Lenore Skenazy: Children’s independence and free play have been going down. For decades, not just since phones, not just since COVID. And we keep saying, oh kids, they’re on, you know, they’re on their phones again. It’s like, yeah. ’cause they have no place else to go where they can hang out and have fun and joke around and play games and be kids without adults, constantly helping and watching and natter.
So that’s where they go.
Rusty Keeler: Hi, this is Rusty Keeler and you’re listening to the Play Nature Podcast where we talk about play nature, playing in nature, and the nature of play. I’m glad you’re here. Let’s have a listen. Hi, Leor.
Lenore Skenazy: Hey there, rusty. Hey, up there.
Rusty Keeler: How are you down there in the big
Lenore Skenazy: city. Good. Good. Uh, you know, everything’s fine.
Today is an unusual day. It’s a three podcast day. Oh my gosh. So that’s exciting. Yeah, no, it’s great. It just means that people care. I’m really glad.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, it’s, it’s really getting out there. Do you feel like the TED Talk is, is that drumming up? Tough.
Lenore Skenazy: That stuff is helping and I think it’s just accretion, you know, years of talking about the same thing.
I, I have to say, the anxious generation by my Let grow co-founder has not hurt things. Mm-hmm. You know, John Height is very much in the news. Peter Gray gets quoted all the time. I mean, it just feels like, it feels like the people I work with are sort of in, in the mix right now.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. It’s kind of front of, front of mind for a lot of people.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s getting out there and, yeah. That’s, that’s good. Why don’t I read your bio? Okay. After her column, why I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone created a media firestorm. Lenore wrote the book Free Range Kids, which grew into a, into the Free Range Kids Movement. Now she’s president of Let Grow the national nonprofit.
She co-founded with Daniel Shukman, Peter Gray. Jonathan anxious Generation hate their mission, making it easy. Normal and legal to give kids back some old fashioned independence. Yay.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah, I wrote it. That’s my bio. I agree with every word. I’m leor Ian and I endorse that bio.
Rusty Keeler: That’s it. That’s it. So you, you’ve been on this journey for a long time.
Lenore Skenazy: Like you.
Rusty Keeler: Yep, yep. Our paths have crossed many times
Lenore Skenazy: mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: In the play world. And, uh, you’ve been up to Ithaca
Lenore Skenazy: mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: Preaching the gospel of this stuff and kind of getting us all thinking about what is it to be a free range kid city. Mm-hmm. What, what could that look like? What is, what is the freak range kid childhood look like in this day and age, but you’ve been, yeah.
So I, I love to just kind of jump in because you mm-hmm. You’ve been talking about this for so long, so. What have you been talking about for so long?
Lenore Skenazy: Oh, what I’ve been talking about so long is how come things that were considered normal, safe, and good a generation or two ago are considered abnormal, unsafe and bad now.
And it just interests me because cultural shifts are big deals and the cultural shift in this case is from trusting kids to be kind of smart and savvy or to screw up, and that’s not the end of the world and pretty safe. To thinking of everything in terms of the least safe thing that could possibly happen.
And the most scary thing. And, and actually as, as I said, this is my three podcast day podcast, one of the day, uh, was at a radio station where the host said, you know, I like what you’re saying, but even if it’s a small chance, the idea of my kid dying because, and then he filled in the blank, I don’t even remember what it was.
Walking to school, waiting at the bus stop or whatever is just too great. And that’s. Continues to fascinate me because I don’t think we used to think that way. In fact, I know parents didn’t use to think automatically that not only pessimistically, but dooms day-ish, uh mm-hmm. The idea that walking a couple houses home from school or waiting for a couple minutes at the bus stop, you know, is unlikely to, but certainly could end up with the child dead.
And so it’s not a risk I’m willing to take. We’ve, we’ve sort of interpreted everything. Except us being Velcro to our kids as a risk, there’s, there’s almost nothing we don’t interpret as a risk. A toy could hurt a child, and a kid could be mean to a child, and a teacher could molest a child, and a bus stop could be the last place you saw a child and.
That kind of thinking is weird. I mean, if it were, you know, I’d like to write the DSM that, you know, the diagnostic manual for psychologists, psychiatrists, and, and put that in there. This, call it worst first thinking. Always coming up with the very worst case scenario, almost creatively to, to have a new reason to worry that your kid is not safe without you.
Right there.
Rusty Keeler: We’re really good at imagining these horrible things happening to our kids and Yeah,
Lenore Skenazy: and proceeding as if they’re likely to happen. I mean, if it were just fantasies or like, wow, that’s a weird thought. I had a weird passing thought. But instead between parents’ worries and then the sort of worry accreting into the culture, you get to the point where kids are not allowed any independence.
Uh, uh, the, the bus stop thing is on my mind, first of all, because I think the podcaster mentioned it, but secondly, because right now I have to hand in an article about a mom whose 7-year-old is not allowed to get off the bus stop in the afternoon. This is suburban Michigan, and walk literally four houses to his home.
Number five.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: And. And she’s been, you know, pleading with the superintendent. Please let him do that. And can’t I write a waiver and I’ll sign it and if anything terrible happens, you can blame me. And the answer is literally no. And the bus driver will be fired if he drop, if he lets the kid get off the bus, even though the bus driver is on her side too.
