State of play: How kids’ outdoor playtime is changing

Across the United States, the way kids play has changed. Over the years, their lives have become less freewheeling and far more structured. This pattern is concerning for experts. There is growing research that the loss of free outdoor play could take a toll on physical and psychic health.

Sometimes, Dennis Lim’s street is a little too quiet. Growing up in Oceanside, Lim remembers his neighborhood cul-de-sac bursting with life. Most afternoons, his parents would raise the door to their garage and set Lim loose to play freely with little supervision. He and his friends would perch on the nearby utility box in a neighbor’s yard and chat, or play baseball in the street, filling the air with noise.

Decades later, Lim is a parent with two elementary school-age kids of his own. He lives at the end of another cul-de-sac, this time in a residential neighborhood in northern San Diego — a perfect place for a good game of street baseball.

But most days, his block is silent. “There just aren’t any kids outside,” Lim said on a recent morning. “I could stand outside my house for two hours and I would not see a single kid.”

Lim isn’t alone in noticing this change. Across the country, researchers who study childhood say the way kids play has quietly changed over the past three decades. The freewheeling, untethered days of earlier generations have been replaced by organized activities and afterschool programs. Play time has become supervised and monitored.

To some, these changes have meant kids are safer from accidents and abductions and are also making better use of their time through schoolwork, sports teams and other organized activities.

But more experts who study childhood are raising concerns about this change. They worry the loss of that free, unstructured time in kids’ lives may be taking an unintended toll on the psychic health of younger generations, leaving many kids with fewer social skills and a weakened sense of agency — adding to the youth psychic health crisis.

That worries parents like Lim. “It’s not just all about having fun and playing,” he said. “There are really some skills that kids learn when they’re outside and playing.”

What occurred to playing freely outdoors?

Free or unstructured play is time where kids get to choose what they want to do and exercise their creativity away from the constraints of adult supervision. That’s instead of structured activities like an organized sports team or a gymnastics class.

The decline of free play stems largely from three major shifts in American life beginning around the 1980s, according to researchers.

The first was a series of high-profile kidnappings of young children. In 1979, a 6-year-old boy named Etan Patz went missing in New York. Two years later, Adam Walsh, also 6 years old, was abducted and murdered in Florida. In 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted in Minnesota, launching one of the largest searches for a missing person to date.

Child abductions were — and remain — very rare. Less than 350 people under age 21 are kidnapped every year on average in the United States, according to FBI data.

Still, news of the cases created a public uproar. Dairy companies launched a massive public awareness campaign, printing the faces of missing children on milk cartons. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was founded.

All of this, experts argue, had a profound effect on parenting.

“The messages began to be, ‘If you’re not watching your kids or you don’t know where they are, if there’s not some other responsible adult watching them, then you are a negligent parent’,” said Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College. “They didn’t put it in those terms exactly, but that was the implication.”

The second major shift in American life was a federal push to reshape schooling with a greater focus on academics. That push centered around a landmark government report on American schools. The report, produced in 1983 by a commission inside President Ronald Reagan’s administration, warned that American education was not keeping pace with other countries.

“The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people,” the authors wrote.

Lawmakers reacted. In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, a sweeping law that increased government oversight across the education system. It required public schools and educators to prove success and academic growth through standardized test scores. Otherwise, schools faced losing federal funding and other penalties.

In response, academics began to creep further into the lives of kids and teens. Teachers gave out more homework. Kindergarteners had less time to play in class. The average length of the school year increased by several weeks.

“The nature of school changed very dramatically,” Gray said.

The final shift that Gray points to was Reagan’s approach to the economy. The federal government cut back taxes for big businesses and the American upper class. The divide between poor and wealthy people grew, making it harder for working-class families to stay out of poverty.

In turn, Gray argues, working-class families began to focus less on play and more on educational achievement.

“College education, which previously was regarded as kind of optional, became in many people’s opinions a necessity,” he said. “That meant you had to push your kid to do well enough in school to get into college.”

Over the decades, these three shifts reshaped the lives of American youth. Unstructured play fell by close to 25% between 1981 and 1997, according to some estimates. In a study made in 2022, just 27% of children said they regularly play outside their homes, compared to 71% of the baby boomer generation.

The other decline

At the same time, something else has been in decline: young peoples’ happiness.

Young Americans are consistently reporting higher rates of anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide. In 2019, one in three high school students said they had persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness — up 40% from a decade earlier.

Thousands of the nation’s leading paediatric health experts have declared a “national emergency” around youth psychic health struggles. Public health experts have scrambled to find the cause, often leveling blame at smartphones and virtual communication networks.

But according to Gray and others, we should also be paying closer attention to the changing way kids play.

