Steve thank you for this. In writing Ballistic, I came across so much research that makes me think this issue right here is incredibly powerful, maybe the key step in making adults who are more likely to enjoy health and happiness. Ballistic is about a lab in California called P3 that collects granular movement data of elite athletes. They have assessed more than a thousand NBA players, who fit into seven movement categories. One group they call "kinematic movers." They're generally not the fastest, highest jumping, nor tallest generally. But they have great careers because they're neurologically superior at things like landing and cutting, which leads to successful careers and special injury avoidance. This is how we all want to move! This is what P3 trains! And what they find is that when you ask kinematic movers how they grew up, they ALL say they had lots of unsupervised free time in youth. Movement functions like language in the brain, and unsupervised free play is the full immersion learning program. To me it's just like kids who grow up in Quito learn better Spanish then people learning in a classroom in Sacramento. Moving in practice isn't diverse nor constant enough. Kids need to move freely and all the time--seeking fun!--to get the neurological tools to be super fluent. And of course it matters that is essentially the same prescription in Jonathan Haidt's work about preventing anxiety. One definition of anxiety that I love is "the feeling you don't have the right tool for the job." To me, unsupervised free play makes sense as a masterclass in gaining all kinds of tools, including social tools.
Thanks Henry. Yep I think you're spot on. In running, it's long been the argument that most of the elite runners from the 1960s-70s got away without strength training because they had "farmboy" strength. They just had a natural movement based where they added on the aerobic component and thrived.
Now, we could never get away without all the strength, plyos, etc. stuff because movement literacy, coordination, and funcitonal strength is so low.
It reminds me of the optimization problem in american youth sports. We optimize for a sport...while some kid from brazil is learning to play the game on the street, or some runner in Kenya is running barefoot to school. They play. And develop a more robust movement language than we do.
I am from Spain and I can tell you that we have the same problem over there. Our oldest son is three and we've decided that we're not going to behave the way we see around us, but society makes us feel bad for letting our kid run away with his scooter on the street or for being behind us without us glancing back every other second.
I used to work at a small international school in the Swiss Alps and whenever I had to supervise recess, I would feel very frustrated. The children had learnt that, at the very first sign of conflict with another child, they should just shout: "teacher, help!" We removed the ability to solve problems by always sticking our noses where they don't belong.
As the seventh and youngest of my family, I can tell you my parents wouldn't (and couldn't) mix themselves in all our little battles, and that's precisely what gave me the autonomy to go study abroad at the age of 18 and to become a professional musician.
In an interview with Dr. Rangan Chaterjee, Johann Hari asked him: "How many things did you do when you were a child that you don't allow your own kids to do now?" And Charterjee's answer was: "Oh my god, guilty as charged!"
Yes, and I think part of the loss in children's autonomy is because hundreds of technological innovations means we can now afford to do so. If I didn't have a washing machine, dishwasher, prepackaged ready-to-serve food, cheap clothing, etc, I would need a lot more help from my kids to keep this house going. By extension, their participation in the broader world is discouraged or outright prohibited.
There was something so charming to me when I learned about cottage industries of the pre-industrial US. Kids would do legitimate self-chosen work in the real local economy (this was before the industrial sweatshops); and they learned so many important lessons in the process. In the modern day, teaching children to spin or weave sounds quaint because it's wholly unnecessary in a modern economy. We gained cheap clothing; but we lost skill, creativity, industry, cohesion, and the calmness and sociability of mind that comes when busy hands are doing a monotonous task.
I'm not arguing for a return to simpler times; but I wonder what analogous tasks kids could be doing which would have the same benefits above, but actually be useful to participate in a local, modern economy. We do chores. (Chores are great for building character and skill!) But beyond that...Lemonade stand? Mowing yards? Selling excess things on eBay? Community organizing? Bee Keeping? I'm not sure.
Thank you for this essay. As someone who practically raised myself, now looking into becoming a parent, this helped me relax. I'm learning what it truly means to guide a child, not just keep them alive. I only wish there weas easier access to the scientific studies you quoted in this essay. I love reading studies and I wish there were links at the bottom of the page (unless I'm missing it). Other than my small critique, good work! Keep it up! :)
IMO, this increased paranoia can be laid squarely at the feet of Television (note the uppercase 'T'). Every news show is about horrible things people do to each other IRL and every fiction show is about even more horrible things and are mostly untrue, but convincing.