And. First of all, the absurdity that it’s dangerous in this really boring, very, you know, empty, sort of looking suburb. But secondly, there’s, there’s no thought to two costs. One is her cost. Okay? I hope you don’t have to work at a store, you know, at the grocery because you, if, if you did, you’d have to leave every afternoon and be home at three o’clock.
To wait for your kid to walk him home. Those four houses, the 7-year-old. Yeah. And then what does it do to a kid? You know, here he is a strapping young thing, you know, Tom Sawyer age, and instead of being able to have three and a half, she timed it, three and a half minutes of freedom. None. He’s given no freedom and it’s, quote unquote for his own good.
And a culture like that is, is imposing huge costs on us. And our kids, even mental health and not providing anything for it.
Rusty Keeler: That’s right. Right. It’s, it’s taken away, taken away, taken away.
Lenore Skenazy: Mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: And then, uh, so then the child who probably thinks, oh, it looks fine to me from the bus to those, to my house.
Mm-hmm. It really, it’s, is it really that dangerous? Is it, and then do they believe the world is, you know, it’s, it’s, they, they don’t believe the world that they see, but the world that they’re told. And then that’s kind of scary too, of like really
Lenore Skenazy: then, then you’re imposing this delusion on them. I mean, if, you know, maybe the mom tells her, God, is this a stupid rule and we gotta keep fighting, right?
But if a kid thinks that it isn’t safe to walk home four houses, how are they ever gonna co go outside after they’ve had their milk and cookies, you know, or their quinoa and flax chips and you know, and play, you know, that’s that dangerous place where if I even walked home four houses, it was too bad to be outside.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. You hear about people who don’t let, or kids who have said, or adults now who said, when I was a kid, my parents didn’t even, they were watching me in the backyard. Like I always had to be watched, even in that kind of surveillance.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah. You know, I, I keep expecting to hear that and I keep not hearing it even from sort of younger parents who you think.
Might have been constantly supervised. Everybody seems to remember a childhood of less supervision than, uh, is common now. And I don’t know if that’s just Rosie Hued glasses or if the, the level has ratcheted up so much in the last 10 or 15 years that the, you know, the, the people born before that really did have much more free range.
I don’t know.
Rusty Keeler: Sure. Well, yeah. So if now it’s the young parents who are in their twenties and then, but they, you know, how long have we’ve been talking about this for? 20 years. 15, 20 years.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah. Yeah,
Rusty Keeler: yeah, yeah. When did, when did Free Range first Book come out?
Lenore Skenazy: Free range. The book
Rusty Keeler: book
Lenore Skenazy: came out, I think 20 10, 20 2009 or 10.
I mean, one of the things I hear all the time now is, well, it’s all because of the phones. I’m like, N no. I published my book before the iPhone came up.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah,
Lenore Skenazy: right. I mean, children’s independence and free play have been going down for decades, not just since phones, not just since COVID.
Rusty Keeler: And all over the world.
That’s the thing too.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah,
Rusty Keeler: that too. You know, we travel all over and so everyone’s kind of feeling that like, oh, children don’t have that kind of freedom. Mm-hmm. And years ago I lived in the Netherlands, and for me that was like this awakening of children’s play and freedom. Mm-hmm. And they’re, they’re in the canals and they’re on rafts and they’re, you know, doing mm-hmm.
All sorts of stuff in the city streets. And I was like, I was really inspired, came over and, you know, started my thing. Nature play and all that.
Lenore Skenazy: Wait, so when you went over there, you, you weren’t already interested in kids’ independence and free play?
Rusty Keeler: I was. I, I went over as a playground designer, like equipment.
Based. Ah,
Lenore Skenazy: oh,
Rusty Keeler: okay. So, so, so I was definitely thinking about children and play, but suddenly that kind of opened my eyes to more like, play in the neighborhoods and, and cul sculpture and public places that you could play on uhhuh and, and nature and mess and, and then the adventure playgrounds. Stuff
Lenore Skenazy: like
Rusty Keeler: that over there too.
So I was like, oh, okay. So it was cur know
Lenore Skenazy: the rusty backstory. Interesting.
Rusty Keeler: That’s, yeah. Yeah. So it was so it was interested in play, but like, oh wait, play doesn’t have to be on, you know, metal. The Jungle. Jungle, yeah. Monkey bars. Yeah. Yeah. It can be wherever. And actually one of the books that really inspired me was by Robin Moore.
You know him in North Carolina? Mm-hmm. Kind of the grandfather of natural playgrounds and Playscapes and stuff. Mm-hmm. But he did like a, a dissertation, I think it was like his doctoral dissertation, maybe master something. And it was a project, uh, it was, this book came out, uh, as the result and it was childhood.
It’s domain. And part of his project was interviewing children and then letting them with permission with the parents, follow them from school back and forth and seeing where they played and what was their root through, you know? And they showed him like, oh, well here’s the great ditch where we can catch the frogs and here’s where you can hide, you know, but you gotta watch out for Mrs.
Johnson’s dog over here and
Lenore Skenazy: Uhhuh,
Rusty Keeler: you know, all this kind of stuff. And it was like, oh yeah, childhood domain, like in within the, that’s interesting. And yeah, so it made me think about my own child and how I roamed and ranged around and had that kind of freedom. But then, right, it would be a different book.
