All of what you suggest is great and we need to implement these ideas where and when we can. Unfortunately our declining birthrate and (sub)urban designed (I hesitate to call them "communities") cities, designed around car mobility make it all but impossible. Where I live there are no children my son's age. He commutes to school and all his school friends are distant, so "play dates" have to arranged, in other words , lots of adult intervention is required for a one or two boys to get together and "play". The problem is broader than parents simply being over protective.
I came here pretty much to make this comment. I suspect my child being an “only” also contributes to the issue; a sibling would’ve provided at least one “built-in” playmate.
As somebody who is designing new learning organizations, one of the things I am focussing our teams on is not creating 'curricula' for kids, as they naturally go into high efficiency learning mode when in free play. Instead, we focus on adult oriented curricula: communications, workshops, discussions, whatever it takes so that the parents can feel at ease with their kids playing as much as possible, wherever possible.
I recently heard Peter on the 1000 hours outside podcast not too long ago, and it inspired me to be more intentional about fostering a culture of play in my neighbourhood. I've since written a letter highlighting the importance of free play and outlining a plan for bringing it back to our neighbourhood, and I've started to distribute to the neighbours that I've met who have kids. I'm hoping that, in time, all the neighbourhood kids will get to know each other and be able to freely meet at our local park. Fingers crossed the plan works
So glad to have been introduced to your substack through After Babel! I am excited to go back and read all of your posts. As an educator that supports facilitating social skill development, I couldn't agree more about how the decline in free play has impacted children. Free play allows for sharing imagination which is critical in developing communication skills, especially when engaging in conversations. Our society has seemed to have lost the ability to have conversations and listen to others...which I would conclude is also related to the loss of free play! Such an important topic, thank you!
As I discussed with Peter on the Nourish Balance Thrive podcast recently, living in a van with our three kids has been fabulous for facilitating play. It's harder when schools are in session but still better than living in a house.
When we were in the middle of a cross state move, we stayed in a rental condo as an airbnb. This was a relatively rundown lower income area. All afternoon kids would be playing in the parking lot, grassy area with their bikes and skateboards. Tenants drive slowly to make sure kids were safe. Kids played tag. Adults had a fire pit and brought out chairs. Smaller kids may have adults with them. After dark kids played in the hallways throwing beach balls. There was a ruckus but tenants didn’t come it to yell and make them stop. Around 9pm everything was quiet.
Then we moved in to a nice apartment, much more expensive. Parents received weekly chastising emails from management for every little thing. Kids running in the hallways, writing on the side walk with chalk, riding bikes in the driveways. Barbecue stations were only to be used with prior reservation. Pool table room was to be used only with adults presents. We met no kids there. They were busy being shuttled to an activity with parents.
In the lower income condo, parents worked. Had no time nor money to take them to sports or other enrichment classes and less likely to have gaming systems. They had other infants in the home so the bigger kids just went outside to play. The condo management was down right neglectful (quite a few safety issues were apparent) and couldn’t be bothered by some kids running around. Tenants were accepting of the noise and chaos of the children and didn’t complain. So kids were able to play.
You probably get this question all the time, but... what about 2 and 3 year olds? I can absolutely see the benefits of letting kids play with little supervision and work out their differences from about age 4 or 5+, but I can’t figure out what’s an appropriate level of independence for a 2 or 3 year old. Do they get to go outside by themselves? What do you do if they’re brawling with their cousins?
I don't know what Peter would say, but I think that more supervision is (pretty obviously) called for in the case of 2 and 3 year-olds. By supervision I mean responding when a child is at risk in some way (which will be surprisingly rare). One can watch young children from a distance so that they get all the benefits of play that their older free range friends get.
Dr. Gray, I'm curious to know what your research shows on sustained focused attention span during play? SCALE, also known as The Student Coalition for Action and Literacy, asserts that the average focused attention span in kids is the child's chronological age, plus one minute. A seven year old, for example, can pay attention in a school-like setting for 8 minutes of math instruction. What has been your observation in a non-school independent play?
