14 ms·

All Work and No Play: Why Kids Are More Anxious, Depressed (2011)

193 points by montrose 8y ago

dang 8y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3106016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3106016.
- dasil003 8y ago
  Mmm, a good michaelochurch rant in there, I miss him.
  - molteanu 8y ago
    Me too, bro, me too.
    - mlazos 8y ago
      This prompted me to check out his blog. There's enough rant there for a few lifetimes.
      - le-mark 8y ago
        I also check his blog from time to time, the quality of his rants have declined imo. Also he tended to beat the same drum, a bit myopic.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Me three. I took a look. Wow, this is golden: We're not a "really fucked up species". Humans are not naturally good or evil. They're naturally unskilled-- ignorant, deluded, and often incompetent, but not evil. The purpose of civilization is to maintain the knowledge that helps people do the right thing. Unfortunately, societies become corrupt rapidly and develop elites that have defined themselves by doing the wrong thing, and then those wrong things begin to define the social tone and corruption sets in. Civilization is a storehouse of knowledge that helps people figure out what the right thing to do is, but societies are incentive systems that usually encourage doing the wrong thing.
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
You should see them now, 2011! Facebook and twitter is here and ready to help with that anxiety and depression.
- djhartman 8y ago
  Facebook was opened to the public in 2006. Instagram was only a year old though.
  - jamra 8y ago
    I’m pretty sure Facebook didn’t allow minors until quite a bit later.
    - djhartman 8y ago
      It's been open to everyone 13 and up since 2006. I would know, I was a teenager at the time. And I looked it up before commenting. And age restrictions online are, well, easily ignored.
      - NegativeLatency 8y ago
        I still enter January 1st, 1900 when given the chance on web forms. Partly out of habit, partly laziness, and partly for the satisfaction of exposing the stupidity of the age questionnaire.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        1/1/2000 is less scrolling.
        derivagral 8y ago
        You can hit numbers (or letters) on most dropdowns to skip entries; home/end key shortcuts also tend to work.
        8y ago
pmoriarty 8y ago
The earlier discussion of this article mentions Legos as a good toy for free-form play. I'd like to add another: plasticine clay. It's even more free-form than Legos, as it's not limited to any kind of pre-made shapes. It never hardens, and can be endlessly re-shaped in to new forms. It's a great way to get kids exercising their own imaginations.
- oceanman888 8y ago
  Nice, where can I get plasticine clay avengers characters for my kids? edit: The point I am trying to make is that kids don't want the toy that are good for them. They want "cool" stuff. And the market are really good at making new crap.
  - paulific 8y ago
    Don't know if they still make them, but it looks like they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygajWAbOVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygajWAbOVQ
  - pmoriarty 8y ago
    "where can I get plasticine clay avengers characters for my kids?" Buying pre-made toys defeats the purpose of the clay, which is for kids to make their own toys out of. It's like recommending you buy your kids some paints and paint brushes only to hear someone ask, "great, where can I buy them a painting of their favorite character?" You don't. That's not the point. If the kids want a painting of their favorite character, the paints and brushes empower them to paint their own. Same with clay. The results might not be up to the high standards of adults, but usually kids don't care, have a lot of fun with the materials anyway, and actually learn to be creative instead of mere consumers of someone else's creativity. "kids don't want the toy that are good for them. They want "cool" stuff" Cool stuff that they get bored with 5 minutes after they got it. Clay gives them an inexhaustible material that they can shape in to whatever they desire (including the cool stuff that they make themselves), and if they're bored with one thing they just mash it up and make something else. I speak from personal experience -- having spent endless amounts of time playing with clay as a kid while many of my other toys languished. Of course it's not the ultimate toy, and kids will eventually get bored with it too and move on to something else. But it'll always be waiting there for whatever new thing their imagination conjures up next, instead of needing yet another trip to the toy store.
coatmatter 8y ago
Since the introduction of all-age mandatory bicycle helmet laws in Australia back on the early 90s, cycle participation rates in relation to population has been in consistent decline (all while pedestrian safety and driver safety - but not cycle safety - at the same time has improved). Bike racks at schools used to be filled - that is no longer the case. By comparison, this is what it looks like in Netherlands: https://youtu.be/8NUgB_xkIvU https://youtu.be/8NUgB_xkIvU
- 49bc 8y ago
  Is it really required bike helmets to blame here? I find that hard to believe. Is there any research on that topic?
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    It's required in New York as well, but I can't imagine that is seriously deterring people from riding bikes.