I agree. I have one comment on the data that seems to never be talked about. The comparison of 1960-1970s of kids freedoms and even in the 80-90s, when we know the data says that society was “more dangerous” and the campaigns for stranger danger and just say no and the crime rate being much higher in general; this doesn’t take into account that the children and youth of those years grew up and are now parents. The current behaviors of avoidance are the unresolved trauma of childhood. They are being the parents they needed even though they know they don’t need to be because they also grew up and made their society safer. So they have manufactured their own dilemma and this is why “boomers” complain but they have limited words to talk about it. They never thought about this version of the future.
The other layer that no one wants to talk about is the rise of liability insurance. Which people thought would be a good idea so that there was an illusion of security against financial demise in case something happened by accident or negligence. What this monster became is an endless list of risk aversion for all the places that kids just congregated. The chief of which is adult supervision. I live in a small city bedroom community north of the twin cities in MN. We are small enough to have limited outdoor options (about 3 city parks) and only two really busy state highways. Almost everything is accessible by walking and even more by bicycle.
When I was a kid, we would sometimes park and play on the playground at the schools. There was no fence. There were no signs. There was no patrol that would drive by and scold people for being there outside school hours.
Then came the knowledge that one could very easily make a liability claim against the school. So they altered the playgrounds. They posted signs. They sent patrol around to make sure people (especially teens) were not being criminal or doing anything that could warrant a liability claim. Even if the schools, churches, parks, or otherwise knew they couldn’t be present at all times and were doing their best to not be negligent, just existing as a place where kids would take risks and get hurt was a financial cost they couldn’t take.
Neighbors had liability insurance coverage on their property. Now walking and playing at another’s house or even just walking by, was a cost no homeowner was willing to bear. Now neighbors were calling out parents who let their kids just wander all around and those parents became liability costs.
The kids of the 60s-90s worked to make their society safer and to provide a safety net for negligence. What developed was safetyism and extreme risk aversion.
This is playing out in youth sports and other school activities since my son entered preschool in 2010. It is a manufactured deficit from childhood trauma and greed. Safetyism is a symptom.
Thank you for sharing. It reminded me of my early youth when I was a latch-key child from the age of 7. I turned 60 this year and SAFETYISM wasn't in my rearing. I grew up in a small rural town in Indiana where I was able to walk to school; ride my bike all over; and play outside with my friends. It is amazing we survived without mobile devices that tracked our every move and garnished our attention. I now fully understand 'the good old days' phrase.
I grew up on the edge of the suburbs/rural area in northern Virginia. Every day (assuming good weather) my brothers and I were out exploring the forests, hills, and nearby orchards on our bikes. It was great!
In a nutshell, I believe the concern nowadays is the chance of children being kidnapped. My two daughters (now 21 and 20 years old), grew up in a cul-de-sac of suburban Houston, Texas. We provided a large backyard and the cul-de-sac to play without immediate supervision. However, besides venturing down our street, we had a rule of their being accompanied by an older family friend or one of us (their parents). Our concern was their chance of being kidnapped.
Ultimately, that was it. While my wife and I were concerned that they might jump in front of a moving car or some such thing that children aren't always aware of, our greatest concern was kidnapping. Where and when I grew up, there fewer cars and people.
To be clear, I do believe there is a cost. There never is a "free lunch". I personally feel I was more willing to take on my own independence (away from my parents) when my adult years arrived--more so than my daughters, and I attribute this--to some degree--to the environment in which my childhood years occurred.
Excellent stuff, totally agree as an Asian parent, grew up in far more dangerous places than UK we are in now yet children's freedom more restricted than ever.
You mention street design in passing, but I think it deserves more attention as a driver of changing norms.
In 1975, 1,632 children under 13 were killed while walking — a rate of 3.6 per 100,000. In 2023, it was 136 children, a rate of 0.3. That’s a 92% drop in absolute numbers and an even larger drop in rate. It didn’t happen because the roads got safer. Parents stopped letting kids walk.
