By India McCarty
Movieguide®’s Robby Baehr says society’s aversion to letting “kids be kids” is a major problem, for people young and old.
“What is with society now that we don’t let kids just be kids?” he said during an episode of the “We Who Dad” podcast. “There is a lack of understanding children anymore, and I think that’s a sadness.”
Baehr told a story about his children, who were playing in their yard when an older neighbor walked past and started asking what they were doing.
“She starts grumbling at them and being like ‘Oh, you can’t do this,’” he said, adding, “And knowing my kids, I’m sure they didn’t respond perfectly.”
Baehr continued, “Instead of the woman coming to talk to us, which would have been appreciated…she went and wrote on Facebook,” telling their neighbors his children were playing “unsupervised” in the yard.
He spoke about his own experiences as a child playing in his neighborhood without adults nearby and wondered why today’s society encourages parents to constantly be watching their kids.
“I think it’s because it’s such a shock in a neighborhood to see kids outside anymore because most kids are just streaming stuff or whatever,” Baehr said.
Many others share Baehr’s opinion that we should let children play outside on their own, without parents being overly cautious about what they’re doing.
Lynn Lyons, a therapist who specializes in anxiety disorders, told Vox, “I work with parents that have baby monitors in their kids’ bedrooms, and their kids are 12 years old. We’ve got this idea right now that the closer we keep our kids, the more information we have, the more we direct, the more that we control, the better off our kids will be. And the research is showing the opposite.”
“We want kids to be pushed a little bit,” she continued. “We want to offer them things that feel challenging.”
In a personal essay for Business Insider, Courtney Naliboff wrote about the small Maine community she moved to and how hands-off the parents were with their children, allowing them to roam freely.
“On North Haven, our shared beliefs that outdoor time is excellent, that kids can be responsible if given responsibilities, and that parents deserve a break means that when we see a child riding their bike to school, we make sure our driving supports their safety,” she wrote.
Naliboff concluded, “If more adults in more communities tried that first, we might find that more kids can benefit from the feeling of accomplishment and confidence they gain from exercising a little independence.”
While many parents have anxieties about the dangers their children can face when playing unsupervised, it’s very important that kids are able to have time to be kids, as well as learn skills like independence and responsibility that will serve them later in life.
Read Next: Actor Opts for Midwest Homestead to Let His ‘Kids Be Kids’
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