them to place more barriers in the way of their children’s ability to experience their surrounding environment (Alparone and Pacilli, 2012). Interestingly, Fyhri and Hjorthol’s (2009) study in Norway found only a weak influence of ’stranger danger’ but stronger links to higher parental access to cars. This link was, in turn, associated with increased employment and busier lives for both parents and children. Enhanced access to technology, tied to parental preference for home-based play, has also been identified as a contributory factor to reduced CIM (Witten et al., 2013).

Enhanced mobility is associated with higher levels of societal engagement and acts as a positive factor encouraging development of neighbourhood-based social capital. Freeman (2010) found a positive relationship between CIM and social connection, as calculated by how many people children knew in their neighbourhood. Other studies similarly identify a positive symbiotic relationship between independence, outdoor play and/or social connection where social capital is evident through higher levels of parental association and trust (Evans and Holland, 2012). In a study on co-housing, Tchoukaleyska (2011) found the presence of other parents and known adults contributed positively to children’s independence and ability to play autonomously.

Limitations on independent mobility have been associated with declining outdoor play (Bradwell et al., 2007). For example, a US study of 254 parents found 19% never allowed their children to play outside and 82% reported that outdoor play was always or usually supervised (Kalish et al., 2010). The UK report ‘Every Child Outdoors’ (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds [RSPB], 2010) noted a significant decline in outdoor experiences for 15–34-year-olds compared to the experiences of 55-year-olds at a similar age. Interestingly, 92% of those surveyed agreed that such experiences are important for children today. Outdoor play and mobility are associated with greater physical activity and conversely its decline is associated with increased sedentarism and higher likelihood of health problems such as being overweight (Schoeppe et al., 2013).

Another concern has been raised by Louv (2005), who described the impact lack of access to the natural world has on children’s sociability, health and general well-being. To Louv, the benefits of ongoing or intermittent exposure to the natural world are varied but include the promotion of imagination, creativity, cognitive and intellectual development, enhanced social relations and a positive disposition towards the environment (Freeman and Tranter, 2011; Maller, 2009; Wells, 2000). A study by Wells and Lekies (2006) suggests that natural, informal play experiences rather than formal environmental education programmes may be the primary influence on adult attitudes and later environmental activism. The decline in CIM in urban life has led to decreasing opportunities to experience the types of formative outdoor play experiences identified above as significant for children’s development (Chawla, 2007). Speculatively, however, vacation time spent in natural settings and in the company of related as well as unrelated adults (such as camping provides) may well provide an albeit fleeting counterbalance to this situation.

The move to more ‘protective’ parenting

A number of authors argue that risk avoidance has become a dominant influence in Western parenting (e.g. Gill, 2007). This situation is despite the fact that the need to experience and respond appropriately to risk is recognised as an important part of children’s autonomous development (Little, 2010), namely, their ability to make decisions and assess and respond appropriately to risky situations. Kyttä’s (2004) notion of environmental affordance is important in this respect. She identifies the possibilities available in varying environmental types and notes a ‘positive cyclical interrelationship between mobility licenses and the actualization of affordances’ (p. 194), in which children respond to graduating zones of challenge. Chawla (2007) develops this idea in her proposed positive cycle of accessibility, mobility and environmental engagement (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Positive cycle of accessibility, mobility and engagement with environment adapted from Chawla (2007).

Highly risk-averse parenting impacts negatively on children’s own agency and developing autonomy (i.e. a child’s self-governance, Weller and Breugel, 2009), keeping them in an artificially extended period of parental dependence. There are strong forces contributing to such parenting practices. Foucault’s idea of the panopticon is useful in helping understand the move towards more ‘risk averse/protective parenting’. Foucault describes ‘… a gaze which each individual under its weight will end by interiorisation to the point that he [sic] is his own overseer, each individual thus exercising this surveillance over, and against, himself’ (Foucault 1980: 155, in Koskela, 2003).

