“All children are born with an innate curiosity, playfulness, sociability and deep desire to learn, but at some point after they enter school, what was once fun and engaging begins to feel forced. Anxiety and stress levels among youths are at an all-time high. They are bogged down with homework, over-scheduled with extracurricular activities, deprived of free play, and faced with the pressures of getting into a top college”  .....from Free to Learn - by Peter Gray

“How did we come to the conclusion that the best way to educate students is to force them into a setting where they are bored, unhappy and anxious?” Gray continues: “Our compulsory education system features forced lessons, standardized tests, and seems specially designed to crush a child’s innate and biological drives for learning. The traditional coercive-school model, was originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.”

It’s time to stop asking what’s wrong with our children, and start asking what’s wrong with the system.

Most playgrounds are made with the adult idea of what kids might like. Our world has become so safe-oriented. Parents get pulled into this idea that they should never put their kids at risk or in harm’s way.... there’s danger everywhere!... watch your children every moment... protect them from everything! Today’s kids are controlled, coddled and over-scheduled. Injury-phobic adults are always yelling at them to be careful.

Without play, children become socially and emotionally inept. There is compelling evidence that over the past 50 years - as children’s opportunities for free play and exploration have declined - there has been a dramatic rise in anxiety, depression, and suicide in young people, who have not had the opportunity that free play provides to find meaning and joy in life.