Aren't they great. These are my tres amigos in Jalisco. The little guy in the middle is Patcho. He steals the refresco out of my hands whenever I'm not paying attention, for a living. He also likes to pee in the street whenever the mood strikes him. They hang out on the street outside of the market, that the smallest girl's family owns. She dances in front of the mirror for a living. The other girls occupation seems to be whatever the others are involved in at the time. Freelance funhaver I suppose.
I am always content and happy when I see kids in Mexico playing the way I did in my own neighborhood, with my large family, and all the other kids from the hood. Back in the day when I was raising hell and peeing in the street. Mexican kids are allowed so much freedom, to just run about and explore their surroundings.
O.K. I know what your thinking and for the most part I am in agreement with you. Yes their are larger dangers around, moreso than when I was young.
O.K. I get this. But I think we lose something fundamental in our growth when we are supervised to the degree that children seem to be now. Some of the fondest memories I have are of me taking long ways home from school, and turning what was a twenty minute walk down the road, into a two hour hike through the forest. I never told my parents I was intending to do this, simply because I didn't know I was going to do it myself. I had no plan. And that's what I believe we lose. The ability to be spontaneous towards living. It seems the kids in our culture's lives are so planned out, and organized, that the joy of whatever activity or endeavour is being pursued, is diminished in some way because of the vigilance of scrutiny that is employed. I'm not sure what I'm suggesting, if any thing at all. It just seems to me that we ought to be able to allow our kids the same freedoms of thought, that are only learned at young ages, and often from just being allowed to wander aimlessly and daydream, that I had the privelage to embark on.
Albert Einstein was a great believer in the power of day dreaming, and thought that most breakthrough revelations in the formation of science, and ideologies, were the direct result of an uncluttered mind..... A.K.A. Daydreamers.

Richard Branson has told a story of being five years old when his mother was walking him home from school one day, and she stopped at the top of a hill about two miles from their home. She pointed to the house and asked the young boy if he could see their house. When Richard replied that he could, she told him that she had to go back into town and that she knew that if he believed in himself he could find his way home. A brave undertaking for a mother as well as a five year old. He found his way home through wheatfields and pastures, and the event changed his life. He understood he could.
So let your kids play, let them stare at bugs for an hour or so, let them dance in front of mirrors, hell, even let them pee in the street from time to time.
Who knows, maybe we'll get some more Einsteins and Bransons, and whatever else daydreaming might conjur up, in the bargain.