    - gpm 8y ago
      I live in Toronto and bike to my university on a daily basis. If helmets were mandatory here I wouldn't, and if I wasn't I probably wouldn't even own a bike. I also bike recreationally to nice parks and stuff - stuff I wouldn't be doing since I wouldn't have purchased a good bike in the first place. I've tried to explain why below, but the real point is just "from personal experience I can't image it isn't detering people from riding bikes". The main reason a helmet is such a problem is just convenience. A bike, like a car, I can just lock up wherever I go. The helmet I would have to carry around with me all day. That makes whole day just slightly more inconvenient, and it's honestly just not worth it to me. The second is that wearing a helmet makes me feel substantially less safe. There are two direct reasons that I can articulate for this, but I'm not sure they fully explain the effect. There are also statistics that support me, showing that wearing a helmet is correlated with a increase in collisions. The first reason is wearing a helmet substantialy impedes my hearing. This is probably a bit foreign to people who are use to driving, but hearing is incredibly useful for knowing when a car/truck/bus/etc is coming up behind me. A helmet increases wind noises to the point where the signal is much less useful, I'm not confident I will always hear a car in time to react with one on, and I'm worse at pinpointing the location. Incidentally I find the lack of sound when driving fairly disturbing and scary, since I'm so used to being able to use it. The second is that the extra weight on my head seems to make looking around take more psychological effort, so I end up doing it best, so I end up having less awarness of cars around me. This is a rather surprising (to me) effect, but I'm certain it's real. Of course it's not the end of the world because I do still make substantial effort to look around, it's just epsilon less often which makes me epsilon less safe.
vertexFarm 8y ago
Shame I can't find it but I saw a study where a sociologist was monitoring a single town for decades and recording how far children would wander by themselves during the day. In the seventies it was around ten miles, with single-digit aged children wandering through the woods and into town and even doing errands for the family. Around 2010 I think it had declined to about 200 yards max. It's really extremely sad. I wouldn't want to be a kid now. I wouldn't want to have those memories of childhood. It's part of several reasons I don't think it would be ethical for me to reproduce at this time. People's fear is a sliding scale, and a child's safety is one of those things that the human psyche gives infinite value. That really screws up your ability to manage risk. People are even more afraid now, even though the causes of early death are the lowest they've ever been and we've marched ourselves into a joyless panopticon where nobody really decides their own destiny from an early age. These kids are going to absolutely hate us.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >These kids are going to absolutely hate us. The decline has been going on constantly, over many generations. If the trend continues as it has, these kids will think we were too lenient and restrict the movement of their own children even further.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    Parents have been investigated for allowing their children to play in the back yard: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/manitoba-cfs-will-not-erase-file-of-mother-who-lets-kids-play-in-backyard-1.2871900 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/manitoba-cfs-will-not-erase-fi...
    - gowld 8y ago
      So? They were investigated become someone filed a complaint about small children alone, and the investigator found that the parent was home supervising the children and there was no problem. The rest of the article is FUD about CFS's refusal to expunge case files.
slx26 8y ago
It's important to let kids be bored and ignored from time to time, so they actually have the space to think for themselves and realize how many opportunities they have out there and how fun it is to explore them. Of course, every kid is a different universe, but in general I feel we are missing quite a bit of that.
- nashashmi 8y ago
  When a child does that it is called daydreaming. And that is terrifyingly freakish to some parents. ... And teachers.
- sykh 8y ago
  I wonder if lack of spontaneity is part of the blame. It seems to me that there is too much structured time for kids. Particularly in suburbia. When I lived in a suburb I rarely saw kids out playing in a park without an adult hovering over them. Never saw kids playing in the street or wandering the neighborhood.
  - slx26 8y ago
    I would say many things are more structured nowadays. And maybe it's normal, since we are exposed to more information and a more "complex" world. This can definitely be an issue, yes. But your comment also reminded me from a talk I attended to a few years ago at a community center where they discussed how it seems like streets nowadays don't play the role of "public spaces" anymore. Now they are spaces for transit. This might hint at a bigger problem, but to me it explains this change of mentality. Today we see a kid on the street without supervision, and we often think "where are his parents?", instead of "he's just playing around". And it's kind of a vicious circle in social perception. If there are no kids around on the streets, I'm less likely to let my own kids wander outside in a "uncontrolled" environment.