Now, with childhood domain,
Lenore Skenazy: well, first of all, nobody would allow you to follow your children. And if somebody saw a man following children, he’d be arrested and probably drawn and quartered. By the time, you know, the, the defense attorney had a phone call. Yes. So that’s that. But. I have to say, I, I had, you know, so I do get these heartening letters and calls that a, allow me to keep going.
And one of them was a mom. Oh God, where was she? I don’t remember. Might’ve been a tweet. Um, but so, you know, now I run Let Grow and Yeah, let Grow does two free programs in schools and one is them. One of them is called the Let Grow Experience, where teachers give kids the homework assignment. You have to go home and do something new on your own with your parents’ permission, but without your parents.
So one lady was, I guess, tweeting that for her kids let grow experience his two sons. They went with some friends, uh, to the park where they played on a pile of dirt
Rusty Keeler: mm-hmm.
Lenore Skenazy: For five hours.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: And she said it was maybe their best day ever. And then she wrote me the next day and said, and then they did it again today.
And you can understand what that pile of dirt represented. First of all, it was freedom. Yeah. Yeah. And then it was everything. You know, is it a mountain? Is it a war? Is it a, you know, is it a, a monster? Is it just a, a bunch of dirt, you know, is it the gut, bile, whatever it is. Mm-hmm. It was interesting enough because there was no supervision and because there was no structure to the day, if it had been, you know, we’re gonna do an aisle of climbing the hill and then we’re gonna do an hour of reflecting on the climb.
I don’t think they would’ve stayed out there for those five hours, but because it was them turned on. Yeah. The way I think Mother Nature expected all kids to be turned on, which is through conquest and excitement and discovery and play.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Lenore Skenazy: Five hours. I mean, we’re worried about kids’ attention spans.
Yeah. You’re worried about TikTok videos. Five hours with what? A pile of dirt.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then for so many children throughout the ages, like five hours then would be nothing because they were outside all day, all summer vacation, outside every day doing things and having that kind
Lenore Skenazy: of, well, so what’s, it’s so that’s true.
And so what’s cool is that that part of children didn’t die. It’s just suppressed right now. Right. It’s, it’s not that they don’t know how to spend a, a, a big stretch of time entertaining themselves. Yeah. It’s that they never get the opportunity.
Rusty Keeler: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Between being indoors, between activities, between school, there isn’t that kind of righteous.
That’s interesting. Just the time. The time alone.
Lenore Skenazy: Oh, right. No, that’s, so John, he, um, has the anxious generation, I dunno, research group or something, and they have a nice relationship with the Harris poll. So we got to ask the Harris Poll to ask questions and. They did something that I couldn’t have ever afforded, which is they, they did a, you know, a rigorous survey of kids age, age to 12, and one of the things they asked the kids is, if you had your choice, how would you like to spend time with your friends?
You could spend it, you know, outside or just, you know, hanging out with your friends, basically the, the pile of dirt equivalent, or you could be in an organized activity with them like going off to soccer or chess camp or whatever it is. Or you could be online playing a video game or chatting or Snapchat or whatever.
What, what’s your favorite way to spend time with your friends? And by far the winner was just hanging out with my friends, just hanging out, just playing. No supervision, no structure. Second choice was structured activities like ballet or whatever, and then the third choice was online. And so I think that one of the things our culture is getting really wrong now is that the idea that.
Kids are so attracted to their phones, nothing can take them away. Nothing other than, you know, flogging in electric shocks or something. But in fact, they’re online because they can’t go outside.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: Their, their choice is to be roaming around with their friends and, and we keep saying, oh, kids, they’re on, you know, they’re on their phones again.
It’s like, yeah. ’cause they have no place else to go where they can hang out and have fun and joke around and play games and flirt and be kids without adults, constantly helping and watching and nattering. So that’s where they go.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. Bizarre, futuristic. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you talk to Peter Gray and then he becomes interested and fascinated, like, well, okay, that, that is a childhood domain.
Lenore Skenazy: Mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: You know, I, you know, I’m all about the dirt pile, right? Mm-hmm. I want, I want, oh, he’s mostly about
Lenore Skenazy: the dirt pile.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. He’s a dirt pile too. Yeah. But that idea of like, they have found some freedom. A place
Lenore Skenazy: to go. A place to, right. They found their cave.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: And you know what? That there’s, I agree. I agree with him and with John, which is weird ’cause they’re on diametric opposite poles.
But I agree that it’s a place where kids can meet and can have fun and do invent things and make videos. And you know, I have a son who’s really creative online who also deleted TikTok from his phone because he found himself spending too much time there. So yes, it can be a creative and connecting domain.
Yes, it can be an experience blocker because those five hours that you could be, you know, digging in the dirt, you’re in your room, you’re not really hanging out with your friends or you’re, you know, certainly not smelling the dirt and, you know, tasting it and watching the sun go down and, and having all these other physical experiences and you don’t necessarily see the people the next day and get to hang out with them again.
So. I see both sides.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Well, like the, like the study that you were saying of the children, what attracts ’em to be outside is other children. Mm-hmm. Like they wanna be out there with other children.
Lenore Skenazy: I’m always quoting Peter says that, Peter says, it’s not that the outdoors lus kids outside, it’s seeing other kids walk by the window.
Oh wait, come on. I got my baseball bat.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. That used to be the thing of like, you don’t wanna be indoors. That like, if you were grounded, you had to stay inside. That was like the bad thing.