Over the same period, driving nearly tripled, roads widened and sped up to prioritize cars, and the vehicle fleet shifted from 80% sedans to 50% SUVs and trucks — which are 45% more likely to kill a pedestrian they hit. The environment got objectively more hostile for anyone outside a car.
Keeping kids inside wasn’t solely irrational parental anxiety. It was a rational response to a built environment that increasingly had no place for them.
But not acknowledging that we’ve created a far more dangerous built environment for them to move independently and then blaming parents for that is absolutely unfair.
Sure, let them play on the monkey bars and don’t freak out. Don’t rush over and intervene on the playground or at practice.
But blaming parents for not letting their kids walk or bike down roads that were built to move cars (not people walking or biking) as fast as possible is disingenuous
I get that you write for individuals to better their own lives. I’ve read many of your books and follow your work, and it’s been helpful for me personally and with running.
The “kids don’t walk and bike like they used to” argument is almost entirely a structural problem, unlike the other losses of autonomy you mention. Including it here weakens what I think is otherwise a solid argument.
When I read things like the beginning of this article, or some of Jonathan Haidt’s work, I worry that putting so much onus on parents distorts how we can actually solve the problem.
When it is framed as a deficiency of individuals—even with caveats—it hurts the cause of finding structural solutions.
All that said, I appreciate your response and considering differing perspectives. I appreciate what you do.
Thanks, I write for individuals. I mentioned the structural problems. But I don't write books or articles for how to take on your local city government to get zoning laws or sidewalks.
I focus on things we can actually do and change. And as I said, the data well beyond can your kid walk to school, shows that safetyism, helicopter parenting, etc. has all skyrocketed over the past few decades.
I focus on things we can actually do. And a large part of that is realizing that most of us live in a world that scares us to death, whether we realize it or not, because of the phones in our pocket.
I agree completely. Phones are making us more scared. We overemphasize stranger danger. Kids need more autonomy and parents must give it to them.
Road safety is a public health and infrastructure issue and is not as straightforward as the others.
Yet, individuals can actually have an impact on making structural change in this area.
The individual response here is to get involved: call your council member, show up to help make your neighborhood more walkable and bikeable for kids.
You don’t need to be a zoning expert to push for a few speed humps. Your readers can actually change this stuff.
You write for individuals and emphasize their agency — you have real influence with exactly the people who could make this happen in their own communities.
Also my tiny little Substack blew up on the topic of runners advocating for safer streets, so I think there’s something to it maybe 🤷♂️
You missed the point. Which was that all forms of autonomy have decreased. From walking to school to making sandwiches. As acknowledged in the article, depending on where you live, some might be legitimate. Such as fear of cars. But many are not. The point is to distinguish what's real or not.
This is actually a story about immigration and the fundamental security humans naturally feel when they're surrounded with like, familiar people. Contrasted, of course, to the absolute insecurity they feel when there are strangers afoot. The more strangers, the more the feeling of insecurity. The United States White/European population share declined from roughly 89% in 1960 to about 57% as of recent Census estimates (2023-2024). In many neighborhoods, cities, and among younger age groups, that share is well under 40%. During the same time, individual neighborhoods have become much more racially interspersed. The norm in 1960 was to be completely inundated, always surrounded by people who looked and talked and thought and behaved just like you, no matter what your demographics. People naturally felt very secure in that environment. Today the norm is to be surrounded by people who look and feel like strangers. And whatever your color/ethnicity, humans have a natural "stranger-danger" instinct. We can all suppress it, we can all be careful not to say "the wrong thing." But whatever we say out loud, we are destined to feel how we feel. And how we feel is insecure, unsafe. It is how it is. I'm not arguing for segregation or whatever, but let us be honest about the natural outcome of our societal choices.