  - Bartweiss 8y ago
    > Particularly in suburbia. When I lived in a suburb I rarely saw kids out playing in a park without an adult hovering over them. A significant part of this, I think, is a design failure instead of a parenting one. Suburbs are bad at almost everything they do, except creating neighborhoods with big houses, grassy yards, and decent schools. In particular, they're poison for both children's play and parents' peace of mind. As for kids - empty lawns, identical houses, and artificial boundaries don't support energy or imagination. There's nothing to look at, nowhere to go, and not much to do. when I was a kid the only suburban house where we played outside was one where the neighbors had given permission for us to play games across 3+ yards. Meanwhile at more rural houses, there were trees to climb, places to hide, and forests to explore. And in mixed density condos and apartments, there were sidewalks along the roads, shops to look into, town parks with soccer fields to play on. As for parents - suburbs are honestly one of the worse environments I can think of to turn kids loose into, after serious wilderness and dense cities. Many suburbs have no sidewalks and most have wide roads with long distances to travel and lots of vision-hiding curves; perfect conditions for kids to get hit by cars, whether they're walking, biking, or playing street games. There are enough people and cars around to worry about someone with ill-intent, unlike a rural setting, but not enough to trust in bystanders or authority figures like an urban or mixed-density setting. There are neighbors to get mad at your kids, but if you want someone watching them it falls entirely on you. And there's so little to do that it raises fears of vandalism, bullying, or any other badness you might get from idle hands. For a younger kid, the sheer uniformity of suburbs can raise questions about finding their way home. There are almost no redeeming features to suburbs, but I regularly hear "at least it's a good place to raise a family". I don't think it's true; suburbs are superficially clean and inviting, but they lack the stuff that makes unstructured life healthy and inviting for kids.
ManlyBread 8y ago
Could the points outlined in the article be the reason why Minecraft is so popular with kids? It seems to offer freedom that is similar to what free play does.
Tharkun 8y ago
I wonder whether the headline applies to adults as well.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Yes. I seem to recall a piece on burnout in mathematicians (academics). Decades spent on ppotentially unsolvable problems, unbalanced reward/discouragement.
rdlecler1 8y ago
Sure it sounds good but it was disappointing to see that none of the five suggestions were backed up by any supporting statistics.
binarnosp 8y ago
One month ago I started removing the constraints on my 8 years old daughter's outside activity. I just gave a wristwatch with the alarm set before dinner time and told her "when the alarm goes off then come home". I'm against her having a phone. When she comes home and she tells us what she and her friends did (I don't ask, she just wants to share) it is hilarious and I usually think "It was better if I didn't know this and that". But then I think about the 8 years old version of me "bombing" the toy soldiers together with a friend of mine by spraying alcohol on them and by setting everything on fire, and I relax...
- dbatten 8y ago
  My company is in the process of launching a screen-free, non-phone LTE device (think unlimited range walkie-talkie with extra features) intended to let kids stay safe while having more freedom. I'm genuinely curious - how would you feel about something like that? The site: https://relaygo.com/ https://relaygo.com/
  - mieseratte 8y ago
    Snark: It's nice for the helicopter parent who also doesn't want their kids exposed to a phone, so it'll probably sell just fine. I suppose because I'm not a parent, I don't have that built in level of worry / paranoia, though I "fondly" remember how fearful my own mother was, but I don't get it. Isn't the point of letting your kid venture out to help them establish and explore freedom and boundaries? You tell your child not to stay out past the street lights, not venture past certain landmarks, and then let them roam. If they comply, great! If not, they learn actions have consequences. If I were a kid, I'd make sure to conveniently forget / power off / not charge / lose that thing as much as possible.
    - le-mark 8y ago
      Before I had kids of my own, I shared your view. After having kids, I can easily see how people become irrational about child safety. I fight it myself, constantly. I think a lot of it is due the sensational, salacious media coverage the bad stuff, makes it seem more prominent now than in the past.
m23khan 8y ago
Here is my observations from last 20 years: Mississauga, CANADA: Lots of parks but almost all are empty throughout the year even during Summer time. Karachi, PAKISTAN: Severe lack of parks but even the ones which are there are usually empty even during winter times. Culprit in both cases: technology such as mobile phones, video games and TV. And also, paranoid parents who don't let kids go out and enjoy (and are probably too lazy to just sit quietly in the park to watch the kids).