There are local expressions of this influence on parenting. Parents are discouraged, for example, from leaving children alone before age 14 and indeed the government agency Child Youth and Family states on its website, ‘In New Zealand, it is against the law to leave children under 14 without making reasonable provision for their care and supervision’. ‘Home alone’ cases frequently make media headlines with stories of neglectful parents who have left their children without adult supervision at home or in public places such as supermarket car parks (Eleven, 2010). Walking to school programmes, notably walking school bus initiatives, while encouraging children’s mobility, simultaneously place additional emphasis on ‘adult accompanied’ school journeys. They thus reinforce the notion that children should be continually monitored and under adult ‘gaze’ and that responsible parenting supports these adult-controlled initiatives (Kearns and Collins, 2003; Kingham and Ussher, 2007).

With the foregoing context in mind, in the next section we examine New Zealand campground environments, their characteristics and the relationships families have with these settings. We use notions of ‘autonomy’, ‘social capital’, ‘environmental affordance’, ‘risk’ and the presence of a variant form of ‘panoptic gaze’ to consider how campgrounds can support ‘positive’ rather than ‘protective’ parenting practices. Finally, we consider whether the factors supporting ‘positive’ parenting could be transferred to children’s home environments.

Camping and the New Zealand psyche

Surprisingly, given the potentially significant family benefits and advantages for children’s developing independence, play and environmental connection, Hazel (2005) reports that ‘there exists a distinct dearth of research on benefits from holidays, including those specifically for children and their parents’ (p. 227). The few published studies on children and camping tend to reflect the experiences of highly structured children’s holiday camps in the United States (Henderson et al., 2007; Yuen et al., 2005), or in New Zealand, ‘health camps’ targeting vulnerable children (Kearns and Collins, 2000; Stand Children’s Services, Tu Maia Whanau). Elsewhere, ‘camps’ for children experiencing deprivation and specific health needs have been described (Byers, 1979; Hazel, 2005). The lack of attention to informal, unstructured leisure-oriented family camping is especially surprising, given its significance in the domestic tourism market and its importance in families’ leisure and social lives (Hazel, 2005). Some 57% of New Zealanders are estimated to be either regular campers or keen to go camping in the future (Peart, 2009); hence, it is not surprising that there is a high level of concern about campground closures (see Collins and Kearns, 2010).

This gap in understanding was addressed by a DoC (2006) study in which 62% of respondents voiced concern about closures). It is estimated that in the 15 years prior to 2006, over 190 campgrounds had closed (Blundell, 2006) and more have closed since. Of particular concern are campground sales in coastal locations where closures have been most frequent (Cheyne and Freeman, 2006; Freeman and Cheyne, 2008; Freeman et al., 2005). Indeed, Peart (2009: 65) claims that ‘the coast is part of what it is to be a New Zealander’ and Collins and Kearns (2010: 62) note that the campground is ‘deeply embedded in the New Zealand psyche’, as also evidenced in the large number of children’s books offering fictionalised accounts of camping.

Through camping, a strong connection to place builds up, with 69% of regular campers systematically returning to the same place and one-third going to this place for all their camping experiences (DoC, 2006). This ongoing connection to a campground also enables families to socially connect with other campers. Children play together each summer and long-standing camp friendships and a sense of shared ‘ownership’ are built up (Collins and Kearns, 2010). Camping as an experience is one that most participants in the DoC study enjoyed as children and one that as adults, they want their own children to experience (DoC, 2006). What is it about camping that is valued for children? The DoC report identifies benefits as safe and healthy fun, a different set of values, ecological appreciation, affordable holidaying and quality family time.

To summarise, for New Zealanders, campgrounds provide a range of positive social- and environmental-based experiences for children, the availability of which are potentially reduced through the combined structural processes of escalating land values, increasing regulation and commodification of campgrounds into ‘holiday parks’. The field-based study undertaken in the summer of 2010–2011, profiled next, examines the role of camping holidays in the lives of New Zealand families. We make the case that camping grounds are sites where families can, for a few weeks of the year, resist the erosion of outdoor play, adventure, activities and family time that is occurring in their usual and generally urban-based lives.

