Risky Business: Why Free Play Matters

“I don’t think we need to tell Dr. B about the pickaxe,” I told my son. To tell the truth, I’m not sure what happened. The result was a small cut hidden by his voluminous hair on the eve of his annual checkup. It so happens that my son who is most likely to hit himself in the head with a pickaxe is also the son who enjoys narrating all the dangerous things he has done over the last year to our crusty pediatrician. Each year, Dr. B enters the room, places the old paper chart on the counter, and lowers his lanky frame onto his stool. He waits and looks, and my son immediately fills the silence.  

This time he did not mention the pickaxe. However, he did mention his recent adventures in the swamp with his friends—the murky water, the venomous cottonmouths, the gator slides—all completely unsupervised. Inwardly, I grimaced. There was a time in living memory when eleven-year-old boys could play outdoors unsupervised without causing alarm. Yet now it is considered unusual at best and reckless at worst. On the surface, the concerns might seem reasonable. Why should they risk snake bites and head injuries? Can’t they play in the yard where they can be watched? After all, better safe than sorry. But what exactly are they safe from?  

The trend towards physical prohibition and digital permissiveness has intensified throughout my years of parenthood. No one would bat an eye if my young child sat in the park playing on a phone; in fact, it would be normal. There is, however, palpable concern (and disapproval) if my child removes his shoes and climbs a tree. What I have personally observed, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. Delving into research from experts in the field of play studies, I have found that it is far worse than I thought. We have a crisis of play. 

The recent bestseller Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt describes the rapid-fire acceleration of adolescent psychopathology, particularly anxiety, depression, and narcissism. The US National Survey on Drug Use and Health documents an increase in major depression of 145% in girls and 161% in boys between 2010 and 2020.[1] Haidt’s data is not only from self-reporting surveys; he also includes statistics of suicide rates and hospitalizations due to self-harm. The suicide rates are staggering: Younger adolescents (ages 10–14) saw an increase of 91% in boys and 167% in girls during the same years.[2] Throughout the book, Haidt argues convincingly that the cultural shift from a play-based to a phone-based childhood is primarily responsible for this trend. 

While the connection between social media use and the youth mental health crisis is undeniable, the trend cannot be laid solely at the feet of technology. Play researchers documented a parallel decline in play and increase in psychopathology well before the popularization of smartphones and more addictive forms of social media. Peter Gray, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College and leading play researcher, published an article in 2011 for the American Journal of Play titled “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents.” Gray’s article was published at a pivotal cultural moment; most of the research cited was before the release of the iPhone. His extensive research documents a continual decline in play and increase in anxiety, depression, and narcissism since about 1955.[3] Between 1950 and 2005, the suicide rate for US children under the age of fifteen quadrupled; during the same time frame, the rate for adults over the age of forty declined.[4] Even before the shift to a phone-based childhood, Gray and other researchers had concluded that there was a strong argument in support of a causal link between play deprivation and psychopathology.[5]  

What, then, accounts for a decrease in play before the era of the phone-based childhood? During these decades, parents increasingly restricted their children’s play, fearing injury and crime. Additionally, schooling expanded. Both the school year and day became longer, and more young children attended preschool and kindergarten. Simultaneously, recess times shrank or disappeared altogether.[6] In short, parents and teachers hold responsibility for the decrease in play. The problem is not only the phone. The problem is us.  

Researchers studying the connection between play and mental health focus on a particular type of play: free play. Free play is unstructured, voluntary, child-directed play. While organized, adult-directed activities, sports, and games have their place, children need free play. Consider how little agency the average child has over her day. The bulk of the day is given to school. After school, there is homework, activities, lessons, and church commitments. During what portion of the day does a child have the agency to make decisions, resolve disputes, and take risks? Probably very little. There is a strong connection between anxiety and depression and a sense of helplessness or lack of control. The answer is not to find ways to give the child agency over what they eat, watch, or wear but simply to let them play.  

Risk plays an important role in free play. Risky play moves the child into a mode of healthy discovery. Risk does not necessarily mean recklessness. It may involve factors such as height or speed, which we see in activities such as climbing, swinging, biking, and skating. It may involve dangerous tools or elements such as knives, swords, fire, or water. Finally, risky play can involve roughhousing or disappearing—for example, wrestling, chasing, hide and seek, or wandering off on an adventure.[7] These types of play are necessary to develop confidence and resilience, both of which are attributes that safeguard against anxiety. 

 Allowing my children the space they need to develop resilience requires me to consider how my own anxieties cause me to restrict their play. Free play is a risky business; not only are there possibilities of bruises and breaks, but there is also the societal pressure of safetyism. What was once normal is now considered neglectful; I even know parents who have been reported for letting their children play alone in their own yard. Physical safety is not the only source of anxiety; there are performance pressures for children to excel academically and athletically. What if my child doesn’t “get ahead” unless I extend our school days and minimize free play?  

It requires attention to turn off this nagging voice in my head. Recently, my oldest was done with his schoolwork an hour early and went outside to play. He was joyfully playing soccer with his siblings, and I thought, “He’s in middle school. Shouldn’t he be doing work? I certainly can think of an assignment for him to do.” I paused, and then I let him play because it is his work. Just because it is easy does not mean that it is not good. Virtue is measured by goodness, not difficulty. It is good that children should play and learn to love, not fear, the physical world. It is good that they should go on an adventure, and I am willing to count the cost.  

Over the years, annual pediatrician visits have become a running joke in our family. There is an annual quiz as Dr. B. asks for an accounting of every scrape and bruise. After years of an arched eyebrow, however, he is coming round. After the swamp anecdote he smiled sardonically. “So, they’re kind of free range,” he said. Indeed, they are. Thanks be to God.

[1] Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Penguin Press, 2024), 24. 

[2] Haidt, Anxious Generation, 31.

[3] Peter Gray, “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents,” American Journal of Play 3, no. 4 (2011): 444. 

[4] Gray, “Decline of Play,” 449.

[5] Gray, “Decline of Play,” 453.

[6] Gray, “Decline of Play,” 446–47.

[7] These six types of risky play were noted in Peter Gray, “Risky Play: Why Children Love and Need It,” in The Routledge Handbook of Designing Public Spaces for Young People: Processes, Practices and Policies for Youth Inclusion, ed. Janet Loebach, Sarah Little, Adina Cox, and Patsy Eubanks Owens (Routledge, 2020).