The Risks of NOT Letting Your Kids Do Risky Things
The risk of children failing to develop the ability to take initiative or be a self-starter.
Children today have nine fewer hours of free time a week than kids thirty years ago did. The time at their disposal has been eaten up by extracurricular activities — sports, music classes, tutoring, etc. And when kids aren’t participating in structured activities, they’re typically hanging out with their parents, who don’t want their children going off to play by themselves. The vast majority of their days and nights are thus spent under the supervision of adults — parents, teachers, coaches — who tell them what to do, and when and how to do it.
Without the experience of being engaged in unstructured play, away from the watchful gaze of grownups, kids fail to learn how to entertain themselves, how to be self-directed, how to figure out how to spend their time. Remember when you had the afternoon before you, and decided whether to ride your bike to a nearby school, or explore a construction site, or start a circus in your backyard? How many kids today are having that experience where they’re the ones who initiate and carry out their own activities?
It’s no wonder that one of the biggest things young adults struggle with today is being self-starters. Once they’re out of college, and the structures of their childhood and adolescence have been pulled out from beneath them, they feel adrift, waiting in vain for someone to direct their path and tell them which steps to take next.
If children aren’t allowed to direct their youthful play time, how will they direct the course of their grownup relationships, hobbies, and careers?
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