- helipad 8y ago
  I'm sure those are contributing factors. However, in the 90s I had video consoles and satellite TV, but still spent a lot of time unsupervised playing football (soccer). TV and video games were for rainy, cold days. Part of me struggles to believe that kids don't want to play outside unsupervised – at least once they're outside. My suspicion is that children just aren't allowed to be out alone as much today. Parents would be almost seen as negligent if their children weren't supervised within earshot. Not in all cases of course, but my guess would be the parents have changed far quicker than children or the distractions available to them.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >Parents would be almost seen as negligent if their children weren't supervised within earshot. One asshole calling CPS will put a little voice in the back of everyone's head telling them to be slightly more restrictive with their kids. >art of me struggles to believe that kids don't want to play outside unsupervised – at least once they're outside. Kid's don't want to play outside in the first place. They'd rather watch TV or whatever. If you make them play outside they'll stop whining and do it in fairly short order. Combine the up front whining with the little voice and you see why "go play outside until mommy is done making dinner" is much less common.
shams93 8y ago
Growing up in the 80s I had to deal with so much violence and abuse that I didn't get much play time. But I got my first writing published in an academic journal at 14. The violance, abuse and chaos around me caused me to hyper focus on reading and writing as an escape. I wasn't required to read 300 pages a day but the library was the only space I found free from violence as a child in the 80s.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  Man the 80s really were horrible, weren't they? I did the same, except I was afforded a Nintendo and learned how to code at 9 using BASIC books from the school library. When the 90s came around, my parents bought a PC at great expense to encourage me.
- georgeecollins 8y ago
  Yes that sounds like the 80s.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  That's great for you, but "I was surrounded by so much violence that I published my first academic article as a teenager" definitely isn't the typical case.
zpr 8y ago
I see middle-school kids biking home from school in my suburb and when approaching the intersection (not a very busy one, mind you), they all dismount their bikes and walk across the street. I know that's what you're supposed to do, but c'mon, they're kids.. When I was that age my friends and I would race across the street without helmets flipping the bird to the crossing guard, so it's a bit unsettling to see them all obediently get off their bikes and single-file across the street, even when there are no crossing guards in sight.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
It's interesting watching the pendulum swing back so hard towards the kind of "free range parenting" that most of us grew up with in the 70s and 80s. Looking at the comments here, it seems everyone thinks that it's tantamount to child abuse to not let a kid of any age roam free in any environment. Of course, I notice that many people expressing that don't seem to have kids of their own yet :) I am amused by nostalgic comments about dangerous things that we all did decades ago and how: 1) we were fine, so how dangerous could it have been? and 2) look how much safer things are today, so it's no big deal. Many apparently have never considered that maybe things are safer today because we don't do those things, or that survivorship bias means that asking people who never wore seatbelts as a kid about whether it was dangerous may not be the best approach. I grew up in the 80s and looking back now, I honestly probably roamed a little bit more freely than was healthy. I would ride my bike around town alone for hours when I was 6 or 7, including across major streets with heavy traffic. On at least one occasion some stranger tried to get me to get into their car. Now, I was taught to be careful but I doubt I had the maturity to understand the gravity of some of these situations. I have a 3-year-old now and I'm going to work hard to not be paranoid and to let her explore and gain independence as she gets older, but I'm also not interested in making a statement or pushing back against societal trends or recreating my own childhood. I want to make sure she gets as much freedom as possible within the boundaries of a reasonable degree of safety, and I'll just use some common sense and balance to figure out what's best for her. Her childhood will look different from mine, and that's perfectly OK.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  > don't seem to have kids of their own yet I have two of my own, now 12 and 14. My wife was very paranoid, very overprotective, very helicopter parent. We continue to fight about this, because I grew up roaming outside in the 80's whereas she insists that "the world is different than it was back then". More than anything else, I worry about the potential health problems my kids might develop from having spent 90% of their lives indoors, sitting in front of a TV or a computer (and the people who say, "well you should just restrict your kids screen time" are the ones who don't have kids of their own).

