ABSTRACT
Children everywhere, like the young of other mammals, frequently play in emotionally exciting, physically risky ways when they are free to do so. The biological drive to play in such ways appears to have come about, by natural selection, because it helps the young to develop the courage, confidence, and physical abilities needed to face life’s inevitable challenges and emergencies. We, in North America and much of the rest of the world, have for several decades been engaged in a massive social experiment—that of depriving children of the freedom to play in their own, self-directed, often risky ways, away from adult control. This chapter briefly describes how these restrictions on children’s freedom have come about, and then it summarizes research documenting the negative consequences such restrictions have had for children’s physical and mental health. Evidence is presented that children are, in the long run, at greater risk when we deprive them of risky play than when we permit such play. The final section describes some efforts toward reversing this decline in children’s freedom.
