ABSTRACT
I repeat the quote by Riis above that opened Chapter 3, for I have seen no other statement that so appropriately introduces the need for a contemporary child-saving movement. Th e history of childhood in America holds no more compelling story than the late nineteenth and early twentieth century childsaving movement. A century later there are growing signs that a new childsaving movement is taking root, echoing the same forgotten refrain-half the nation seemingly not knowing, nor caring, until the discomfort became so great and the consequences so savage that adults, once again, fell to inquiring what was the matter! What the current generation of adults failed to notice was their children’s health, development, and fi tness slowly being squandered by changing lifestyles, abuse of technology, and a changing culture of affl uence, parenting, schooling, and society, resulting in a changing culture of childhood (see Frost, 1986a, 2003, 2005, for the evolution of these changes). What adults seemingly failed to know or care about were the consequences of children being deprived of centuries-old traditions of free play and unrestricted access to play in the playgrounds of the wilderness, the neighborhood, and the schoolyardall factors implicated in a complex web of modern day diminution of play-for their children’s health, fi tness, and well-being.