Steve thank you for this. In writing Ballistic, I came across so much research that makes me think this issue right here is incredibly powerful, maybe the key step in making adults who are more likely to enjoy health and happiness. Ballistic is about a lab in California called P3 that collects granular movement data of elite athletes. They have assessed more than a thousand NBA players, who fit into seven movement categories. One group they call "kinematic movers." They're generally not the fastest, highest jumping, nor tallest generally. But they have great careers because they're neurologically superior at things like landing and cutting, which leads to successful careers and special injury avoidance. This is how we all want to move! This is what P3 trains! And what they find is that when you ask kinematic movers how they grew up, they ALL say they had lots of unsupervised free time in youth. Movement functions like language in the brain, and unsupervised free play is the full immersion learning program. To me it's just like kids who grow up in Quito learn better Spanish then people learning in a classroom in Sacramento. Moving in practice isn't diverse nor constant enough. Kids need to move freely and all the time--seeking fun!--to get the neurological tools to be super fluent. And of course it matters that is essentially the same prescription in Jonathan Haidt's work about preventing anxiety. One definition of anxiety that I love is "the feeling you don't have the right tool for the job." To me, unsupervised free play makes sense as a masterclass in gaining all kinds of tools, including social tools.
Thanks Henry. Yep I think you're spot on. In running, it's long been the argument that most of the elite runners from the 1960s-70s got away without strength training because they had "farmboy" strength. They just had a natural movement based where they added on the aerobic component and thrived.
Now, we could never get away without all the strength, plyos, etc. stuff because movement literacy, coordination, and funcitonal strength is so low.
It reminds me of the optimization problem in american youth sports. We optimize for a sport...while some kid from brazil is learning to play the game on the street, or some runner in Kenya is running barefoot to school. They play. And develop a more robust movement language than we do.
I am from Spain and I can tell you that we have the same problem over there. Our oldest son is three and we've decided that we're not going to behave the way we see around us, but society makes us feel bad for letting our kid run away with his scooter on the street or for being behind us without us glancing back every other second.
I used to work at a small international school in the Swiss Alps and whenever I had to supervise recess, I would feel very frustrated. The children had learnt that, at the very first sign of conflict with another child, they should just shout: "teacher, help!" We removed the ability to solve problems by always sticking our noses where they don't belong.
As the seventh and youngest of my family, I can tell you my parents wouldn't (and couldn't) mix themselves in all our little battles, and that's precisely what gave me the autonomy to go study abroad at the age of 18 and to become a professional musician.
In an interview with Dr. Rangan Chaterjee, Johann Hari asked him: "How many things did you do when you were a child that you don't allow your own kids to do now?" And Charterjee's answer was: "Oh my god, guilty as charged!"
Yes, and I think part of the loss in children's autonomy is because hundreds of technological innovations means we can now afford to do so. If I didn't have a washing machine, dishwasher, prepackaged ready-to-serve food, cheap clothing, etc, I would need a lot more help from my kids to keep this house going. By extension, their participation in the broader world is discouraged or outright prohibited.
There was something so charming to me when I learned about cottage industries of the pre-industrial US. Kids would do legitimate self-chosen work in the real local economy (this was before the industrial sweatshops); and they learned so many important lessons in the process. In the modern day, teaching children to spin or weave sounds quaint because it's wholly unnecessary in a modern economy. We gained cheap clothing; but we lost skill, creativity, industry, cohesion, and the calmness and sociability of mind that comes when busy hands are doing a monotonous task.
I'm not arguing for a return to simpler times; but I wonder what analogous tasks kids could be doing which would have the same benefits above, but actually be useful to participate in a local, modern economy. We do chores. (Chores are great for building character and skill!) But beyond that...Lemonade stand? Mowing yards? Selling excess things on eBay? Community organizing? Bee Keeping? I'm not sure.
Thank you for this essay. As someone who practically raised myself, now looking into becoming a parent, this helped me relax. I'm learning what it truly means to guide a child, not just keep them alive. I only wish there weas easier access to the scientific studies you quoted in this essay. I love reading studies and I wish there were links at the bottom of the page (unless I'm missing it). Other than my small critique, good work! Keep it up! :)
IMO, this increased paranoia can be laid squarely at the feet of Television (note the uppercase 'T'). Every news show is about horrible things people do to each other IRL and every fiction show is about even more horrible things and are mostly untrue, but convincing.