Study: Methods

Five campgrounds were selected in the lower South Island on the basis that they provided primarily for the domestic market and were known to attract families. In all but one case, they provide a range of basic facilities including showers and kitchens. All provide nearby or on-site access to water (river, lake, sea). All include trees and/or forest, open land and are rural in location. Two have a lounge and three have quite substantial adventure playgrounds including trampolines. The most basic campground is Lake Aviemore, which comprises a series of low-cost sites along the water’s edge with only toilet facilities provided. These sites closely approximate a ‘freedom camping’ experience as there is no on-site manager (oversight is by the district council which sends an employee to intermittently check the sites and payment is via an honesty box or a prepaid season pass). Some families leave their tents or caravans there for the whole summer, coming to stay several times during the season.

Camp owners/managers were contacted to gain their support for the study and all were supportive, providing advice on the best dates to visit during the summer camping period (just prior to Christmas till mid-January). A field assistant subsequently approached holidaymakers, requesting an interview. Our assistant interviewed campers representing 69 families or family groups with between 9 and 17 from each campground (Okains Bay, 14; Gore Bay, 9; Lake Aviemore, 17; Danseys Pass, 14; Naseby, 15). The researcher stayed in or near the campground during the fieldwork to observe camp life.¹ The researcher sought the participation of families over a 3-day period at each campground. Few refused. Those who did decline usually cited time constraints and wanting to be somewhere else. Only families with children were interviewed. Interviews took place in or adjacent to respondents’ tents or caravans and on some occasions other family/camping group members (including children) offered their perspectives. Where it was possible children’s voices were encouraged through informal discussion. As the interviews occurred during a period of unusually inclement weather, more children were present at the interviews than would ordinarily be the case. Responses were coded and analysed to identify response frequency counts and trends.

Results: Character of the campers

Campers represented a cross section of New Zealand society. Occupations covered a broad range (doctors and solicitors, through to builders, students and full-time mothers). Most campers (70%) were part of a larger family or friendship-based group. Children’s ages varied, with 38 being under 5 years, 69 aged 5–9 years and 62 aged over 10. It was not unusual to encounter intergenerational groups including grandparents. Location and accessibility were important, in that most campers were from the nearby area. The reasons for coming to the campground included recommended by someone (n = 19), close proximity (n = 18), ‘been before and enjoyed it’ (n = 17²), activities close by (n = 14), friends and family are here (n = 12), and family tradition (n = 11). Confirming the earlier-cited DoC study, we noted a strong sense of loyalty, with nearly 70% being repeat visitors and four families coming for over 30 years. Only a few families (n = 7) reported staying at any other campgrounds.

Why camping?

It was clear that camping was a consciously chosen holiday as only a small number (n = 6) had no other type of holidays; other types of vacation taken included those involving staying at motels/hotels (n = 15), overseas holidays (n = 19), holiday homes (n = 25), ski accommodation (n = 10) and family visits (n = 27). When asked why they chose camping, the most frequent responses were ‘good value for money/affordable’, the outdoor nature of camping and that it is ‘relaxing and peaceful’. Time for the family to be together was deemed the most important aspect of camping, followed by being away from contemporary distractions such as computers, schedules and phones (Figure 2). To gauge its importance, respondents were then asked to rate ‘how important is the camping holiday for your family on a scale of 1–5’ (where 1 is not very important and 5 is very important). Some 96% of respondents scored their response as 4 or 5.

Figure 2.

Responses to the question ‘Why is camping important for your family?’

