The science of parenting: Is it safe to play outside?

In this series, I’m examining the science of parenting. In Part One, we discussed the the importance of the quality - not quantity - of time we spend with our kids. In Part Two, we looked at the science on what types of activities can be considered quality family time. In Part Three, I look at how our children spend their time, our perception of those activities, and what the science actually says. 

Last week, I took the boys to our local park after school. I had just read an editorial making a strong case for free-range parenting. This quote in particular left me wondering if I give my own children enough opportunities to explore.

“ ‘We are depriving them of opportunities to learn how to take control of their own lives,’ writes Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College. He argues that this increases ‘the chance that they will suffer from anxiety, depression, and various other mental disorders,’ which have gone up dramatically in recent decades. He sees risky, outside play of children among themselves without adult supervision as a way of learning to control strong emotions like anger and fear.”

— Clemens Wergin

So, I decided on that day to let Griffin cross the street from our local neighborhood park and go to the market to buy juice for him and his brother. I gave him $10 and instructed him to watch carefully for cars, be polite and respectful to the cashier, and come back to the park as soon as he was done.

I watched him cross the street with a lump in my throat and loud voices in my head screaming about all the things that could go wrong. He could get hit by a car. He could be approached by a stranger or a predator. He could break something or otherwise wreak havoc in the store. 

The two friends at the park (and even my own husband) were shocked I had let him go. They voiced the fears already marching through my head. 

However, I took a deep breath and reminded them (and myself) that he was mere yards away, that he would be fine, and - most importantly - I try not to make decisions out of fear and teach my children to do the same. 

The pride on that child's face upon his return was a sight to behold and all the confirmation I needed that I had done the right thing. Being trusted with money, helping out his little brother, and showing his mom he could do it was such a big deal to this little kindergartener. 

In fact, he did such a good job. He's also been allowed to play outside alone in our cul-de-sac with two older neighbor boys.

The debate surrounding this type of “free-range” parenting is particularly relevant to the discussions regarding the recent study concluding that quality time with our kids is more important than quantity. Yes, we need time together as a family. 

However, our kids also need time alone - away from parental influence and supervision - to explore, to problem-solve, to learn to control their own lives and emotions. 

Unfortunately, OUR emotions are getting in the way.

In fact, a recent British study found that parents often blame a lack of playgrounds and play areas for the lack of outside play. 

But what’s the real reason?

“There appears to be no link between play patterns and play provision; children are no more likely to play outdoors, or play further away from home if there are adequate opportunities provided within their neighbourhood. Rather, the evidence of this paper is that the most significant influence on children’s access to independent play is not the level of public provision of play facilities but parental anxieties about children’s safety and the changing nature of childhood”

— Gill Valentine & John McKendrck

Parental. Anxieties.

We are AFRAID. Plain and simple. 

What exactly are we afraid of?

Most parents cite fears about abduction, child predators, and general child safety as reasons for not letting their children play outside alone. 

Recently, I was discussing letting Griffin walk home alone from the bus stop. This is literally .1 miles from my home and that’s if he doesn’t cut through my neighbor's yard. My stepfather exclaimed I couldn’t do that because someone could stake out his schedule and snatch him. 

Y’all. That is insane.

The chances of that happening are about the same as Griffin inventing a hovercraft to fly that .1 mile home and achieving this technological marvel before the end of the school year.

The fact is that this is the safest time to be a child in all of human history.

Child victimization has been in a steady decline for forty years. Based on the crime statistics kept since the 1970s: child sexual abuse is down 53 percent; physical abuse is down 52 percent; aggravated assault is down 69 percent; robbery is down 62 percent; larceny is down 54 percent. 

Thanks to anti-bullying and public education campaigns, bullying has dropped by a third in the last five years. 

The odds of your child actually being kidnapped and murdered stand at about 1.5 million to one.

1.5 million to one.

So, the actual risk of letting your children play outside alone is incredibly low. The irony is the actual BENEFIT of letting your children play outside alone is incredibly HIGH.

Children who play outside have lower rates of obesity. Children exposed to dirt and germs have healthier immune systems. Studies have shown children learn important social skills on the playground and that outside play can reduce stress and the symptoms of ADHD.

It even improves vision!

What is actually dangerous to children?

Cars. 

The number one cause of death for children 1 to 24 is accidents and the number one cause of accidental death is auto accidents. 

In other words, driving your children all over town for carefully monitored and adult-directed play is MORE DANGEROUS than opening your front door and telling them to “Go outside and play!”

This is something I've written about before. The presence of any risk doesn't define a situations as dangerous for kids OR adults. 

In an article entitled "Why Parents Should Stop Overprotecting Kids and Let Then Play," editor at large for Psychology Today Hara Estroff Marano best captures the situation.

