We’re two weeks into the school summer holidays, finally the weather is playing ball but where are all the children?

While parents and toddlers fill the parks and playgrounds where I live - residential streets feel increasingly empty of older boys and girls.

Few kids are riding the pavements on their bikes like BMX bandits and the only noise coming from my open kitchen window is that of a neighbour’s barking dog and someone mowing a lawn.

There are none of the shrieks and squeals that at this time of year should be hanging in the air until late and no one so far this summer has knocked and asked for a ball back that has inadvertently made its way into our garden.

A relief I hear you say?

Except their absence I fear signals a wider problem, in which children’s play - particularly as they grow older - is increasingly becoming viewed as some form of anti-social behaviour.

Where being a noisy tween tearing up and down the road at full volume on a scooter serves as the precursor to life as a ‘feral’ youth who will intimidate shop workers and the elderly.

Sometimes I’m guilty of saying it myself.

‘Don’t hang outside that shop for long, people will think you’re causing trouble’ is an instruction I’ve found myself giving to my pre-teen with increasing frequency - conscious about how society now views almost all teenagers young or old regardless of how they’re behaving.

You could maybe add to that - not sitting in the park in a group, not walking down the street spread across the path, not playing on the swings in the children’s playground or sitting on its climbing frame.

All things I’d have done as a young teen that seem to have become socially unacceptable once you now pass the age of 10 or 11.

We were also big big fans of knocking on a door and making a run for it - or ‘knock down ginger’ as we used to call it - but people post warnings on our residents group about that sort of thing now as if the kids are out to commit burglary or worst.

Have people forgotten what they used to get up to?

In fact I’d go as far as to say I’m not sure any parent of older children is quite sure about what older generations consider acceptable these days - aware that the mere appearance of a group of gangly kids can be met with suspicion.

Kentonline’s story this week about the teenage den destroyed in the wood because it was seen as ‘criminal damage’ would suggest that maybe they can’t win?

I remember summer after summer of chasing my friends through the maze of alleyways behind our house until dusk, creating hideaways and dens, kicking balls across the street, covering metres of pavement and front walls in chalk doodles and riding full pelt up and down the pavements.

But how much of that noisy incessant doorstep play would be frowned upon or tutted at today?

It’s not unusual these days for England’s councils to take complaints about the noise of children playing - particularly when the weather is nice.

Much has been said in the last year about the epidemic of childhood unhappiness sweeping through our youngest generation.

Impressionable youngsters who are being chewed up and spat out by social media, which is leaving them with riddled with anxiety, self-esteem issues and confidence problems.

Yet I fear they’re getting an equally rough ride from communities who perceive them as a threatening inconvenience.

‘No ball game’ signs on new developments may feel like a sensible idea but do they signal a growing acceptance for pushing young people out of our communal areas.

Except with youth and children’s centres closing at pace - where exactly should they go?

And despite being a society quick to grumble about kids with square eyes who stare mindlessly into devices and screens all day long - if we’re honest - do we much prefer children who are not seen and not heard to those who want to treat the streets as their playground?