Lenore Skenazy: Mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: That was like the bad thing. So it’s interesting, there’s like all these factors and Peter talks about all the different factors.
Mm-hmm. I’m, I’m curious about that fear factor and the psychology of, of, of people and parents and mm-hmm. The mind. I, I don’t, don’t know what that is. Here’s a little story of like
Lenore Skenazy: mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: A couple years ago there was somebody from a FedEx truck. Did something abducted a kid or something, right? I’m a free range kid, parent, and you know, I want my kids to be outside and go and you and all that kind of thing.
So I’m all about, but I remember like a week after I heard some little story, I saw a FedEx truck go by and I was like. E. E. And so I, I was like, oh my God. There’s that feeling. Yes. Even, and even though I am, I, my philosophy is a whole different thing. I could even feel like that. Ooh, I don’t
Lenore Skenazy: trust
Rusty Keeler: that FedEx
truck.
Lenore Skenazy: No, I know that feeling too. We all know that feeling. The thing that is sort of new, I guess, is that we believe that that’s not fair. I should feel that. It’s like I should never have to worry. I should never have to, you know. Be unhappily anxious. And so my latest little, I don’t know, prop that I’m showing people, and I guess this is audio, so I’ll have to explain what I’m showing you.
I’m showing, what is this? What am I showing you? It’s a,
Rusty Keeler: A sneaker,
Lenore Skenazy: a special sneaker
Rusty Keeler: special. A children’s sneaker. Yep.
Lenore Skenazy: Made by Sketchers Small company. Big company.
Rusty Keeler: It’s a big company.
Lenore Skenazy: It is a big company. Anyways, so in these sneakers. You’ll see. I’m gonna lift up the insole here. You’ll see there’s a little compartment that you have to unscrew.
Yes. And that’s where you put the air tag.
Rusty Keeler: Okay. And is that a tracking device?
Lenore Skenazy: Yes. Yes. It’s okay.
Rusty Keeler: Okay.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah. So what’s interesting is that a big company. Has been selling these. I mean, I went to the store. I went to my local sketcher store. I said, are these popular? Oh, yes, they’re very popular. And then I bought a pair so I could show people.
But that’s part of a culture that has decided that something that no adult needed in the history of the world, which was to know where their kid is every single second. You couldn’t, you literally couldn’t know where they were. They went around the corner and you just had to learn. You had to trust them.
You had to trust your neighbors. You had to trust your parenting. You had to trust the odds. Maybe you trusted a higher power. But you had to get used to that trust. You had to build that trust muscle because otherwise you’d be terrified every second that you couldn’t see them. So a generation that couldn’t track their kids, which is all of generations in human history until like last week.
Learned to trust their kids in the world. And now because we have the ability to watch them all the time, we’re never gonna build that trust and without that trust, that’s what anxiety is. Anxiety is worrying that like, oh my God, something terrible is happening. And the way you get rid of anxiety is through exposure therapy, right?
You expose yourself to the thing that’s scaring you, whether it’s a spider or your kid going to a birthday party or your kid walking around the corner, and then gradually you realize. Oh, it’s not so bad. I can live with that. But now you never have to learn to live with not seeing your kid and knowing where they are and what they’re doing every second, and I think that’s one of the reasons that parents are so anxious today.
They haven’t developed the antidote to anxiety, which is trust. And they’re being told, you never have to worry about the antidote because you never have to trust anymore because you’re gonna have certainty all the time. So before I was talking to you in between the podcast, you was a pediatrician in Denver, and when I said, what’s worrying you the most these days?
What are you most concerned about? And I wasn’t sure what she would say. And she said It’s parental anxiety.
Rusty Keeler: Parental anxiety.
Lenore Skenazy: She didn’t even say kids. She said it’s parental anxiety because. She doesn’t know if it’s because then the kids get anxious because they’re just exposed to it, or if the kids are getting anxious because the parents won’t let them do anything on their own.
But either way, it’s the parental anxiety that is creating the anxiety that she’s staying rampant in the kids.
Rusty Keeler: Uh, Uhhuh.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: So then put the chip in their shoe.
Lenore Skenazy: Mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: They’re working on how to put it behind the ear probably.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah, I’m sure. Right, right. Black mirror style. Right, right,
Rusty Keeler: right, right. Dogs have it.
Lenore Skenazy: Right, so that’s true. I actually don’t think dogs have it as a tracking device. I think it’s an identification device.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: For the dogs, right.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. So was parents’ anxiety and then it, then it’s interesting where, you know, I know like when you were starting, say, when the, when the book first came out there, there were certain, I felt it was almost like, alright, everybody, let’s, let’s change this thinking.
Or we, this is this, this is crazy. Let’s, mm-hmm. Let’s just, uh, you know, common sense will prevail. Like, let’s remember this, but here we are, like, whatever it is, 10, 15 years later and it’s like, wait, whoa. No. It feels like in some ways that has dug in. There’s lots of positive things that are going on.
Mm-hmm. I want to get into that and the solutions. Mm-hmm. You know, and everything that is helping to turn, turn the tide. But it feels almost like it’s gotten me more as like, well, that’s just the norm. There’s not kids out, you know, even in Ithaca where it’s pedestrian safe and kids safe and friendly, it is rare to see a kid running down the street with, in, with glee.
