Where are the children?

Today, for the first time in days, it is not bitterly cold.  And for the first time in weeks it was warm enough this afternoon that all the icicles hanging from my roof (yet again proving how inefficient our home is in terms of maintaining it's heat) are dripping as they melt.  So, since it's not so bitterly cold (and since my children have been driving me insane) I sent my kids outside.  Bundled up, sent outside, told to stay there for awhile.  They are happily chopping down the nice side banks of our driveway that Abdullah and I built up.  And I've already had to tell Hassaan that we don't throw sharp gardening tools across the driveway.

But...one thing I have noticed is that there are never any children around.  Yet I know there are children in the neighbourhood.  I know that I have two (senior kindergarten and first grade).  I know that directly across the street, they have two boys (Junior kindergarten and first grade).  I know that two houses down they have two (I think those ones are, though, one and three).  And I know on the opposite side of them is another little boy (in grade two).  But where are they?  Where are the children?  I know when I was a kid we were constantly kicked outside.  Winter or summer.  Unless it was just not safe to be out there, be it too cold or rainy, windy or blizzard conditions.  But now, you rarely see kids out playing.  Mine are often sent out, whether they want to go or not.

So my question is this - why don't we send our children outside anymore?