The ‘family time’ response was one reiterated several times in different parts of the interviews. One family camping at Lake Aviemore comprising grandparents, two family friends and three grandchildren who had been coming to the site for over 30 years thought that the camping experience was vital as ‘families that play together stay together. If you are working you need this time’. Another family comprising two adults and three children aged 7–11 who stay at Okains Bay all summer, only returning home for Christmas, gave a detailed list of benefits. They like the beach, the lagoon, safe swimming, the toilet-shower block, the lack of people and dogs, sleeping in tents, the flying fox and, for the children, biking to the shop to buy sweets. Their children are allowed to go almost anywhere after the age of 10.

What type of campground?

Respondents were asked to identify what they liked about ‘their’ particular campground. The most frequent response was that it is ‘kid friendly/family oriented’ and safe (n = 41) followed by the presence of a water body or beach, local activities (n = 35) and uncrowded/quiet/relaxing (n = 24). Campers identified far fewer dislikes (n = 64) compared to what they liked (n = 260). Unsurprisingly, given the relatively poor weather during the survey, ‘climate’ rated the most frequent dislike. For many, camping is an opportunity to go ‘back to basics’.

Study participants choose to stay in these less serviced campgrounds, valuing the ‘back to nature’ lifestyle and wanting to be with other ‘Kiwi families’ away from sites dominated by international travellers with rented campervans. This finding parallels the observation noted in the DoC (2006) study:

two thirds (67%) of New Zealand regular campers camp most often at camping areas that do not have electricity … (7%) choose to camp at those areas with top-of-the-line holiday park type facilities. It was previously assumed by many in the camping industry that campers with young children were more likely to go to camping areas with a higher standard of facilities and services. This does not appear to be the case. (p. 33)

This study concludes that demand for higher standards of services and facilities is being driven by the international market.

Camping at sites with limited services in our study was a positive choice for families. For example, two families interviewed at Naseby saw camping as an important counter-experience to home comforts and routines:

the kids look forward to it all year, the kids love it, but also it’s good for us [because if] children will no longer learn these basic life skills, we will end up with a generation of ‘soft kids’ that require all their home comforts to survive. (Paul,³ camping with his wife, two children, dog and another family)

Another said it was important for ‘learning to live without all the conveniences of modern day life for us and our children’ (Brian, camping with his wife, son, three daughters and one other family).

Value of camping for children

Clearly parents regarded camping as very important for children offering a range of responses to what they value about the activity, with ‘family time’ and ‘expanding horizons and new experiences’ being prominent. When asked what children specifically enjoy about, or benefit from, camping (Figure 3), responses included socialising, meeting and playing with other children (n = 22), swimming (n = 19), variation to sleeping arrangements (e.g. late nights and the lack of routines) (n = 19) and cycling (n = 16). Children commonly use bicycles to get around the camps and often make jumps (see Figure 4). For children, a favourite game when camping is ‘spotlight’, a hide-and-seek game with torches at night, which contrasts with children’s home lives where going out after dark without adults is unusual. Adults sometimes initiate team games and competitions (e.g. raft races, treasure hunts, cricket matches and fishing; see Figure 6).

Figure 3.

Responses to the question ‘What do children enjoy about camping’?

Figure 4.

Playing on bikes at Okains Bay Campground.

Figure 5.

Taking turns to jump in the river at Dansey’s Pass campground.

Figure 6.

Parent-initiated activity, using recycled milk bottles to catch frogs for a frog hopping race at the Naseby swimming dam.

When asked if the campground was safe for children, all respondents said yes, because it was family oriented (n = 25), there was little traffic (n = 21), people ‘look out for one another’ (n = 17) and it ‘contained’ with boundaries (n = 15). This positive view of safety is reflected in where children can go unaccompanied and for most it was anywhere in the campground. Only three respondents spoke of children being allowed ‘nowhere’ but this usually reflected the young age of their children. Restrictions were commonly applied to going into water. The reasons for the freedom children seemed to enjoy at the campground were explored and parents were asked to rank on a scale of 1 to 5 their usual parenting style at home (where 1 represented ‘children always under close supervision’ to 5 reflecting a more relaxed style of parenting with children free to ‘go anywhere unaccompanied by adults’). Although all respondents tended towards the more relaxed 5 at the campground, their parenting styles at home were distributed across the scale, commonly clustering between 2 and 3.5.

