The April 2014 issue of the Atlantic Monthly has a cover story titled “The Overprotected Kid.” The author talks about two types of playgrounds which are also metaphors for how we view kids. The first type playground she calls an “adventure playground” which looks like a junkyard, is very popular with kids and which parents seldom visit. The other type playground is more standard with seesaws that kids can’t fall off of. The second type is supposedly to enhance child “safety.”
The larger point of the article is that parental anxiety about “safety” often contributes to unintended consequences producing kids who are more risk averse and less creative.
Why this excessive parental anxiety?
I submit we are afraid of too much freedom for our kids and maybe ourselves. When we see kids being “wild” it is like we see our own repressed desires being acted out and we can’t allow ourselves to acknowledge these desires. It seems this excessive anxiety is present among the affluent and middle class. Think of the organized “play dates” and other supervised activities that crowd out unstructured free time for kids.
Childhood has become something of a rat race wherein parents arrange and supervise almost everything. Schools more and more resemble the workplace with emphasis on “getting ahead.” That’s why parents spend hours helping with homework or sometimes do it themselves. In schools play is cut down to the point where there is an assault on recess. Proposals for year round school would eliminate the summer vacation.
The failure to supervise has become synonymous with a failure to parent.
There is evidence, however, that these modern trends are being challenged. Unstructured, unsupervised play lets kids learn about social interaction and proper risk assessment.
The question is: can we parents curb our anxieties so we can let kids be kids?
