Why Don't Our Kids Play Outside?

How have societal norms for raising children changed so much in just one generation?

I don’t have an answer, I’m asking because I honestly don’t know.

This observation sparked a conversation between myself and an acquaintance recently and I’m still pondering how we’ve moved so far away from how we were raised. By we, I mean Millennials. Older Millennials specifically, or as author Erica Dhawan calls us ‘Geriatric Millennials.’ The generation of kids who did not start out with the internet but had dial-up introduced somewhere around elementary school. You know, the generation of kids that prank-called people’s landlines prior to the power of star sixty-nine.

Remember playing outside? I’m talking roaming around the neighborhood all day in the summer (or even on weekends during the school year) picking up friends along the way and playing until the streetlights came on? Riding bikes, jumping rope, playing tag, climbing trees – we were experts at occupying ourselves pre-electronic devices. There was always a basketball game going at the park, and two-cent candy and mini juice jugs to be had from the corner store. We learned our lessons from scraped knees, lost fights and hurt feelings. We walked everywhere, either alone or with friends. No adult supervision, no moms or dads chauffeuring us around from one place to the next. We set up our own play dates by going up and knocking on the doors of our friends.

Today, in my suburban neighborhood, kids seldom play outside. When they do, they surely don’t stray far from home. Some hang out in their driveways shooting hoops. Others ride their bikes or scooters up and down the street, parents nearby working in their gardens or garages. My own child plays in the front or backyard, very rarely out of our eyesight. If myself or her father are not outside with her, we are well able to see her through a window or sliding glass door that we don’t wander far from. A chat with my mother-in-law uncovered that not only do we worry about her crossing the street by herself for fear of being struck by a car taking the curve too quickly but also the improbable likelihood that a white van will pull up at just the right time, yank her in and we’d never see her again.

Where do those thoughts come from?

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Children have been disappearing since anyone can remember. Before plastic milk jugs and the internet, the Missing Child Milk Carton program sought to find information on children who were presumed to be abducted by putting black and white pictures of the child along with details on their appearance and hometown on the back of milk cartons. And yet, it was that same time-period of the mid ‘80s to the mid ‘90s that we were roving around, fending for ourselves. We were maybe given a cursory lecture on stranger danger and then released into the world to govern our own persons. I don’t know of anyone that I grew up with who was abducted. We were lucky in that whatever the odds of being snatched were, we beat them. We developed street smarts. We avoided certain people and places based on our instincts. We survived.

I can’t say that my kid, or the other kids in the neighborhood for that matter, have much in the way of street smarts. I would be hard pressed to say that I’d allow my child to walk alone down our street to her friend’s house to play. I can envision myself texting the friend’s mom when my kid left and asking for a return text when she got there. And during that ninety second space of time, I would be anxiously awaiting the text, hoping that the white van hadn’t chosen that moment to ride down our particular road. It’s the norm for me to set up play dates for her, which includes me dropping her off and picking her up. I can ensure that she’s safe that way. But why are we like this and when did this change? For some reason(s), we have not allowed our kids space or freedom at all close to what we had growing up; the ability to develop the skills that have served us well in adulthood. Initiative, enterprise, dedication, so on and so forth. Instead, at an early age, electronics are their companions just as much as their real-life friends. Whereas we took our Gameboys with us to the hang out spots, kids of the younger generations would often rather stay home to play Fortnite or watch a YouTube gamer stream themselves playing games.

Have we caused this? Have we handicapped our kids by prioritizing their safety over foundational life experiences?

Things have changed in schools over the years, as well. Take gym, for instance. In many schools across the country, you won’t see dodgeball listed as an activity on the curriculum. SHAPE America, an organization of physical education teachers, takes the stance that dodgeball should not be played in schools. Their take, as well as the opinions of many others in opposition to the game, is that dodgeball is overly aggressive and perpetuates a power imbalance between more and less physically fit children. Less physically fit kids typically end up being targets, which sets the stage for bullying.

I get it. I do.

But it’s not just physically that now-vilified elimination games such as dodgeball, musical chairs, or even duck, duck goose influence children. There are mental and emotional aspects as well that help prepare them for life. Getting picked last is not the end of the world. Losing is a part of life that happens to everyone. Disappointments occur just as often as triumphs. And you don’t get a participation award just for showing up.

I know, I’m another cranky old Millennial.

However, what’s different about my stance is that I do not believe that our kids are soft. Our kids are resilient and are more book smart, world smart and socially aware than we ever were as children. They are kind, caring, and admirably accepting of each other’s differences. What I’m saying is that we have swung the pendulum a little too far in the opposite direction from whence we came when it comes to promoting independence. Out of fear for our children’s safety. Out of distrust of the lunatics out there who mean to do our children harm. Out of love.

By no means am I suggesting that we need to ‘fix’ our young Gen Z or Gen Alpha kids. I suppose I’m just mourning the way things used to be, as one does. But this may very well be the way that things have to be. I would imagine that in today’s society, attempting to recreate the old for our kids to experience would be impractical as well as dangerous. But things change. Life changes. I’m sad for them and the generation after us that they did not have the opportunity to have the same experiences that we did.

Because I mean, come on…

Remember playing outside?

What is your take on the changes in raising children over the past few generations?