DO your children or grandchildren spend much time playing outside? Can they climb trees or build a den?

Unfortunately, the answer to that is probably “no”. Now, BBC Springwatch presenter Michaela Strachan is calling for the “re-wilding” of children. She wants them to be left to their own devices to play outdoors more, and to get them away from their iPads, computers and TV screens.

I bet there are many people reading this who, like me, had a childhood when we explored on our bikes for hours and could create a whole world of fantasy in a wood. My husband says he often went off with his mates, a bottle of water and a football and returned home hours later, ready for a meal and a bath before falling exhausted into bed.

OK, so it’s not as easy now to let children play for hours without an adult around. I’m sure we had paedophiles then as we do today but I agree that they’re now far better organised, aggressive and even more dangerous.

However, this is still no reason for children to seldom play outdoors and be allowed to let their imaginations roam. Michaela Strachan says that children haven’t learned to entertain themselves. They’re so used to playing on gadgets and watching hours of TV that they’re never called on to do this.

She feels that parents have a vital role in teaching their children to have fun in the garden or the park. The wildlife presenter well understands the joys of the outdoors but she is also highlighting the wider challenge of actually getting children active – a real problem when the country has such a huge problem with obesity in the young.

As well as the health benefits from play, there’s the other plus of children actually talking to each other and inter-acting. Youngsters are now, apparently, losing the ability to converse together because they’re so used to texting rather than speaking.

Technology gives them so much these days, including a great accessibility to information, but it’s also taken away some vital components of our children’s basic development. Face-to-face inter-action is natural and helpful; it allows us to witness emotions and judge how our words affect others.

Children, like adults, need to communicate with others physically, not virtually. At this rate, future generations will be born without speech, no ears but with ten didgets on each hand for texting.