All of what you suggest is great and we need to implement these ideas where and when we can. Unfortunately our declining birthrate and (sub)urban designed (I hesitate to call them "communities") cities, designed around car mobility make it all but impossible. Where I live there are no children my son's age. He commutes to school and all his school friends are distant, so "play dates" have to arranged, in other words , lots of adult intervention is required for a one or two boys to get together and "play". The problem is broader than parents simply being over protective.
I came here pretty much to make this comment. I suspect my child being an “only” also contributes to the issue; a sibling would’ve provided at least one “built-in” playmate.
Indeed, even city planning plays a role. See for example the Not Just Bikes channel on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4kmDxcfR48
As somebody who is designing new learning organizations, one of the things I am focussing our teams on is not creating 'curricula' for kids, as they naturally go into high efficiency learning mode when in free play. Instead, we focus on adult oriented curricula: communications, workshops, discussions, whatever it takes so that the parents can feel at ease with their kids playing as much as possible, wherever possible.
I recently heard Peter on the 1000 hours outside podcast not too long ago, and it inspired me to be more intentional about fostering a culture of play in my neighbourhood. I've since written a letter highlighting the importance of free play and outlining a plan for bringing it back to our neighbourhood, and I've started to distribute to the neighbours that I've met who have kids. I'm hoping that, in time, all the neighbourhood kids will get to know each other and be able to freely meet at our local park. Fingers crossed the plan works
My fingers are crossed, too. Thank you.
So glad to have been introduced to your substack through After Babel! I am excited to go back and read all of your posts. As an educator that supports facilitating social skill development, I couldn't agree more about how the decline in free play has impacted children. Free play allows for sharing imagination which is critical in developing communication skills, especially when engaging in conversations. Our society has seemed to have lost the ability to have conversations and listen to others...which I would conclude is also related to the loss of free play! Such an important topic, thank you!
As I discussed with Peter on the Nourish Balance Thrive podcast recently, living in a van with our three kids has been fabulous for facilitating play. It's harder when schools are in session but still better than living in a house.
When we were in the middle of a cross state move, we stayed in a rental condo as an airbnb. This was a relatively rundown lower income area. All afternoon kids would be playing in the parking lot, grassy area with their bikes and skateboards. Tenants drive slowly to make sure kids were safe. Kids played tag. Adults had a fire pit and brought out chairs. Smaller kids may have adults with them. After dark kids played in the hallways throwing beach balls. There was a ruckus but tenants didn’t come it to yell and make them stop. Around 9pm everything was quiet.
Then we moved in to a nice apartment, much more expensive. Parents received weekly chastising emails from management for every little thing. Kids running in the hallways, writing on the side walk with chalk, riding bikes in the driveways. Barbecue stations were only to be used with prior reservation. Pool table room was to be used only with adults presents. We met no kids there. They were busy being shuttled to an activity with parents.
In the lower income condo, parents worked. Had no time nor money to take them to sports or other enrichment classes and less likely to have gaming systems. They had other infants in the home so the bigger kids just went outside to play. The condo management was down right neglectful (quite a few safety issues were apparent) and couldn’t be bothered by some kids running around. Tenants were accepting of the noise and chaos of the children and didn’t complain. So kids were able to play.
You probably get this question all the time, but... what about 2 and 3 year olds? I can absolutely see the benefits of letting kids play with little supervision and work out their differences from about age 4 or 5+, but I can’t figure out what’s an appropriate level of independence for a 2 or 3 year old. Do they get to go outside by themselves? What do you do if they’re brawling with their cousins?
I don't know what Peter would say, but I think that more supervision is (pretty obviously) called for in the case of 2 and 3 year-olds. By supervision I mean responding when a child is at risk in some way (which will be surprisingly rare). One can watch young children from a distance so that they get all the benefits of play that their older free range friends get.
Dr. Gray, I'm curious to know what your research shows on sustained focused attention span during play? SCALE, also known as The Student Coalition for Action and Literacy, asserts that the average focused attention span in kids is the child's chronological age, plus one minute. A seven year old, for example, can pay attention in a school-like setting for 8 minutes of math instruction. What has been your observation in a non-school independent play?