I agree. I have one comment on the data that seems to never be talked about. The comparison of 1960-1970s of kids freedoms and even in the 80-90s, when we know the data says that society was “more dangerous” and the campaigns for stranger danger and just say no and the crime rate being much higher in general; this doesn’t take into account that the children and youth of those years grew up and are now parents. The current behaviors of avoidance are the unresolved trauma of childhood. They are being the parents they needed even though they know they don’t need to be because they also grew up and made their society safer. So they have manufactured their own dilemma and this is why “boomers” complain but they have limited words to talk about it. They never thought about this version of the future.
The other layer that no one wants to talk about is the rise of liability insurance. Which people thought would be a good idea so that there was an illusion of security against financial demise in case something happened by accident or negligence. What this monster became is an endless list of risk aversion for all the places that kids just congregated. The chief of which is adult supervision. I live in a small city bedroom community north of the twin cities in MN. We are small enough to have limited outdoor options (about 3 city parks) and only two really busy state highways. Almost everything is accessible by walking and even more by bicycle.
When I was a kid, we would sometimes park and play on the playground at the schools. There was no fence. There were no signs. There was no patrol that would drive by and scold people for being there outside school hours.
Then came the knowledge that one could very easily make a liability claim against the school. So they altered the playgrounds. They posted signs. They sent patrol around to make sure people (especially teens) were not being criminal or doing anything that could warrant a liability claim. Even if the schools, churches, parks, or otherwise knew they couldn’t be present at all times and were doing their best to not be negligent, just existing as a place where kids would take risks and get hurt was a financial cost they couldn’t take.
Neighbors had liability insurance coverage on their property. Now walking and playing at another’s house or even just walking by, was a cost no homeowner was willing to bear. Now neighbors were calling out parents who let their kids just wander all around and those parents became liability costs.
The kids of the 60s-90s worked to make their society safer and to provide a safety net for negligence. What developed was safetyism and extreme risk aversion.
This is playing out in youth sports and other school activities since my son entered preschool in 2010. It is a manufactured deficit from childhood trauma and greed. Safetyism is a symptom.
Thank you for sharing. It reminded me of my early youth when I was a latch-key child from the age of 7. I turned 60 this year and SAFETYISM wasn't in my rearing. I grew up in a small rural town in Indiana where I was able to walk to school; ride my bike all over; and play outside with my friends. It is amazing we survived without mobile devices that tracked our every move and garnished our attention. I now fully understand 'the good old days' phrase.
I grew up on the edge of the suburbs/rural area in northern Virginia. Every day (assuming good weather) my brothers and I were out exploring the forests, hills, and nearby orchards on our bikes. It was great!
In a nutshell, I believe the concern nowadays is the chance of children being kidnapped. My two daughters (now 21 and 20 years old), grew up in a cul-de-sac of suburban Houston, Texas. We provided a large backyard and the cul-de-sac to play without immediate supervision. However, besides venturing down our street, we had a rule of their being accompanied by an older family friend or one of us (their parents). Our concern was their chance of being kidnapped.
Ultimately, that was it. While my wife and I were concerned that they might jump in front of a moving car or some such thing that children aren't always aware of, our greatest concern was kidnapping. Where and when I grew up, there fewer cars and people.
To be clear, I do believe there is a cost. There never is a "free lunch". I personally feel I was more willing to take on my own independence (away from my parents) when my adult years arrived--more so than my daughters, and I attribute this--to some degree--to the environment in which my childhood years occurred.
Excellent stuff, totally agree as an Asian parent, grew up in far more dangerous places than UK we are in now yet children's freedom more restricted than ever.
You mention street design in passing, but I think it deserves more attention as a driver of changing norms.
In 1975, 1,632 children under 13 were killed while walking — a rate of 3.6 per 100,000. In 2023, it was 136 children, a rate of 0.3. That’s a 92% drop in absolute numbers and an even larger drop in rate. It didn’t happen because the roads got safer. Parents stopped letting kids walk.
Over the same period, driving nearly tripled, roads widened and sped up to prioritize cars, and the vehicle fleet shifted from 80% sedans to 50% SUVs and trucks — which are 45% more likely to kill a pedestrian they hit. The environment got objectively more hostile for anyone outside a car.
