Lenore Skenazy: Americans Think Kids Need Constant Supervision

A
whopping 83 percent of Americans think that 9-year-olds should not
be allowed to play at the park unsupervised. In fact, they would
like to see a law prohibiting it.

And 62 percent feel the same way about 12-year-olds: Kids can be
old enough for the seventh grade but not for unsupervised play
time, according to most Americans.

Those are the results of a Reason/Rupe
poll confirming that we have not only lost all confidence
in our kids and our communities—we have lost all touch with
reality, writes Lenore Skenazy.

“I doubt there has ever been a human culture, anywhere, anytime,
that underestimates children’s abilities more than we North
Americans do today,” says Boston College psychology professor
emeritus Peter Gray, author of Free
to Learn, a book that advocates for more unsupervised
play, not less.

View this article.