Free-Range Kids

Lenore Skenazy | 1.29.2024 4:49 PM

Kids need to climb trees, jump off things, and ride their bikes—even at speed. That's what the Canadian Pediatric Society is recommending in a new white paper: Healthy Childhood Development Through Outdoor Risky Play.

It's the sort of finding that is almost considered radical these days. Mariana Brussoni, a developmental psychologist at the University of British Columbia, has been championing risky play for more than a decade, but the Pediatric Society wasn't ready to endorse her call to action.

It was only when faced with soaring rates of childhood anxiety, depression, obesity, and even myopia that Canadian health officials realized that "letting kids go out and play could be a way to deal with a lot of these challenging issues," says Brussoni.

That's because the doctors came to recognize two truths.

First, children are hard-wired to play........

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