Keeping kids inside wasn’t solely irrational parental anxiety. It was a rational response to a built environment that increasingly had no place for them.
That's the thing about unintended consequences though
It's really easy to see the dangers about.Letting your kids go do stuff. They can get hurt. And some very small fraction of them will get hurt
But what's unseen is all the damage you are doing to the kids by not letting them go out and do stuff
That damage is very real. And it's actually happening at much higher rates
I agree with your sentiment totally.
But not acknowledging that we’ve created a far more dangerous built environment for them to move independently and then blaming parents for that is absolutely unfair.
Sure, let them play on the monkey bars and don’t freak out. Don’t rush over and intervene on the playground or at practice.
But blaming parents for not letting their kids walk or bike down roads that were built to move cars (not people walking or biking) as fast as possible is disingenuous
I get that you write for individuals to better their own lives. I’ve read many of your books and follow your work, and it’s been helpful for me personally and with running.
The “kids don’t walk and bike like they used to” argument is almost entirely a structural problem, unlike the other losses of autonomy you mention. Including it here weakens what I think is otherwise a solid argument.
When I read things like the beginning of this article, or some of Jonathan Haidt’s work, I worry that putting so much onus on parents distorts how we can actually solve the problem.
When it is framed as a deficiency of individuals—even with caveats—it hurts the cause of finding structural solutions.
All that said, I appreciate your response and considering differing perspectives. I appreciate what you do.
Thanks, I write for individuals. I mentioned the structural problems. But I don't write books or articles for how to take on your local city government to get zoning laws or sidewalks.
I focus on things we can actually do and change. And as I said, the data well beyond can your kid walk to school, shows that safetyism, helicopter parenting, etc. has all skyrocketed over the past few decades.
I focus on things we can actually do. And a large part of that is realizing that most of us live in a world that scares us to death, whether we realize it or not, because of the phones in our pocket.
I agree completely. Phones are making us more scared. We overemphasize stranger danger. Kids need more autonomy and parents must give it to them.
Road safety is a public health and infrastructure issue and is not as straightforward as the others.
Yet, individuals can actually have an impact on making structural change in this area.
The individual response here is to get involved: call your council member, show up to help make your neighborhood more walkable and bikeable for kids.
You don’t need to be a zoning expert to push for a few speed humps. Your readers can actually change this stuff.
You write for individuals and emphasize their agency — you have real influence with exactly the people who could make this happen in their own communities.
Also my tiny little Substack blew up on the topic of runners advocating for safer streets, so I think there’s something to it maybe 🤷♂️
https://substack.com/@kidsovercars/note/c-262790140?r=79zeis&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I use to bike down the highway with no bike lane as a kid
You missed the point. Which was that all forms of autonomy have decreased. From walking to school to making sandwiches. As acknowledged in the article, depending on where you live, some might be legitimate. Such as fear of cars. But many are not. The point is to distinguish what's real or not.
This is actually a story about immigration and the fundamental security humans naturally feel when they're surrounded with like, familiar people. Contrasted, of course, to the absolute insecurity they feel when there are strangers afoot. The more strangers, the more the feeling of insecurity. The United States White/European population share declined from roughly 89% in 1960 to about 57% as of recent Census estimates (2023-2024). In many neighborhoods, cities, and among younger age groups, that share is well under 40%. During the same time, individual neighborhoods have become much more racially interspersed. The norm in 1960 was to be completely inundated, always surrounded by people who looked and talked and thought and behaved just like you, no matter what your demographics. People naturally felt very secure in that environment. Today the norm is to be surrounded by people who look and feel like strangers. And whatever your color/ethnicity, humans have a natural "stranger-danger" instinct. We can all suppress it, we can all be careful not to say "the wrong thing." But whatever we say out loud, we are destined to feel how we feel. And how we feel is insecure, unsafe. It is how it is. I'm not arguing for segregation or whatever, but let us be honest about the natural outcome of our societal choices.
So glad I grew up in the 80's with a forest in my backyard. All our parents _wanted_ us gone for a few hours a day. Good times.