If you’ve got really young kids, your kids’ childhood may not look so very different from your own. But it almost certainly looks very different from mine, and, scientifically speaking, mine may have been better.

When I was growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s, parents hovering over their kids was absolutely not a thing. What my parents would have called “parenting” – had the word even existed in our neighborhood at the time – bears almost no resemblance to the high-standard, intimately and constantly engaged style of raising kids we think of today. 

We lived in the city on a little eyebrow of a street lined on both sides by brick rowhomes, nearly all of which could disgorge anywhere from two to eleven kids at a moment’s notice. As soon as our Captain Crunch bowls were empty, we were wooshed out into the street, the screen door often locked behind us so my mom could finish her housework in relative peace. 

We played half ball and jump rope and mother-may-I and epic games of flashlight tag late into the night. We rode helmetless on the handlebars of hand-me-down bikes and sidewalk chalked and made up stories and games and rules as we went along. We built snow forts and cardboard castles and got ourselves into one scrape after another and out of them again without our parents being any the wiser.

It was a childhood heavy on play and light on supervision. It was the kind of childhood evolutionary developmental psychologists now say we humans were meant to have.

My, how the times have changed.

Everyone Agrees: Play is Hugely Beneficial for Kids

It’s not news that play – the unstructured, child-led, just-for-the-joy-of-it kind – is the magnum opus of childhood. There are all different kinds of play – physical, pretend, solitary, social.  Scientists have been telling us for years that all forms of play promote cognitive and language development, foster strong social and emotional skills, and enhance a child’s ability to learn and manage stress. Not that they needed to. My parents would have laughed out loud at the idea that scientists had to research this. 

There’s new evidence that one particular kind of play – unstructured play – is especially important. We’re not talking about playing little league or taking a basket weaving class. Unstructured play is sometimes described as play that isn’t organized or directed by adults or older peers and that generally doesn’t have a defined outcome or purpose. Turns out unstructured, self-directed play is even more powerful that its playmates, so to speak. Turns out unstructured, self-directed play may help to protect our mental health and well-being in childhood and beyond.

But Independent, Unsupervised Play has been in a Long, Slow Decline

I’m going to go ahead and guess that my generation and the one before mine were the heyday of freewheeling, tree-climbing, parent-avoiding play. In the decades since, opportunities for kids to play and roam and explore away from the loving, protective gaze of their parents have plummeted. 

There are a whole host of reasons why play in this country looks different than it did fifty years ago. As a society, we’ve become more concerned that our kids succeed academically, which has led us to focus on more structured “educational” activities as early as preschool (thanks No Child Left Behind). The average length of the school year in the U.S. has increased by five weeks since 1950. Recess periods have become shorter or, in some cases, have been eliminated altogether. Homework is common and time consuming.

Culture plays an important role, too. When I was growing up, I don’t think I could have named a single mom in my neighborhood who worked full-time. These women definitely did not feel the need to spend “extra” or “quality” time with their kids. I seem to recall them more often than not wanting to get away from their kids. And they weren’t shy about telling us, either.

Today, most parents are working and stretched thin on every front. When they’re with their kids, they want to do things together, not cut them loose to catch frogs in the creek. And even if they do feel the need for a little me time, they might feel guilty taking – or even acknowledging – it.

With all those other moms at home, with all their kids running around, my mom could – and did – trust in a kind of implicit social safety net. My little sisters were left sleeping in their playpens outside when my mom had to run in. I was allowed to walk the ten blocks or so from my house to the Five & Dime and cross Academy Road by myself when I was nine. When my parents needed something at the mall, they plopped my brother and sisters and me in front of the TV display in Sears then disappeared for an hour or two, leaving us with the sole instruction to stay there until they got back. There were usually twenty or so other kids doing the exact same thing. 

No one would do that today. I certainly never did anything like that with my own kids. The world feels entirely too scary. 

And I think so much less was expected of parents back then. For example, there were no activities to speak of, and no pressure to expose your kids to this or that. My mom had six kids and I don’t even think she could drive until I was ten. If you wanted to do something other than play with your friends outside, you pretty much had to find it yourself, and if you couldn’t walk there, you were playing with your friends outside.

New Research Suggests that this Decline in Unstructured Playtime is Contributing to Record Levels of Mental Health Disorders in our Kids and Teens

With all those pressures, it’s not surprising that independent, self-directed play has been declining for decades. In those same decades, our kids’ anxiety rates have soared and they are experiencing more sadness and suicidal ideation than ever before. 

The problem has grown so exponentially that, in 2021, The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association came together to declare a National Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health. They noted that even before the pandemic, childhood mental health concerns had been rising steadily such that by 2018, suicide was the second leading cause of death for young people ages 10-24. 

Three prominent child-development researchers, with Ph.D.’s and all the right credentials, put the declining play statistics next to the exploding mental health statistics and asked themselves a very compelling question: could the reduction in unstructured playtime be contributing to our kids’ mental health issues? 

They scoured the decades of research and data and came to the conclusion that, in order for children to grow up well-adjusted, they need ever-increasing opportunities for independent activity – like self-directed play – and opportunities to make meaningful contributions to their communities. They further concluded that a certain amount of age-appropriate risk in that play, such as climbing high trees or jumping off swings, is really important to help boost kids’ and teens’ self-confidence and protect them from developing anxiety.

