Today’s kids spend way too much time on screens. But child psychology experts say it’s not only because social media is addictive. It’s because we parents have grown so insistent on surveilling our children every second of the day that they don’t have any other way to play. They can’t do much of anything, in fact, without an adult watching their every move, Lenore Skenazy, Zach Rausch, and Jonathan Haidt write in The Atlantic. Screens are their only near-guarantee of child-led, unstructured interaction, so they hop on Roblox and FaceTime, intending not to become addicted to screens, but to connect with their friends. 

It’s a major departure from the experience today’s parents once had. Being one of them, I vividly remember exploring my neighborhood with other kids, digging plenty of mud pies, going on long bike rides, and sometimes sitting around doing nothing at all. We knew how to access our adults, but largely supervised ourselves. Playing under an unwritten code of conduct, we all made it home on time – just before the streetlights began to glow. And that’s the secret, Skenazy, Rausch, and Haidt write. We’ve got to revert to what my daughter would call the 1995 olden times.

“Kids will always have more spare hours than adults can supervise – a gap that devices now fill,” the trio wrote. “‘Go outside’” has been quietly replaced with “‘Go online,’” partly because parents have become fearful of danger that doesn’t exist.

A recent Harris poll of parents found that sixty percent thought a pair of 10-year-olds playing alone in the park would get injured, while more than half thought they would be abducted. But “kidnapping in the United States is so rare that a child would have to be outside unsupervised for, on average, 750,000 years before being snatched by a stranger,” they write.

But as “childhoods [have] grown anxious, small, and sad,” parenting has also become far more time-intensive, adding stress to the lives of the children we love. In this more fretful era, we are expected to know exactly where our children are at all times. Since no other kids are playing in public, we’re also expected to be their primary source of entertainment. When we’re at work or unavailable, organized team sports are the go-to. But all this supervising is far from safe – it’s deteriorating kids’ mental well-being, and delaying independence is leaving them less prepared for early adulthood.

Returning children to the public sphere will take some strength in numbers. Thankfully, groups of parents across the country are deciding to call all kids to the front yard. Some parents are coordinating “drop-off and play” dates in local parks, where kids get to enjoy a few hours of unstructured, unsupervised free play with their friends. Schools are also getting in on the fun, with Let Grow, a nonprofit created by Skenazy and Haidt to help kids develop more independence. Children in the program are tasked each month with doing something new on their own – with parental permission but without their help. Let Grow students rave about the experience. 

Now, in all honesty, both parents and children should expect to feel awkward about such a major change. But stay the course; nearly 75% of children recently surveyed by the Harris Poll, Skenazy, Rausch, and Haidt agreed with the statement “I would spend less time online if there were more friends in my neighborhood to play with in person.” The evidence is overwhelming – unstructured free playtime is what kids want, and what kids need.

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