Places Children Like, Dislike, and Fear

Abstract

In order to get an idea of special places for children, it is important not only to learn more about the places children like, but also about the places children dislike or even fear. As part of a longitudinal research project about children and their outdoor environment in The Netherlands, data on these issues were collected by means of interviews and mapping techniques. The whole project consisted of a pilot study involving 36 children ages 6 to 12 years and a main study involving 140 children of the same ages. These children were asked which places in their direct neighborhood they liked, disliked, or feared and what reasons they had for their preferences. This article reports on the results of the study, giving the main categories and figures of the responses and discussing the qualitative information from the reasons the children gave for their preferences.