I have written in this column before about my concerns about the decline children’s opportunities for independent play. A September 2023 article published in the Journal of Pediatrics reviews research that indicates that in addition to those possible causes of the increase in childhood anxiety and depression is another significant factor: the decline in independent play.  They state,

Our thesis is that a primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults

Here is a link to  review of Katherine Johnson Martinko’s review of Tom Hodgkinson’s book, The Idle Parent: Why Laid Back Parents Raise Happier and Healthier Kids.

Martinko, author of Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance and speaker for The Anxious Generation argues that intensive parenting creates stress for parents and children alike, and she, with Hodgkinson, makes the case that children can benefit from downtime, boredom, and just being left alone.

While we, as parents, believe that we are giving our children ample opportunity for play through their organized activities, and while these activities, typically supervised by adults, feel safer and more secure, they do not offer children the opportunities they need for developing autonomy, independence, and conflict resolution skills. Indeed, Peter Gray, Boston College Psychology professor, who researches children’s play, has found that independent play (ie play without adult supervision) nourishes children’s cognitive, emotional, social, and academic development.

Martinko cites research showing that parents are working outside the home more and spending significantly more time involved in parenting activities than they did 30 years ago. They are also reporting feeling much more stressed out. In her words,

As a society, we’re gripped by a relentless compulsion to entertain and stimulate our offspring. It’s rooted in understandable concerns about their futures—we want to give them every possible advantage in a hyper-competitive world.

And yet, she says,

The loss of this unsupervised play-based childhood is part of the reason why the mental health of adolescents has declined so steeply in recent decades.

Martinko ends by offering 4 steps parents can take to decrease stress and increase their children’s independence and well-being.

• Start by guarding your family’s downtime fiercely
• Don’t be afraid of boredom
• You don’t have to play actively with your children if you don’t want to
• Encourage independence

While it may at first seem counterintuitive, perhaps it is in yours and your children’s best interest to try to find some time when you can step back and allow them to entertain themselves without screens. They may get bored and complain. But if you can stand to validate the feeling of boredom and insist that they find something to do, you might be surprised by the creative energy that is unleashed.