When Raising Kids, Sometimes Less Really is More

Writing at the Federalist recently, I offered some thoughts on a study from earlier this year on the rise of mental disorders in children and young adults. We live in an age in which what once required no explanation now necessitates a study. So it is with the article in the Journal of Pediatrics.

Researchers examined the rise in mental disorders among children and young adults and explored the possible relationship to the precipitous decline in independent activities and free time. It makes sense that as children lose the opportunity to develop independently and experience the challenges and rewards of unstructured time, they will lack the mental resources to deal with the inevitable challenges of life. The pervasive grip of anxiety and depression on a generation of youth makes sense as a response to an upbringing that fails to prepare individuals for independence and the resilience needed for life.

The researchers’ attempt to quantify this relationship is admirable, though possibly futile. How do you define with numbers the experience of the human heart? In the Federalist article I refer to the work of Lenore Skenazy, a mother who has written extensively about the benefits of giving children authentic freedom. I also mention the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge begun by Ginny Yurich.

I’ve written elsewhere of my great admiration for the summer season. Having moved to a place that is hotter than the surface of the sun for five months of the year (I exaggerate. Slightly), I have no great fondness for the hot weather. But the idea of summer is one worth holding onto in our culture of achievement and overcommitment.

While hot summer with few activities can sometimes be a slog, children’s independent activities built into life as habits throughout the year make life with small children exceedingly more pleasant. At first blush, it seems too good to be true. Can you real do less and experience more satisfaction and joy as a family?

As I mention in the article, it is not as though you can just be lazy and expect good results. Rather, by cultivating structure and independence there are moments to breathe, moments to clean the kitchen in relative calm, and the marvelous experience of watching your child create a craft, game, or experience that you had no part in orchestrating. And the children are so very happy.

The benevolently ignored child can sometimes craft fairy houses for hours and line the perimeter of the yard with mud balls in some complex game of gathering stores to survive the winter (such a compelling trope to children of a certain age engaged in imaginative play). There will, of course, be much-needed, adult-assisted clean-up after some of these activities, but the inconvenience is—usually—worth the exercise of independence and the joy it brings.

Allowing children freedom in places that bring out their delightfulness is key. But it really is possible to give children less overbearing and oppressive supervision and enjoy them more. Perhaps that is, in the end, the only way to enjoy them: to treat them as the independent people they are. Not autonomous, certainly in need of guidance, but capable of their own ideas, their own curiosities, and entertainments that are such a joy to the world.