Half term is here, the evenings are lighter and residents’ groups on the internet are gearing up to grumble about kids on the streets.

I’m not talking about alerts to those causing trouble in the town or giving people unnecessary grief outside the local takeaway, but more those run-of-the-mill messages about children gathering in parks, sitting on greens or generally just being a bit of a (perceived?) noisy nuisance.

Yes, children so big that they might get stuck in the swings probably shouldn’t be on them. And I’m sure their language sometimes isn’t appropriate for the climbing frame.

But amid a cost of living crisis that is crippling family budgets and very little in the way of youth provision – because of crippled council budgets – I think the summer ahead is likely to be a difficult one for all concerned.

There are increasing numbers of older children with nothing to do and nowhere to go. And many many families who don’t have the luxury of spare cash to pay for outings, sports clubs or extra curricular activities to keep them occupied outside.

This mean that when the sun shines, the roads where they live will become their playground.

Rather like it was for many a generation before them – although I can’t decide whether we embrace less that style of play these days or whether fear of children’s potential for very poor behaviour means society’s tolerance levels to kids tearing up and down outside is diminished?

Childhood memories of the age-old prank of knocking on someone’s door and running before they opened it came flooding back during a brief stay in a Somerset holiday park with a large group of friends.

Knock down Ginger, ding-dong-ditch, knocky nine doors or even the very creative ‘knock-a-door-and-run’ – whatever you want or might have called it - my kids were somewhat clueless.

Not permitted the same freedom to roam the streets ‘playing out’ much like I did at their age - knowing every alleyway and cut-through like the back of my hand – the rite-of-passage that came with knocking on a neighbour’s door and legging it as fast as you could was lost on them.

Not least because someone pointed out it’d be seconds now before you were caught on a doorbell camera and your face was splashed across the local Facebook page for causing a disturbance.

Now while we knew to never knock the elderly neighbours, I admit to having many a fond memory of being crouched behind a fence laughing till we couldn’t breath as some confused soul appeared on an empty doorstep.

A friend said recently her young teenage boys had made it onto a residents’ group for throwing stones at tin cans they were stacking on a patch of grass.

Boys I knew with catapults for fishing loved a pot-shot game when we were young - but I dread to think what treatment the sight of a kid with a slingshot in the street would get on the internet now.

Money is tight. Kids are kids, less so than they used to be. And they should have the freedom to roam (within reason) and be outside with friends.

Before anyone is tempted to post a diatribe on social media this summer, I hope they take a breath and think back to what they got up to at that age. In an age, when you wouldn't have then been fast-tracked across social media.