Like, we, I’m going to the neighbors, or I’m, it’s like, oh my god, you know? I live near a skate park and I love, I hear like, ah, the sound of skateboards. I’m like, skate parks seem
Lenore Skenazy: great. Yeah,
Rusty Keeler: that’s, there’s kids going, but that’s a certain age, a certain demo demographic and everything.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: But it’s not, it’s not everybody.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah. It disturbs me too. So you know what? We’re hoping that that Let grow just has two things that we’re pushing all the time. One is that let Grow experience because. If parents get used to sending kids outside to do something, you know, once a month you have to send them to do something. You, you and them decide what it is.
Are they gonna go to the store? Are they gonna go to the park? Are they gonna make pancakes? Are they gonna find a tree? It’s just something, but at least parents once a month are getting used to, exposed to letting their kids do something on their own, which lowers your anxiety because you realize. A, that was fine.
B, you’re really excited that the kid did something on their own that’s hardwired. And then C, if something goes wrong, which actually sort of want to happen, ironically, then you also realize things don’t have to be perfect. I mean, right now we’re on this really, really skinny balance beam and worry that like, you know, any second we might fall and you know, the kid could get hurt or the kid could fall behind, or the kid could be, you know, emotionally hurt.
It’s just we reinterpreted. Everything that could happen to them as damaging, not just annoying or upsetting or frustrating, but literally damaging sometimes permanently. So the other thing you have to be exposed to as a parent is to realize like, wow, that was rough and it’s okay. Wow. That, I don’t wanna go through that again, but it’s okay.
So, so that we’re hoping we’ll get more people outside. Get more kids outside because. It’ll just become the norm again. People realize it’s not that scary, and in fact it’s exhilarating for them and for you. And then we also, Peter’s idea was keep the schools open for free play afterwards with like a lifeguard there, but not, you know, not anybody who’s organizing games or solving the arguments.
And that way kids get used to playing. There, there’s balls. There’s the video I show all the time to explain what I’m talking about is your video. Yes. Of reimagining recess where you just see, you know, a kid helping another kid give him the boost so he could start climbing the tree and kids making a swing outta some fabric and kids.
Making their own carnival or whatever it was that this one girl is just writing, quote unquote writing, not really writing, like using a feather and a and a wood chip and saying, here’s your ticket. Now you can go in and the kid says, okay, thanks. And he gives her, you know, a leaf, which is the dollar, right?
And then they plan, it’s like there’s imagination, there’s leadership, there’s cooperation, all these things. You see the kids. Uh, my favorite thing is there’s a kid dragging around a beaten up old suitcase.
Lenore Skenazy: You know, or, or computer case. And you know, the thing that makes us, uh, our heart sink when we have to do that, you know, off to work.
Here I go, got the beaten up suitcase. Yeah. But, but for them it’s like, this is cool. I’m like, you know, my parents going off to work, or maybe it’s a magical suitcase and inside is a bunny, you know? So. There’s so much that kids will invent and do that we would never come up with. You know, we’re, we’re limited.
We, oh, how about, well, it’s recess. How about you guys can play Foursquare and how about over there? There’s a soccer game. Yeah. So you really need to give kids this opportunity for free play so that that part of them gets turned on. It’s, it’s not hard to turn on. They just need space and time and other kids.
Yeah. And so if you wanna see kids gleeful again, turn on their play gene and then give them some free time in the community. That’s not with the parent ploting or, or with the parent plotting. And it’s still okay ’cause they start getting used to it.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. There were, you know, your TED Talk was amazing.
I love seeing just your message boil down to this tight form and there was so much in it, but there, there were moments where like literally, I. Tears. Well, like I, I felt teary. Uh, things well, well up in me and I love hearing you talk about kids having the freedom to be together and, you know, you, you always nail it whenever I’ve seen you speak.
Lenore Skenazy: Maybe that, that was like the hardest one. I mean, that one I practiced for like six months. Could recite in my sleep, but thank you.
Rusty Keeler: It was incredible. And it was, yeah, it was fun to see, you know, I’ve heard you speak in lots of different lengths. Mm-hmm. But it was very, it was really interesting to see it like boiled down to this very, very tight message mm-hmm.
That had everything I, I felt like it, you walked people through, you know, the idea, the concepts kind of the. You know, the good, the bad. Mm-hmm. And, and solutions. But, and, and, and
Lenore Skenazy: jokes.
Rusty Keeler: And jokes most important. And they got the jokes. Yes. Yes. Lots and lots of jokes. I mean, I don’t know how you packed it into that short amount of time.
Um, but at the same time, there were the, these moments in there that like, holy touched my heart and I, I, I’ve, you know, I felt like. You know, crying in these, in these moments. And can I tell you the three? There were three. Yeah. Let’s hear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gosh,
Lenore Skenazy: I know that speech pretty well.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, that’s right.
That’s right. Well, so you were talking about like the pickup ball game, whiffle ball game or baseball game of, and multi ages playing together outside. And this could be in like a let grow, uh, you know, after school. Kind of play, you know, when everyone’s just there. And the idea of like, you know, typically sports are like segregated by age.
Mm-hmm. But here’s an opportunity for children of different ages to play. Mm-hmm. And if a, if a, if a teenager is playing with a 5-year-old, who’s up to bat? You know, they’re not like just. You know, trying to real hard to get, you know. Right.
Lenore Skenazy: I’ll show him who’s
Rusty Keeler: lost. Yeah. Strike that little sucker out. But it gives the, so it was like this idea of they can learn empathy and generosity of like letting little kid get a good hit.