Free play has lasting benefits. It gives children a chance to practice working together, resolving disagreements and exercising their creative skills. It also helps kids build an internal sense that they have control over the course of their lives, which research shows lessens the risk of anxiety and depression.

“It’s not just about the play, it’s about the interaction that takes play through the play,” said Rebecca London, a professor of sociology at UC Santa Cruz. “That interaction is an extraordinarily important part of child development.”

For example, London said, think of kids trying to decide whether the ball landed in or out during a game. They could spend 10 minutes arguing over what occurred, or they could use rock-paper-scissors to reach a quick solution and play on. That’s in contrast to a coach or another adult stepping in to make the decision for them.

As more recent generations have lost that unstructured time and freedom, Gray said they have also lost chances to build that internal sense of agency, which leaves them more vulnerable to sadness, worry and hopelessness.

“If anything can occur at any time, and there’s nothing I can do about it, that’s a scary world,” he said.

Play is just one of many factors affecting kids’ psychic health. But Gray and London said it is one area where parents have some power over the situation. Parents can teach kids how to be safe during independent activities, demonstrating how to cross the street and ride a bike, and that it can be safer to travel in groups with friends or siblings, Gray said.

There are some larger efforts underway to bring more free play back into the lives of kids. In California, lawmakers are taking steps to make sure public school students have daily, unstructured recess time. Groups of parents across the country are also working to create play-friendly neighborhoods.

Tips for parents to encourage kids to play outside

1. Give them space

“Children playing is what children are designed to do,” said Gray. “It’s how they learn what makes them happy. It’s how they gain confidence. It’s how they make friends. And there are a number of advantages of playing outside as opposed to inside.”

Free play takes place when children are playing on their own, making up their own games, and solving their own problems. Allowing children to play with each other without parents hovering allows them to develop confidence, be better able to communicate, and learn to deal with disagreements. It also allows them to learn from their own mistakes.

So when a child is playing with friends, it’s best to allow them to play freely. If parents are really worried for their safety, Gray recommends having just one adult there to act as a “lifeguard” in case of an accident.

“The major purpose of play is for kids to learn how to solve their own problems. So the parent or grandparent is not there to solve the problems for the kids,” Gray said. “If there’s something really dangerous going on, the parent is there.”

2. Share your interests and show interest in what they enjoy too

“Kids like to play with adults — so adults can model what they want their kids to do by doing it with them,” said London.

If you want children to be more enthusiastic about sports, play with them.

Parents could also take their children on walks outdoors to familiarize them with the environment, and make it fun with a game too. Count the birds you see, or collect rocks to paint later.

“It’s really about knowing the child and what they like to do,” London said.

She stressed allowing children to follow their interests. For example, if the child is fascinated by bugs, instead of enrolling them in dance class, pitch a neighborhood bug scavenger watch.

More adventurous kids might like camping. It doesn’t have to be a grand trip to a national park — it can just be a backyard camping night. By giving kids the chance to find wonder in their own backyard, parents are facilitating an appreciation for the nature around them, she said.

Also, don’t be afraid of dirt. According to the National Wildlife Federation, playing in dirt has been found to strengthen children’s immune systems, reduce risks for cardiovascular inflammation and reduce anxiety.

3. Get to know your neighbors with kids and plan outside play with them

Many adults remember a time in their childhood when kids would come knocking on their doors to ask them to play outside, and children played freely in neighborhoods and playgrounds. Today, parents might be more hesitant to send kids outside alone. If they do allow them to go, kids will come back saying that there’s nobody to play with.

A dead end? Gray said it doesn’t have to be. Instead, parents can recreate a more lively neighborhood by first getting to know their neighbors, especially those with kids.

Then, they can pitch a plan.

“You arrange with these neighbors, ‘Why don’t we all send our kids outdoors at the same time so they’re all outdoors at once?’ Or let them have a little party initially to introduce them to one another. If parents know one another, the kids know one another,” Gray said. “And then once that’s done, then let’s figure out certain times in the week when they’re all going to send their kids outdoors.”

Organizing days and times when the neighbors can encourage their kids to go outside makes the neighborhood more welcoming. After this first step, children might just start knocking on their friend’s door again.

4. Challenge kids to pursue something new

Parents and caregivers should also challenge kids to try something new. One example is The Let Grow Project, where teachers give their students a simple assignment: “Go home and do something new, beneficial, on your own.”

Parents can share the program with their schools, or they can do a version of it at home.

It could be a ride around the neighborhood on their bike, or planting seeds for a small garden. By challenging them to push their boundaries, children can grow confidence in themselves and feel accomplished in their task, said Gray.

 

yogaesoteric
June 1, 2024