 "Risk is an inherent part of life. Success and happiness hinge not on the elimination of risk but on the reasonable management of risk."

I think this might be about more than risk.

I've recently learned through my own struggles with anxiety that the presence of anxiety often means we feel a lack of control. We want to control every aspect of our children's lives. I know I do. The less rational part of my brain tells me if I'm there controlling every aspect of their lives I can keep bad things from happening. 

But you know - and I know - that's absurd. 

Bad things happen and they will happen to our kids - despite our best efforts.  All we can hope for is that we will have prepared them as best we can. We have to TRUST that they can make good decisions and give them the opportunity to try within reasonable boundaries. We have to say, "I know it's scary but I know you can do it."

We have to open the door wide and let them go outside and play.  

Do you let your children play outside alone? Did you play outside alone as a kid? 

The science of parenting: What does "quality time" mean?

In part one of this series, I discussed a recent study that found increased maternal time was not necessary for happy kids. In fact, it was the quality of time - not quantity of time that counts. In this post, I ask what does the science say about quality time?

I'll never forget a conversation I once had with a close friend about being a work-at-home mom. She was bemoaning the hours she spent during a recent snow day keeping her kids entertained by playing My Little Ponies.

I was sympathetic to her plight but told her I couldn't really commiserate. 

"I don't really play with my kids," I told her.

She was shocked and asked why I didn’t feel guilty for not playing with my children since I was home all day. I told that I read books obviously and played the occasional game of Candyland but, overall, I expected them to entertain themselves.

Truthfully, I have never carried a lot of guilt about constantly playing with my kids. Before I ever became a mom, I read an article arguing that parental play was unnecessary and often detrimental. Kids need time to engage in their own forms of creative play and often adults over-direct, over-instruct, and plain old get in the way.

After all, the idea of "playing" with your kids is a recent invention. My mother didn't spend hours playing with me. As an only child, I spent hours playing by myself. My mother never EVER felt pressure to entertain or constantly engage with me.

If I told her I was bored, I got the same response she got from her mom and the same response my grandmother had received from my great-grandmother. 

"Only boring people are bored."

That or she helpfully suggested I could clean the stove.

My family spent quality time together, but it was not always on MY terms. For some reason, time together as a family has now come to mean time together entertaining the children.

In her phenomenal book All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting, Jennifer Senior speaks to this new intensive model of parenting. 

“ The way most historians describe this transformation is to say that the child went from “useful” to “protected.” But the sociologist Viviana Zelizer came up with a far more pungent phrase. She characterized the modern child as “economically worthless but emotionally priceless.” Today parents pour more capital—both emotional and literal—into their children than ever before, and they’re spending longer, more concentrated hours with their children than they did when the workday ended at five o’clock and the majority of women still stayed home. Yet parents don’t know what it is they’re supposed to do, precisely, in their new jobs. “Parenting” may have become its own activity (its own profession, so to speak), but its goals are far from clear.” ”

— Jennifer Senior

It makes sense on a certain level. If our goal is to raise happy, healthy children then let's do whatever makes them happy. Let's play Legos for hours. Let's fill every moment of our free time with birthday parties and bounce houses and extracurricular activities.

Though our hearts might be in the right place, this intensive form of parental interaction which begins with lots of play time and so often becomes helicopter parenting isn't good for anyone.

A recent survey of college freshmen with self-described helicopter parents was found to be less capable of dealing with real world problems. The study found, “Students with helicopter parents tended to be less open to new ideas and actions, as well as more vulnerable, anxious and self-consciousness, among other factors, compared with their counterparts with more distant parents.” 

So, what does the science say about positive forms of quality time?

As we all re-arrange our lives and schedules to fit the demands of our “economically worthless but emotionally priceless” children, one form of scientifically-proven quality time has suffered. 

In the past 20 years, the frequency of family dinners has declined by 33 percent. We are eating out more and eating together less often. 

Unfortunately, the family dinner has become rare just as the science on family dinners has become more and more conclusive. Kids who eat with their families three or more times a week are less likely to be overweight, perform better academically, and are less likely to engage in risky behaviors such as drug abuse and early sexual activity. 

I grew up eating dinner regularly with my family and it is still the source of some of my fondest memories. We try to eat dinner every night as a family and we have Sunday family dinners with my parents and grandmother every week as well.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, my husband cooks. He plans our week’s meals and goes to the grocery store during the weekend. Then, he comes home most nights of the week and prepare a delicious meal for us. So, it is VERY easy for me to talk about family dinners and how beneficial they are to our family. 

I understand that is not the reality for most families but I also know that a family dinner could also be a family breakfast or weekend brunch or basically any time when the family is interacting as a whole and not catering to the whims of a child.