Lenore Skenazy: Mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: And then it was like this beautiful thing of like, yeah, it’s like the little kid gets to be with the big kids that they look up to. Mm-hmm. But then the big kid gets to be Yeah. Be nurturing and, and you know, especially if their kids are like, care, you know, they’re always being. Taken care of, but here’s an opportunity for an older kid to be taking care of a younger kid and,
Lenore Skenazy: right.
You know, there was a study done of play clubs on Long Island and I think it was, I think it’s called a qualitative study. And so they asked the kids, what did you love most about Play club? And the older kids, and by this I mean fourth and fifth graders usually said something like, I really liked it when there was a little kid by herself and she looked sad or lonely.
And I started chasing her, you know, and we played tag, or I really liked teaching the little kids a new game and. What they didn’t realize they were saying is, wow, empathy feels great. Mm-hmm. You know, generosity is neat. I like being a leader and, and it always reminds me of my favorite story about living in New York is that maybe 10 years ago there was a mom of a 4-year-old who was at a preschool.
Where just demographically it happened that the other kids in the class were two year olds and the mom sued the school saying, how do you think my child is going to get into Harvard? Her words going to get into Harvard if she’s sort of held back by these toddlers when here she is, four years old. Uh, and so of course that was a, it was a great New York story.
It was a big story in the
Rusty Keeler: most, yeah. Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: And I kept thinking, that’s how you do get into Harvard. You know, when you’re really young, you lord it over these little kids. You get a taste of power. You get a, you know, a sense of what it means to, to be the boss, Uhhuh, and you use that as your rocket fuel for the rest of your life.
But we don’t give kids many opportunities to be with children of different ages. And we’re, you know, me too. I just have two kids. I mean, we have these small families now, so mm-hmm. Your, your kid, your family is small, so there’s not this wide range of ages. You’re often far from the cousins. ’cause we’re far flung.
Families. And then any extracurricular activity is generally segregated by age. You can’t go to a little league group that is five to 12 year olds. That just doesn’t happen. And, and that means that not only are the 12 year olds not practicing the empathy, and by the way, that whole story with gleaned completely from Peter Gray.
So thank him next time you see him.
Rusty Keeler: Okay.
Lenore Skenazy: So, so not only do you not get the, the 12 year olds with the five year olds, but something else I was gonna say that was profound. What is the other thing is that you don’t even get the creativity right? Because the, you know, when you have this ragtag group and they’re trying to figure out what to do, and the, the five year olds can’t run as far.
So then you decide, okay, well the rules are this. If you’re, you know, 10 and under, you only have to run to this base. I, I, I watched this baseball game this summer, which was mostly kids under 10. And it wasn’t many kids. I think it was like four or five kids. And they said, okay, this is first base. And then I heard them from my porch.
And there’s no second base. And then this is third base. Yes.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: And that, you know, you can’t get that in an adult organized activity. And so when we have these perfect, you know, teams and leagues that are all segregated and run by. Adults who know the rules and cue to them and decide if the ball is in or out.
You’re just not getting all the richness of play that you would get if, if you were trying to make something happen in a much more informal, and I would say organic way.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s funny, even with a certain age group like that, seven to 11-year-old, when they start to do like games with rules, they call it.
Mm-hmm. You know, and, and this isn’t the way adult would think, but sometimes it’s just negotiating the rules is the big thing. Oh yeah. That’s the big, yeah. So recess could be all just negotiating the rules.
Lenore Skenazy: Right? Right. Yeah. Now, my, my friend Camilo took his son to, uh, the Adventure playground here in New York.
Yeah. And you know, the adults aren’t allowed on there. So it, you know, Camilla’s bored after two hours. He’s like, okay, it’s time to go. And his son, who was 10 at the time said, but Dad, we were just about to start a war. So, I mean, once again, you get to the attention span somehow. Two hours of dealing with the, you know, the give and take of rules.
Yeah. Was fascinating and exciting enough for, for a 10-year-old. And this is a 10-year-old who you would assume, you know. Would mostly wanna rather be, you know, scrolling through videos or watching something fun or, or in a class which is, you know, not a class, but like little league.
Rusty Keeler: Activity. Um, you know, another thing that’s nice about the multi-age group, so there’s the idea of like, okay, the little kids can look up to the big kids.
The big kids can be nurturing to those little kids. Mm-hmm. But then also big kids who get to hang around with little kids. Well, they maybe they can play again, like little kids. They could be in their imaginations. They could like, it doesn’t have to be serious. I don’t have to do even the big. Games with rules, I can just mm-hmm.
Be playing with the imaginary unicorns or whatever it is, digging in the sand.
Lenore Skenazy: So there was a, a private high school here in New York that gave kids one week, one week, uh, it’s like a furlough, uh, one week of doing something other than classes. And, you know, there were kids who took field trips and kids who, I don’t know, did art classes or whatever, but one of the options was.
Playing with the younger kids and those kids, these older kids, these high school kids who played with the, um, elementary school kids for that week just sounded like they were reborn. I mean, they were so rejuvenated. They said it was the greatest week of their lives. They had so much fun. They’d forgotten how much they loved to laugh and play.