193 points by montrose 8y ago

dang 8y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3106016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3106016.

dasil003 8y ago
Mmm, a good michaelochurch rant in there, I miss him.
- molteanu 8y ago
  Me too, bro, me too.
  - mlazos 8y ago
    This prompted me to check out his blog. There's enough rant there for a few lifetimes.
    - le-mark 8y ago
      I also check his blog from time to time, the quality of his rants have declined imo. Also he tended to beat the same drum, a bit myopic.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Me three. I took a look. Wow, this is golden: We're not a "really fucked up species". Humans are not naturally good or evil. They're naturally unskilled-- ignorant, deluded, and often incompetent, but not evil. The purpose of civilization is to maintain the knowledge that helps people do the right thing. Unfortunately, societies become corrupt rapidly and develop elites that have defined themselves by doing the wrong thing, and then those wrong things begin to define the social tone and corruption sets in. Civilization is a storehouse of knowledge that helps people figure out what the right thing to do is, but societies are incentive systems that usually encourage doing the wrong thing.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

You should see them now, 2011! Facebook and twitter is here and ready to help with that anxiety and depression.

djhartman 8y ago
Facebook was opened to the public in 2006. Instagram was only a year old though.
- jamra 8y ago
  I’m pretty sure Facebook didn’t allow minors until quite a bit later.
  - djhartman 8y ago
    It's been open to everyone 13 and up since 2006. I would know, I was a teenager at the time. And I looked it up before commenting. And age restrictions online are, well, easily ignored.
    - NegativeLatency 8y ago
      I still enter January 1st, 1900 when given the chance on web forms. Partly out of habit, partly laziness, and partly for the satisfaction of exposing the stupidity of the age questionnaire.
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        1/1/2000 is less scrolling.
        derivagral 8y ago
        You can hit numbers (or letters) on most dropdowns to skip entries; home/end key shortcuts also tend to work.
      - 8y ago

pmoriarty 8y ago

The earlier discussion of this article mentions Legos as a good toy for free-form play. I'd like to add another: plasticine clay. It's even more free-form than Legos, as it's not limited to any kind of pre-made shapes. It never hardens, and can be endlessly re-shaped in to new forms. It's a great way to get kids exercising their own imaginations.

oceanman888 8y ago
Nice, where can I get plasticine clay avengers characters for my kids? edit: The point I am trying to make is that kids don't want the toy that are good for them. They want "cool" stuff. And the market are really good at making new crap.
- paulific 8y ago
  Don't know if they still make them, but it looks like they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygajWAbOVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UygajWAbOVQ
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  "where can I get plasticine clay avengers characters for my kids?" Buying pre-made toys defeats the purpose of the clay, which is for kids to make their own toys out of. It's like recommending you buy your kids some paints and paint brushes only to hear someone ask, "great, where can I buy them a painting of their favorite character?" You don't. That's not the point. If the kids want a painting of their favorite character, the paints and brushes empower them to paint their own. Same with clay. The results might not be up to the high standards of adults, but usually kids don't care, have a lot of fun with the materials anyway, and actually learn to be creative instead of mere consumers of someone else's creativity. "kids don't want the toy that are good for them. They want "cool" stuff" Cool stuff that they get bored with 5 minutes after they got it. Clay gives them an inexhaustible material that they can shape in to whatever they desire (including the cool stuff that they make themselves), and if they're bored with one thing they just mash it up and make something else. I speak from personal experience -- having spent endless amounts of time playing with clay as a kid while many of my other toys languished. Of course it's not the ultimate toy, and kids will eventually get bored with it too and move on to something else. But it'll always be waiting there for whatever new thing their imagination conjures up next, instead of needing yet another trip to the toy store.

coatmatter 8y ago

Since the introduction of all-age mandatory bicycle helmet laws in Australia back on the early 90s, cycle participation rates in relation to population has been in consistent decline (all while pedestrian safety and driver safety - but not cycle safety - at the same time has improved). Bike racks at schools used to be filled - that is no longer the case. By comparison, this is what it looks like in Netherlands: https://youtu.be/8NUgB_xkIvU https://youtu.be/8NUgB_xkIvU

