WHY do you think children don't play outdoors as much as they used to?

You might imagine it's all thanks to television, video games, or parents who can't be bothered to supervise them.

But it turns out that grumpy adults may often be to blame.

A survey of 2,600 children, conducted by the Children's Society, found 80 per cent of them had been told off for playing outdoors.

One eight-year-old girl in west Somerset could no longer cycle down her street because a neighbour complained about her bike's squeaky wheels.

I found this research somewhat sobering. While we're all inclined to complain about kids when they make too much noise, we don't often stop and think about how life looks from their point of view.

It's easy to forget that, for a child, the world often seems full of surly adults. There's the woman in your street who snatches away the ball which you hit into her garden and then insists she hasn't seen it.

There's the park-keeper who has you down for a hooligan the minute you're on his territory. And there's the teacher whose degree was in sarcasm and who wants to put down any display of high spirits.

They all started off as children too, but somewhere along the way they became objectionable curmudgeons. Of course, we've all seen kids behaving in ways which make you despair at leaving the future of humanity in their hands.

But once we start assuming they're all like that, we are on our way to old fogeydom.

It isn't just strangers who treat children this way.

I once lived near a DIY freak who was constantly improving his house or garden.

The trouble was, his young boy was perpetually following him and taking an interest in what he was doing.

As a result, all you would hear all weekend was the man shouting "Get off!", "Don't touch that!", "Come here, now!" and so on. (He even used to ask the memorably stupid question "Do you want a smack?", as though the answer might be "Yes, that would be nice.")

After a while, the man's house was a darn sight nicer looking than ours, but I wouldn't give you tuppence for his relationship with his boy.

Just because our adult lives are weighed down by work and responsibility and laundry, that's no reason to expect our kids to be as careworn as we are. For a few happy years, their lives are supposed to be ruled by the impulse to have fun.

Excuse me for now. I have to open the front window and say "Here, you kids. Get out of it!"