So you’re right, it is, it’s an opportunity for everyone, and we keep taking it out of kids’ lives to give them what we think of as a. More important opportunity, which is, you know, the travel soccer or, um, you know, some, uh, homework help or kuman. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of those extracurricular activities, such a hard word to say.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: But, but nobody recogniz. You. You can see the value. Kuman, we’re gonna raise their grades, you know, and, uh, little league, maybe they’ll go on to the baseball team in junior high or maybe they’ll get onto the league in, in high school, you can see, and they got a trophy and here’s a picture and, and it’s just so unquantifiable.
What they’re getting from free play.
Lenore Skenazy: But if there weren’t any quantifiers, if you could just see like where did they end up? You know, coming home flushed and happy and fulfilled and with new friends and new ideas bubbling in them and wanna wake up the next day and have a great day again, if that were the measure, which it never is, a free play would win.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It’s, it’s children having that kind of freedom and being mm-hmm. Being themselves, being in the flow, being in the
Lenore Skenazy: right, or agency, you should know that agency, you probably know this is the big, new word now.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. So then them having choice.
Lenore Skenazy: Well, also agency is, is choice and like the ability to make things happen.
As opposed to being told what to do. And, you know, observed and assisted agency is like even in homework, you can have agency versus no agency, but, but homework’s a terrible example agency is, I’d like to make cupcakes, I’ll go to the store, I’ll get the, the mix or the ingredients and there’s so little of that because so much of what’s you know of childhood is prescribed and.
I, I’ve heard from a lot of teachers who talk about kids becoming almost radically passive. And what I thought was just a, like an urban myth of teachers saying like, when a, when a pencil falls on the floor, the kid just stares at it. I’ve heard it enough times from teachers who weren’t talking to each other that it’s, it’s ringing true, which is that, you know, they’re worried like, am I allowed to pick it up?
Should the teacher come pick it up? Am I disturbing the class? And so they’re, they’re always awaiting operating instructions, and that’s not surprising since their, their school day and their after school day is all about following instructions.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. It’s like, so when do they get to practice the agency?
It’s almost like, okay, go through childhood and go through school, get to college, and boom, there you go. Now you can.
Lenore Skenazy: Right. Good luck with the agency. Yeah,
Rusty Keeler: that’s right. How’s that agency going?
Lenore Skenazy: Right, right, right. What?
Rusty Keeler: Yeah, I. And then it’s awful harder. I, I sometimes I think about that living in a college town, it’s like, wait, is this now kids are free range.
Like, that’s, that’s when they first become free range when they’re at college. Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: So what do you see, I mean, you are living in an amazingly, you know, really college dominated town. What, what do you see and what do you see that has changed, if you can tell from just seeing them on the street, maybe you can’t.
Rusty Keeler: Well, you know, I, I have some friends that, that teach at the colleges. Mm-hmm. And they say they’ve seen a big shift in, in the, the students and, and, and, and I would say almost like that agency idea of, it’s not the pencil that falls, but it’s what happens if the grade isn’t there or what happens if there’s, they feel like there’s too much homework or what happens.
And they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to talk to the adults. They don’t know how to speak up for themselves. They have their parents involved even at that stage of things.
Rusty Keeler: You know, I see up at Cornell, it’s kind of stressful up there. I like going up right before classes, you know, if you want to, everyone’s still happy from summer and they’re smiling.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then at some point it’s just like, boom. It is just, it’s all over and it’s, yeah. Everyone’s pretty serious. I feel real sorry for them.
Lenore Skenazy: Did they ever come to your playground?
Rusty Keeler: Huh. I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re not at the anarchy zone. Children’s Garden. I mean, I don’t think they come for fun and play.
Maybe there’s activities. Maybe a horticulture department comes in and shows, you know, comes in and they study it. You know, my parents saw it, an ice cream shop, a whole college class with their professor who was at the ice cream. So maybe, maybe this is trying to help them feel, feel positive again.
Getting them ice creams. Wow. Um, yeah. I don’t know. I just think of them. Suddenly on their own if they’ve never been on their own before.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. So just the other two things that were, that really moved me, the talk was just that idea, again, of the kids, they want to be with each other.
Rusty Keeler: And, and it’s kind of just that, that feeling of like, oh my God, what if that’s really their hearts?
They just wanna be connected the way that mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: That children always were. I was friends. Uh, lived in neighbors with a farm years and years ago, and they had like five kids. It was like class. I was like, wow, this, they’re doing that again. All right. And I remember the dad just saying to me as the kids of all these different ages are running through a field together, the older one was almost a teenager and the little one who’s falling way behind.
And he said, yeah, kids are pack animals.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love that.
Rusty Keeler: Oh, and wow, that’s a really cool way to put it.
Rusty Keeler: And it was. It’s like they’re all helping each other and writing it down. That’s really great.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. ’cause it was, it was like, there’s leaders and then there’s the one who needs a little help. But then, and then at a Sudbury school, I saw that same thing with multi ages.
You know, Peter talks about those Sudbury schools. And the same thing of like, okay, there’s big strong teenagers that are doing some of the lifting. And then there’s, you know, 10 year olds who have had the initial idea to do this play, you know, structure. Mm-hmm. And then, and then there’s like little kindergartners that are like little fairies and they just kind of come through and they’re, they’re like these little magic, you know, creatures and.