49bc 8y ago
Is it really required bike helmets to blame here? I find that hard to believe. Is there any research on that topic?
- nerdponx 8y ago
  It's required in New York as well, but I can't imagine that is seriously deterring people from riding bikes.
  - gpm 8y ago
    I live in Toronto and bike to my university on a daily basis. If helmets were mandatory here I wouldn't, and if I wasn't I probably wouldn't even own a bike. I also bike recreationally to nice parks and stuff - stuff I wouldn't be doing since I wouldn't have purchased a good bike in the first place. I've tried to explain why below, but the real point is just "from personal experience I can't image it isn't detering people from riding bikes". The main reason a helmet is such a problem is just convenience. A bike, like a car, I can just lock up wherever I go. The helmet I would have to carry around with me all day. That makes whole day just slightly more inconvenient, and it's honestly just not worth it to me. The second is that wearing a helmet makes me feel substantially less safe. There are two direct reasons that I can articulate for this, but I'm not sure they fully explain the effect. There are also statistics that support me, showing that wearing a helmet is correlated with a increase in collisions. The first reason is wearing a helmet substantialy impedes my hearing. This is probably a bit foreign to people who are use to driving, but hearing is incredibly useful for knowing when a car/truck/bus/etc is coming up behind me. A helmet increases wind noises to the point where the signal is much less useful, I'm not confident I will always hear a car in time to react with one on, and I'm worse at pinpointing the location. Incidentally I find the lack of sound when driving fairly disturbing and scary, since I'm so used to being able to use it. The second is that the extra weight on my head seems to make looking around take more psychological effort, so I end up doing it best, so I end up having less awarness of cars around me. This is a rather surprising (to me) effect, but I'm certain it's real. Of course it's not the end of the world because I do still make substantial effort to look around, it's just epsilon less often which makes me epsilon less safe.

vertexFarm 8y ago

Shame I can't find it but I saw a study where a sociologist was monitoring a single town for decades and recording how far children would wander by themselves during the day. In the seventies it was around ten miles, with single-digit aged children wandering through the woods and into town and even doing errands for the family. Around 2010 I think it had declined to about 200 yards max. It's really extremely sad. I wouldn't want to be a kid now. I wouldn't want to have those memories of childhood. It's part of several reasons I don't think it would be ethical for me to reproduce at this time. People's fear is a sliding scale, and a child's safety is one of those things that the human psyche gives infinite value. That really screws up your ability to manage risk. People are even more afraid now, even though the causes of early death are the lowest they've ever been and we've marched ourselves into a joyless panopticon where nobody really decides their own destiny from an early age. These kids are going to absolutely hate us.

whatshisface 8y ago
>These kids are going to absolutely hate us. The decline has been going on constantly, over many generations. If the trend continues as it has, these kids will think we were too lenient and restrict the movement of their own children even further.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Parents have been investigated for allowing their children to play in the back yard: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/manitoba-cfs-will-not-erase-file-of-mother-who-lets-kids-play-in-backyard-1.2871900 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/manitoba-cfs-will-not-erase-fi...
  - gowld 8y ago
    So? They were investigated become someone filed a complaint about small children alone, and the investigator found that the parent was home supervising the children and there was no problem. The rest of the article is FUD about CFS's refusal to expunge case files.

slx26 8y ago

It's important to let kids be bored and ignored from time to time, so they actually have the space to think for themselves and realize how many opportunities they have out there and how fun it is to explore them. Of course, every kid is a different universe, but in general I feel we are missing quite a bit of that.