Two groups of parents emerged. The first were parents who valued their children’s independence both at home and at the campground and appreciated the endorsement the camp environment gave to their permissive parenting style. Illustrative of this parenting type is John, who had been camping at Lake Aviemore for 6 years, and who rated his parenting style as a middling 2.5 at home. While his children (aged 11 and 13) have free range at the campsite, including swimming in the lagoon, he reported not being worried about the decline in children’s freedom. He wrote that the decline was ‘not for us’ as he allows his kids freedom, arguing that they ‘should be able to push own boundaries, don’t need to be constantly watched’. In contrast is Rory (camping with three children aged 1 to 6), who represents the second and more common ‘tighter’ parenting style at home, rating his parenting style as 1.5 with no independent mobility for his kids at home. Yet, though his children are young, his children do have some freedom within the campground (they can go on their own to the playground). Rory felt the campground was safe because there was ‘no busy road, small and easy to watch kids around other families who watch’. He attributed the decline in CIM to ‘more weirdos – children getting snatched, CYFs⁴ intimidating and people ring them up’.

The predominance of restrictive parenting at home is evident in Figure 7, which shows a small independent range for children at home. By way of example, a family group comprising a couple, three children, five adult friends, four dogs and a parrot described their children’s home lives using the term ‘cotton wool kids’, a term used to describe children today who are treated as so fragile they need to have a soft outer coating of cotton wool to protect them from outside dangers. This family loved water-skiing and fishing, making several visits to the campground each year. They had been coming to the site for over 30 years and expressed a concern that society was becoming too ‘pc’ (politically correct) creating ‘cotton wool’ kids, asking ‘how will kids learn to fall from a tree if they don’t get an opportunity to try’?

Figure 7.

Places where children are allowed to go on their own at home.

At home, the licence to go to places is clearly age related, with greater allowance for ages 10+, but not for all children, whereas at the campgrounds only very young children (usually aged under 5) lack freedom. The greater independence at the campground was specifically identified by respondents when asked what the difference was between what children do on their own at the campground and at home. The highest scoring responses were more freedom/independence (n = 26) and exploring/adventuring (n = 17). Only nine respondents (including parents such as John above) said that there was little difference between the freedom their children had at home and at the campground. For the majority of children (such as Rory’s), the campground was a liberating environment. Interesting discussions arose among respondents around the issue of safety, with several volunteering their own reservations about the prevailing risk-averse culture. The role of the media was mentioned as especially problematic by three respondents who talked about the ‘misconception of the stranger-danger programme in the 1980s by the government and the police … Media sensationalizing – stories of abduction – make parents scared’ (James, one son aged 9 at Danseys Pass). The ‘Media news is full of horrific stories, makes you hunker down siege mentality’ (Sue, four children ages 6–14, including a friend and nephew at Okains Bay) and the ‘Media portray outside as dangerous which it isn’t’ (Polly, four children aged 10–15 at Gore Bay).

When asked the reasons for the decline in children’s independence, in common with findings from a range of researchers (e.g. Horelli, 2001; Mackett, 2002; O’Brien et al., 2000; Whitzman and Pike, 2007), many of the responses identified issues relating to fear, mistrust, danger and anxiety provoked by the media and the breakdown in community structures. However, there was also some recognition that changing societal attitudes are playing a part through less acceptance of risk-taking behaviour, a growing ‘pc’ culture in which it is seen as irresponsible to not supervise children, paranoia about perceived dangers and more structured/pressured/full family lives. The single most frequent response was the growth in indoor entertainment and technologies, something Witten et al. (2013) have termed the ‘electronic bedroom’. At camp, parents valued seeing their children engaged in outdoor activities. Several mentioned they liked the campsite as it did not have cell phone coverage, suggesting that removal from technology also impacted positively on family dynamics.