I truly believe that the most beneficial time for children is time that both the parents AND child enjoy. I don’t particularly enjoy playing Minecraft (or talking about it for hours) or going to Chuck E. Cheese or watching hours of Curious George. I do enjoy seeing my children happy and so I make some time for those activities.

However, my favorite family time is when we are all engaged together. We are eating a meal and talking about our days. We are walking the Greenway Trail and sharing stories. We are geocaching and solving a challenge by working together. 

After all, I don't believe my goal is to make my children happy at the cost of my own happiness or the happiness of our family as a whole. I'm not just raising children. I'm raising a family and time spent to that end is truly valuable. 

How do you spend quality time as a family?

PART ONE: How much time should we spend with our kids?

PART THREE: Is it safe to play outside?

The science of parenting: How much time should I spend with my kids?

This is the first part of a series in which I explore whether or not how we FEEL about parenting issues reflects the actual FACTS. 

At least once a week, I have the same conversation. I’ve had this conversation with working moms and stay-at-home moms. It is usually during a meeting or other week night obligation and it always begins with a mommy friend expressing guilt about being away from her kids.

Despite encouragement and reassurance that her kids are fine, I always get the same response, “I just feel like I should BE there.”

Now, let's examine the facts. American mothers spend more time with their children than in any other time in history. If you were born in the 1970s and you currently work full time, there is a strong chance that you spend more time with your children while working full time, then your mom did even if she stayed home. 

Y’all, that is bananas.

We have invented a lot of time-saving technology in the past thirty years but we didn't add more hours to our day! That means we are sacrificing sleep, self-care, and practically ALL of our free time to spend more time with our kids. 

And on top of it all, we still feel guilty!

Well, do we feel guilty for a reason? Were our mothers and their mothers before them absentee parents who harmed their kids? Despite all this additional time, is there a chance our children still need more? 

Turns out. NO.

This week the Journal of Marriage and Family published the first large-scale longitudinal study of parent time which found NO (zero, zilch, nada) positive effects from spending large amounts of time with your children. The study focused specifically on maternal time and found with regards to children ages 3 to 11 it was the quality of time spent with children not the quantity that matters.

Here’s a quote from the study itself.

“Both time mothers spent engaged with and accessible to offspring were assessed. In child-hood and adolescence, the amount of maternal time did not matter for offspring behaviors, emotions, or academics, whereas social status factors were important. ”

— Does the Amount of Time Mothers Spend With Children or Adolescents Matter?

Read that. Read it again. Keep reading it until it sinks in.

The amount of maternal time DID. NOT. MATTER. 

This is what happens when we parent based on emotion instead of facts. I’ve written before about the way in which I let emotions almost ruin my marriage. If I felt like Nicholas didn’t love me, surely that meant Nicholas didn’t love me. 

Turns out. Not so much.

I’ve just recently come to realize that this principle also applies to parenting. Just because I feel like I’m not doing enough for my kids doesn’t mean I’m actually failing my children.

Emotions are based on all manner of input from our own insecurities, experiences from our own childhood, and especially outdated and sexist cultural assumptions about the role of women in the home.

We all to take a step back and look at the science, look at the evidence, look at our own reality.

We might feel guilty for working outside the home but the reality is less time with our kids is not harmful. We might feel like we should spend all our time as stay at home moms engaged with our children but the reality is more doesn't always equal better.

Don't’ get me wrong. Emotions are important. Emotions steer us in the right direction most of the time. However, they cannot be our entire roadmap.

Now, if you actually miss your kids, that's one thing. If you miss your kids, then don't let anyone guilt you into leaving your family. Stay home. Soak 'em up. By all means.

However, in the immortal words of Leslie Knope, “ 'Do you miss your kids while you're at work?' Of course I do. Everybody does. And then, you know, sometimes I don't."

If you don't miss your kids, then STOP FEELING GUILTY ABOUT IT. 

Depending on their age, kids need lots of things. Babies and toddlers do need lots of time to form loving attachments with their primary caregiver. Surprisingly, at the other end of the age range, the study found that more maternal time did have a positive impact on teenagers. (Of course, when you think about the huge biological and psychological growth that happens during those two time periods maybe it’s not that surprising.)

However, from the ages of 3 to 11, your children do not need every single second of your spare time. Assuming your children live with you for 18 years that is HALF of their childhood. 

So, listen to the scientists. Take a break. Take a walk. Heck, take a child-free vacation. 

And leave your guilt behind. 

How much time do you spend with your kids? Do you feel like it's never enough?

PART TWO: How should our kids be spending their time if it's not with us?

PART THREE: Is it safe to play outside?