nashashmi 8y ago
When a child does that it is called daydreaming. And that is terrifyingly freakish to some parents. ... And teachers.
sykh 8y ago
I wonder if lack of spontaneity is part of the blame. It seems to me that there is too much structured time for kids. Particularly in suburbia. When I lived in a suburb I rarely saw kids out playing in a park without an adult hovering over them. Never saw kids playing in the street or wandering the neighborhood.
- slx26 8y ago
  I would say many things are more structured nowadays. And maybe it's normal, since we are exposed to more information and a more "complex" world. This can definitely be an issue, yes. But your comment also reminded me from a talk I attended to a few years ago at a community center where they discussed how it seems like streets nowadays don't play the role of "public spaces" anymore. Now they are spaces for transit. This might hint at a bigger problem, but to me it explains this change of mentality. Today we see a kid on the street without supervision, and we often think "where are his parents?", instead of "he's just playing around". And it's kind of a vicious circle in social perception. If there are no kids around on the streets, I'm less likely to let my own kids wander outside in a "uncontrolled" environment.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > Particularly in suburbia. When I lived in a suburb I rarely saw kids out playing in a park without an adult hovering over them. A significant part of this, I think, is a design failure instead of a parenting one. Suburbs are bad at almost everything they do, except creating neighborhoods with big houses, grassy yards, and decent schools. In particular, they're poison for both children's play and parents' peace of mind. As for kids - empty lawns, identical houses, and artificial boundaries don't support energy or imagination. There's nothing to look at, nowhere to go, and not much to do. when I was a kid the only suburban house where we played outside was one where the neighbors had given permission for us to play games across 3+ yards. Meanwhile at more rural houses, there were trees to climb, places to hide, and forests to explore. And in mixed density condos and apartments, there were sidewalks along the roads, shops to look into, town parks with soccer fields to play on. As for parents - suburbs are honestly one of the worse environments I can think of to turn kids loose into, after serious wilderness and dense cities. Many suburbs have no sidewalks and most have wide roads with long distances to travel and lots of vision-hiding curves; perfect conditions for kids to get hit by cars, whether they're walking, biking, or playing street games. There are enough people and cars around to worry about someone with ill-intent, unlike a rural setting, but not enough to trust in bystanders or authority figures like an urban or mixed-density setting. There are neighbors to get mad at your kids, but if you want someone watching them it falls entirely on you. And there's so little to do that it raises fears of vandalism, bullying, or any other badness you might get from idle hands. For a younger kid, the sheer uniformity of suburbs can raise questions about finding their way home. There are almost no redeeming features to suburbs, but I regularly hear "at least it's a good place to raise a family". I don't think it's true; suburbs are superficially clean and inviting, but they lack the stuff that makes unstructured life healthy and inviting for kids.

ManlyBread 8y ago

Could the points outlined in the article be the reason why Minecraft is so popular with kids? It seems to offer freedom that is similar to what free play does.

Tharkun 8y ago

I wonder whether the headline applies to adults as well.

dredmorbius 8y ago
Yes. I seem to recall a piece on burnout in mathematicians (academics). Decades spent on ppotentially unsolvable problems, unbalanced reward/discouragement.

rdlecler1 8y ago

Sure it sounds good but it was disappointing to see that none of the five suggestions were backed up by any supporting statistics.

binarnosp 8y ago

One month ago I started removing the constraints on my 8 years old daughter's outside activity. I just gave a wristwatch with the alarm set before dinner time and told her "when the alarm goes off then come home". I'm against her having a phone. When she comes home and she tells us what she and her friends did (I don't ask, she just wants to share) it is hilarious and I usually think "It was better if I didn't know this and that". But then I think about the 8 years old version of me "bombing" the toy soldiers together with a friend of mine by spraying alcohol on them and by setting everything on fire, and I relax...

dbatten 8y ago
My company is in the process of launching a screen-free, non-phone LTE device (think unlimited range walkie-talkie with extra features) intended to let kids stay safe while having more freedom. I'm genuinely curious - how would you feel about something like that? The site: https://relaygo.com/ https://relaygo.com/
- mieseratte 8y ago
  Snark: It's nice for the helicopter parent who also doesn't want their kids exposed to a phone, so it'll probably sell just fine. I suppose because I'm not a parent, I don't have that built in level of worry / paranoia, though I "fondly" remember how fearful my own mother was, but I don't get it. Isn't the point of letting your kid venture out to help them establish and explore freedom and boundaries? You tell your child not to stay out past the street lights, not venture past certain landmarks, and then let them roam. If they comply, great! If not, they learn actions have consequences. If I were a kid, I'd make sure to conveniently forget / power off / not charge / lose that thing as much as possible.
  - le-mark 8y ago
    Before I had kids of my own, I shared your view. After having kids, I can easily see how people become irrational about child safety. I fight it myself, constantly. I think a lot of it is due the sensational, salacious media coverage the bad stuff, makes it seem more prominent now than in the past.