Campground closures

We were interested to explore campers’ views on the spectre of campground closures, given this phenomenon was a key prompt for the study. The impact of closure worried many campers who could usually name at least one site that had closed. While some families responded that they would try find another campground if ‘theirs’ closed, those on lower incomes, often families using the cheaper ‘freedom camping’ type camp of Lake Aviemore, were more likely to say they would not be able to have any holiday if the site closed. One family who had been coming to this campground for several years said they would not be able to afford any holiday and the kids would not be able to ‘enjoy an experience like this’ should the camp close. Campers also emphasised the wider value of camping to New Zealanders and fears about its loss, as expressed in the following comment:

Camping is such an important part of our family life and New Zealand culture. The less camping grounds there are the more crowded they will become. Campgrounds give families opportunities to explore different parts of the country. We need camping grounds all around New Zealand. (Hazel, three children aged 9–11 who were part of a large multigeneration group of family and friends at Dansey’s Pass)

Concerns expressed about the loss of campgrounds emphasised the loss of opportunities for children. The social value of camping was portrayed as a ‘Kiwi institution to pass on, a social thing, kids make friends different from normal life’ (Bobby and his wife, three children aged 1–7, camping with a solo mother and her children on their fourth visit to Okains Bay).

Recurrent themes included the loss of opportunities for children to be active and to make their own fun, and camping as an important counterpoint to children’s protected and pressured home lives. Campers build relationships with the site, its environs and other campers often over several years and sometimes over generations. These relationships are not easily transferable should the campground close.

Discussion

Our study has revealed the ways that the camping experience of parenting contrasted with that at home. Interestingly, parents at campgrounds seem to put aside their fears around children’s safety that are so evident in their home lives. They seem more willing to allow children to take risks and challenge themselves and indeed value children’s own expressions of autonomy (e.g. with children deciding how they spend their time and with whom and undertaking their own activity-based risk assessments). The question of what it is that supports parents adopting an attitudinally different and more permissive approach to risk at campsites is interesting. Why is it that children in campgrounds are commonly allowed out after dark to go ‘spotlighting’, to be with children and adults at camp not known to the family and to undertake ‘risky’ activities such as fishing, cycling, climbing and swimming? These activities would only be permitted when parentally supervised at home and would be more age-restricted than at camp.

For most parents, campgrounds act as a last bastion of children’s freedom and of parents’ opportunity to parent in a less pressured style. These freedoms are based on a strongly implicit understanding that the campground is a place where it is permissible for adults to adopt a more relaxed ‘hands-off’ style of parenting, one that allows the whole family to relax. Furthermore, the campground is coded as a safe place, where traffic is limited, and where campers form a temporary (but annually recurrent) community that ‘looks out for children’ with an implicit understanding that the camping community, not just individual parents, have a communal responsibility for looking after children’s welfare.

An interesting question is why the erosion of children’s freedom, independence and ability to take risk has been resisted with greater success at campgrounds compared to the home environment? Clearly, there is strong cross-generational support for enabling reproduction of the childhood experiences parents had (e.g. climbing trees, building dam structures in rivers) to be passed on to their children (see Chawla 2007; Wells and Lekies 2006). Few families explicitly identified camping as an ‘antidote’ to societal pressures and lifestyles at home but they did take positive measures while camping to provide alternatives to dominant influences such as computers and time pressures by, for example, encouraging adventure play, initiating camp games and following relaxed schedules for meals and bedtimes.