Now, no rational person would suggest that we go back to the way things were when I was growing up. But science is now telling us what I think a lot of older moms have been suspecting for a while: in a wholly understandable and well-intentioned effort to keep our kids safe, we’ve over-corrected. We can’t prioritize our desire to keep our kids safe at all costs. We can’t buy into the notion that earlier or more activities or schooltime is better. We need to balance those interests against the lasting psychological and emotional benefits of independent, self-directed play, especially play that involves a little risk.

So, what to do.

Limit Extra-Curricular Activities and Screen Time

This one’s a gimme. You can’t create more time; you can only redistribute the time you’re given. So I recommend you adopt a deliberate, thoughtful approach to how your child spends their day. Opt out of the preschool or daycare that teaches Spanish or claims to improve math scores. Choose one that focuses on exploration, running around, and making friends. 

Even if they’re convinced they’re the next Messi, don’t let your kids play on more than one soccer team. And limit screentime as much as humanly possible. Some of my best thoughts and daydreams and plans came to me in the back seat of a car, mindlessly staring out the window. None of them arrived while I was mindlessly scrolling through my phone.

You might have to be a little bit of a hard-ass about this, but you can do it. Especially now that you know what’s on the line.

Protect your Kids by Creating and Preserving Time in their Day for Independent Play

You can probably tell by the name that you can’t structure unstructured play. You can’t say, OK! We’ve got thirty minutes between lacrosse and piano. We’ll just swing into this park and you guys can catch a half hour of independent playtime. Go!

Going to the park is all well and good, but for your kids to get the real benefit of play, what they need is time. Your job is to carve out enough of it for spontaneous, self-directed play to unfold. One way to do this – and I’m mindful of the irony here – is to schedule it. Clear Saturday afternoons completely. Or the two hours before dinner. 

Don’t tell your kids it’s for “self-directed, unstructured play.” Just tell them you have no plans and they can do what they want. Or meet up with some other families or friends to just hang out and give the kids enough space to figure things out on their own. Don’t organize the game or remind them of the rules. Make downtime a regular thing and protect it ferociously.

Embrace Boredom

I am a big fan of boredom. I feel like it’s the waiting room for a kid’s next big idea. They have to go through it if they want to end up anywhere truly their own. But I find that a lot of parents – and certainly a lot of kids – don’t share my enthusiasm. They respond to I’m bored! as if it were I’m on fire! With instant action.

That’s curious to me. I’m more in the I don’t care if you’re bored! Get used to being bored! Do you think laundry floats my boat? camp. I was entirely too nice to say that, though. I didn’t want to crush my kids’ little spirits. So, when any of my kids came to me complaining of boredom, I said, You’re BORED???? That’s GREAT!!!! I’ve been meaning to scrub the porch for a while and now you can HELP!!!

Funny. None of my kids ever came to me a second time saying they were bored.

Get comfortable with boredom, and let your kids get comfortable with it. If they can’t, at least make it work for you.

Find or Create Spaces Where they can Play with Minimal Adult Supervision

Let’s face it: kids need a certain amount of supervision. The best way for you to give them at least the illusion of unsupervised time is to find or create spaces that you feel are safe for your child’s age and ability. 

My kitchen widows look out onto our fenced backyard. I could easily see and hear what was going on out back while I fed a baby at the kitchen table. After a few minutes on the playset, my kids would forget that I was in the kitchen altogether and get on with their imaginary fort. Then, when things occasionally got dangerous or out of hand, my voice of doom would ring out through the swings, giving them the very useful impression that I could actually see everything, everywhere, all at once.

When my kids were old enough – which was a sliding scale because I expected older kids to look out for younger kids – I was pretty strict about enforcing “basement time.” Several times a week at least, I would send them to the playroom in the basement and tell them, get me if there’s blood. I had explicitly instructed the guys who finished our basement to make it “a big safe box.” I knew every single thing down there was childproofed. And, again, I could hear everything happening down there from the kitchen.

Every now and again, while enjoying a few cherished adult moments chatting with a neighbor on the phone – phones were attached to kitchen walls back then – I would hear the pitter patter of non-compliant little feet climbing the basement stairs. At that point, I would remind the owner of said little feet, often mid-sentence, IT’S BASEMENT TIME!!!! 

It earned me a reputation in the neighborhood. But it kept my kids playing in the basement.

Become a Manager, not a Co-Worker

After my oldest daughter was about four, every year or so I would sit my kids down to explain the nature of our “playing” relationship. Listen, I would say, You all need to think of me less as your co-worker and more as your manager. I’m not here to actually play with you. You guys are here to play with each other. I’m here to make sure that when you’re done playing with each other, you’re all still alive and unbroken.

I believe in being explicit with people, especially kids. 

Learn to Tolerate a Little Risk

This was the hardest one for me. Risk isn’t my favorite. And when we’re talking about my five favorite people in the world, you know. So I dumped this one on my husband. He’s not exactly vigilant. I could tell by the scrapes and bruises and occasional broken bone that followed an outing with him that he was giving the kids a longer leash than I would have.

I used to get mad at him for that. Now that I know how important it was for my kids’ ultimate well-being, I’m kind of glad he did. I’m never going to tell him that, though.