m23khan 8y ago

Here is my observations from last 20 years: Mississauga, CANADA: Lots of parks but almost all are empty throughout the year even during Summer time. Karachi, PAKISTAN: Severe lack of parks but even the ones which are there are usually empty even during winter times. Culprit in both cases: technology such as mobile phones, video games and TV. And also, paranoid parents who don't let kids go out and enjoy (and are probably too lazy to just sit quietly in the park to watch the kids).

helipad 8y ago
I'm sure those are contributing factors. However, in the 90s I had video consoles and satellite TV, but still spent a lot of time unsupervised playing football (soccer). TV and video games were for rainy, cold days. Part of me struggles to believe that kids don't want to play outside unsupervised – at least once they're outside. My suspicion is that children just aren't allowed to be out alone as much today. Parents would be almost seen as negligent if their children weren't supervised within earshot. Not in all cases of course, but my guess would be the parents have changed far quicker than children or the distractions available to them.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >Parents would be almost seen as negligent if their children weren't supervised within earshot. One asshole calling CPS will put a little voice in the back of everyone's head telling them to be slightly more restrictive with their kids. >art of me struggles to believe that kids don't want to play outside unsupervised – at least once they're outside. Kid's don't want to play outside in the first place. They'd rather watch TV or whatever. If you make them play outside they'll stop whining and do it in fairly short order. Combine the up front whining with the little voice and you see why "go play outside until mommy is done making dinner" is much less common.

shams93 8y ago

Growing up in the 80s I had to deal with so much violence and abuse that I didn't get much play time. But I got my first writing published in an academic journal at 14. The violance, abuse and chaos around me caused me to hyper focus on reading and writing as an escape. I wasn't required to read 300 pages a day but the library was the only space I found free from violence as a child in the 80s.

vinceguidry 8y ago
Man the 80s really were horrible, weren't they? I did the same, except I was afforded a Nintendo and learned how to code at 9 using BASIC books from the school library. When the 90s came around, my parents bought a PC at great expense to encourage me.
georgeecollins 8y ago
Yes that sounds like the 80s.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
That's great for you, but "I was surrounded by so much violence that I published my first academic article as a teenager" definitely isn't the typical case.

zpr 8y ago

I see middle-school kids biking home from school in my suburb and when approaching the intersection (not a very busy one, mind you), they all dismount their bikes and walk across the street. I know that's what you're supposed to do, but c'mon, they're kids.. When I was that age my friends and I would race across the street without helmets flipping the bird to the crossing guard, so it's a bit unsettling to see them all obediently get off their bikes and single-file across the street, even when there are no crossing guards in sight.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

It's interesting watching the pendulum swing back so hard towards the kind of "free range parenting" that most of us grew up with in the 70s and 80s. Looking at the comments here, it seems everyone thinks that it's tantamount to child abuse to not let a kid of any age roam free in any environment. Of course, I notice that many people expressing that don't seem to have kids of their own yet :) I am amused by nostalgic comments about dangerous things that we all did decades ago and how: 1) we were fine, so how dangerous could it have been? and 2) look how much safer things are today, so it's no big deal. Many apparently have never considered that maybe things are safer today because we don't do those things, or that survivorship bias means that asking people who never wore seatbelts as a kid about whether it was dangerous may not be the best approach. I grew up in the 80s and looking back now, I honestly probably roamed a little bit more freely than was healthy. I would ride my bike around town alone for hours when I was 6 or 7, including across major streets with heavy traffic. On at least one occasion some stranger tried to get me to get into their car. Now, I was taught to be careful but I doubt I had the maturity to understand the gravity of some of these situations. I have a 3-year-old now and I'm going to work hard to not be paranoid and to let her explore and gain independence as she gets older, but I'm also not interested in making a statement or pushing back against societal trends or recreating my own childhood. I want to make sure she gets as much freedom as possible within the boundaries of a reasonable degree of safety, and I'll just use some common sense and balance to figure out what's best for her. Her childhood will look different from mine, and that's perfectly OK.

commandlinefan 8y ago
> don't seem to have kids of their own yet I have two of my own, now 12 and 14. My wife was very paranoid, very overprotective, very helicopter parent. We continue to fight about this, because I grew up roaming outside in the 80's whereas she insists that "the world is different than it was back then". More than anything else, I worry about the potential health problems my kids might develop from having spent 90% of their lives indoors, sitting in front of a TV or a computer (and the people who say, "well you should just restrict your kids screen time" are the ones who don't have kids of their own).