If we return to Chawla’s positive interactive cycle, we note the existence of a number of factors that support the cycle’s presence in campsites (see Figure 8 for how the cycle works in the campground). Key factors include the presence of positive environmental affordances as identified in Kyttä’s (2004) model, namely, water for swimming, paddling and fishing; trees for climbing, making huts and hiding; and ‘loose parts’ such as soil and sand for making bike jumps and damming rivers. The absence of easy access to technology (some camps have no mobile phone and most have no Wi-Fi reception) supports alternative outdoor play experiences. Parental presence and the unhurried pace also lead to more parentally supported outdoor experiences such as hiking and water sports.

Figure 8.

Chawla’s positive interactive cycle – adapted to reflect the campground experience.

Children in the campground undoubtedly experience age-appropriate levels of CIM that are, for many children, more permissive than are experienced at home. At this point, it is valuable to cross-reference the work of Mikkelsen and Christensen (2009), whose Danish study of CIM found ‘moving around on their own is not children’s first priority’ (p. 55) rather that ‘children’s everyday mobility patterns were largely based on the companionship of others’ (p. 54). The presence of other children of varying ages based in different parts of the campsites engaged in different activities provides multiple social opportunities which, as a by-product, support independence, autonomy and play prospects.

Among parents and children, there exists opportunities for developing and using social capital (shared use of resources such as tents, boats, parental oversight) between campers. For many respondents, social capital is built up over many years of commitment to returning to the same campsite, often the same precise location within the camp and often building relationships with other families over extended periods of time. The presence of adults in the camp means there is always assistance available to children. In this sense, Foucault’s concept of the panoptic gaze is extremely helpful. At home, the gaze is largely interpreted as restrictive, making sure children are supervised, that they are not left alone or in circumstances that could be interpreted by other parents and authority figures as ‘neglectful’. At the camp, the ‘gaze’ is supportive in that parents offer a shared responsibility through maintaining a watchful disposition that is encouraging of the campground parenting ethos for children to be climbing trees, expressing independent mobility, mixing with other children and families and taking advantage of the environmental affordances such as swimming in the water or cycling. Thus, parents who at home feel constrained by the parental gaze and so adopt a more restrictive parenting feel less restriction at the campground. Furthermore, parents who at home are free-er feel the gaze at the campground is more supportive of their relaxed style. One related observation is that most children at campgrounds do not wear cycle helmets, whereas bare heads are rarely seen in home neighbourhoods where the wearing of helmets is compulsory by law and parentally enforced (see Figure 4).

We acknowledge that one of the limitations of this study is that the interviews focused primarily on parental responses. In future research, it will be important to build on these insights and place children at the centre of the interview process to gain a better understanding of their feelings around issues of freedom and control as well as the contrast that can occur between the home and campsite environments. Furthermore, we advocate extending the scope of this research into a wider range of campground settings both in New Zealand and in other countries, so as to enhance the potential to generalise beyond this exploratory study. However, we are nonetheless able to conclude that camping is a valuable childhood experience but preserving opportunities for this experience demands recognising and contesting those processes acting to restrict families’ access to camping sites, especially for the recipients of lower incomes (e.g. campground closure and upgrading for the international market). Positive though they are, camping holidays comprise at best only a few weeks of children’s lives, and thus it seems unlikely that with the best of intentions any camping experience can offset the attenuation of freedom occurring in children’s day-to-day home lives. The more permissive parenting evident at the campgrounds is unlikely to be mirrored in the home environment, given societal support for risk-averse parenting, the limited availability of adults present in the home environment, pressures on the lives of children and parents and the lack of children available to provide the easily accessible social stimuli and companionship necessary to initiate CIM. Our study indicates parental discomfort with eroding CIM and challenging, self-directed outdoor play. It also signals parents’ commitment to ensuring that, in at least one part of their lives, children can be free, play, have adventures and take advantage of the outdoor life that forms such an entrenched part of being ‘Kiwi’.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the work of Jono Ryan, who was the researcher involved with this project and who conducted the interviews.

Funding

The funding was provided by the Department of geography at the university of Otago but not by any funding agency.

Notes

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