It was just this mix. It was like this blend and, and that idea, I just
Lenore Skenazy: say the, the thing I learned from Peter about that too is that when you have mixed stages, those little fairies become the leaders. And by having mixed stages, everybody gets a chance to be the older cool kids at some point.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: Which I think is great.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Back when kids were just roaming the neighborhood, that there were all those mixed stages and, and weaving in and out of the experience and the story. And then that was kind of like your finale there, that that was very moving. Was that, that idea of, of child doing the things themselves, being out in the world, having the agency, they are on the hero’s journey,
Lenore Skenazy: right.
Right now. I, I thought like if people take anything away from the talk, um, it’s the idea that I did it myself is this incredibly powerful sentence and feeling and kids need it and they don’t need, I did it with my mom’s help, or I did it thanks to, you know, my coach. It’s just doing things by yourself and also often for yourself as opposed to.
For a grade or a trophy or you know, a resume or somebody else. It’s like there’s, you know, you talk about agency. That’s agency too, doing something because it’s of interest to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: And that will often. Kick in all the other things that we want to see happen. You know, focus and frustration, tolerance.
There was one school that was doing the let grow experience again with the homework that says go home and do something new on your own. And this kid wanted to build an amphibious vehicle, and his teacher and his mom told us that he was not like the world’s greatest student, but he really wanted to do this.
And he took to it with, you know, alacrity because it was his idea and he was using like a. I can’t remember. It was like an old little Tykes truck. And then he was adding pool noodles to it. And then each week he’d come in and the kids would say, well, how’s it doing? He said, oh, it sank again, but I’m gonna try, you know?
Mm-hmm. Balloons this time, or whatever it was. And she said. And because he was so interested in this one project, which is obviously pointless, and nobody needs an amphibious vehicle that’s made out of a Tonka truck, and, and Tonka would never sell it, but because it was his idea and something he wanted to do, then he started reading like Wikipedia on, you know, the history Amphi amphibious vehicles and how do you attach things with grommets or whatever.
And so. It, it is. Self-direction happens when there’s a direction you want to go in, and if the direction is, you know, whether it’s starting a game, getting buy-in for your idea, making something or making something happen. All of that requires us adults stepping back and letting the kids. Go in a direction that doesn’t either interest us or, you know, just isn’t us.
It’s not our thing. It’s theirs. Yeah. And we give kids so little time and autonomy to pursue anything other than these boring, small ruts of school soccer, kuman. And then we tell them, follow your passion. It’s like, well, I don’t like school soccer or cuon, so, so I don’t have a passion. Mm-hmm. It’s like, well, nobody’s gonna discover a passion if there’s zero time of the day to do it.
Rusty Keeler: Geez. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They need that time to find out who they are.
Lenore Skenazy: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. What they like, what they wanna do. Mm-hmm. What they wanna follow.
Lenore Skenazy: Right. They need your reimagining recess. So tell me what’s happening with reimagining recess. ’cause as you know, that’s my favorite video.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, so that was kinda like a pre COVID thing.
Oh. Um, and then after COVID. People, kind of different schools kind of took it different directions. There are some schools that are still doing it, that still have the shed and, and, and mm-hmm. Have loose things. There are some that just have some tires. Uh, and then there’s some that have kind of gone different directions.
And then there’s others that have started doing farm programs where there are more straw bales and, and stuff. Mm-hmm. It’s still kind of the, a variety of things happening with it, but still with the schools that had it initially, they. I think the culture change, so the adults still are interested and they still get it.
Mm-hmm. Even though it might not be as full power when we are as hands-on with it.
Lenore Skenazy: Oh my God, that’s such a great program. Yeah. Let me ask you one shed question.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy: So how big is the shed and what’s in it
Rusty Keeler: Like, like a 10 byte? 12 shed. Mm-hmm. Like a classically backyard shed. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it could be anything from, you know, traffic cones to tires to mm-hmm.
Scrap lumber to tarps, you know, boards, pumpkins. Yeah. Anything, anything. Um, we have a reuse center in town that’s like a Salvation Army. You can get all sorts of used stuff like garage sales stuff That’s great. But then also getting donations from the community and everything.
Lenore Skenazy: That’s great. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
I love that. And we wanna see more people. More schools doing after school thing. This let Grow Play club. Yeah. And we were wondering if a shed is crucial. Maybe it is.
Rusty Keeler: It. I mean, if, if you wanna clean up, if you wanna keep it tidy mm-hmm. Yes. It’s good to have a shed. Mm-hmm. That’s great. Mm-hmm. In fact, it’d be nice if like, that is the, you know, the, the let grow shed kind of thing, so they have an idea of it.
But at the same time, other schools just have the stuff laying around. If you talk to your neighbors and let them know, Hey, this is on purpose. We have this stuff. It’s intentional that it looks junky, but we have loose things and that’s kids’ commun, you know, creativity and imagination.
Rusty Keeler: Very cool. Lenore, thanks so much.
Great. Great to talk.
Alright. Thanks for listening. Do you have a comment or a question or email me at Play Nature podcast@gmail.com. You know, I like talking about this stuff. And maybe we could use your question on a future podcast episode. As always, I have some free goodies for you in the show notes, including my outdoor loose parts guide, fun stuff in there.
And so I wish you the best in your outdoor play adventures, and when it comes to adding nature to your yard or loose parts or saying yes to risky play. My favorite motto is dream big, start small, and never stop. Oh yeah. Woo, woo, woo. Let’s do it. All right. Have fun out there.
