How to create a free-range neighbhorhood
What we've got going on and what's worked for us
Unless you’ve been living under a rock I’m sure you’ve heard about Jonathan Haidt’s newest work, The Anxious Generation, in which he discusses the mental health of our young people and makes recommendations for our culture moving forward. One of his central claims is that we have overprotected children in the physical world and under-protected them in the virtual world.
I haven’t read Jonathan’s book, but I’m an American parent, and I feel this deep in my bones.
I also remember reading a book about a decade or so ago called Free-Range Kids. I wasn’t a mother yet, but I knew I wanted to think about how I wanted my kids to grow up. A friend recommended the book, and I loved it. I didn’t grow up in an urban setting (on the contrary; I’m a farm kid!), but I did have a lot of unstructured time outdoors where I made decisions about where to go and what to do.
I wrote for Business Insider’s Parenting section last week about our neighborhood here in the small Midwestern town where we live. Because we both grew up with free outdoor play in our own childhoods, my husband and I have tried to intentionally cultivate a vibe of free, unsupervised play among the children in our neighborhood. It’s been a really positive thing for both us and our kids.
The article came out this past weekend, and I wanted to expand on this a bit and talk in more detail about what it actually took to get to this point.
American childhood is slipping away. But you can do something about it. You can give your kids less freedom on screens and more freedom in the real world, and a great step toward that is letting them play outside unsupervised. The places we live vary so much—so take what feels helpful or relevant and leave what doesn’t—but based on our experience, here are four things it takes to build this type of culture in a neighborhood.
Embracing the challenge.
It’s countercultural these days to let your kids play freely outside. It just is. So at first, people might think you’re weird. It definitely takes a boldness, but you gotta get out there. Be friendly. Hold the vision. (My husband is fond of saying “you have to show people how fun it can be.”1) Kids may also take time to adjust to unstructured play. Many kids are used to a lot of stimulation and schedules (being told what to do when), so this type of vibe can be a change! Be patient and let them be “bored.”
Building trust.
Because of the way things are these days, parents are likely to be hesitant at first. They may be concerned about their kids’ well-being. Is this okay? Are the kids safe? If they’re not overly concerned with safety, they may be concerned with judgment for not being concerned about their safety (it’s exhausting being a parent these days, lol). So it’s important to go confidently lead the way and set a tone that you’re not afraid of being judged and you’re not judging anyone, either. For us, this involved us being outside a lot as a family in the beginning and kids wandering over, along with a lot of repeated messaging: They’re fine! We’re happy to have them play here! We’re good with it as long as you are! You’re welcome to join us! etc.
Communicating.
Open and ongoing communication is key. At this point, many texts go back and forth as well as in-person interactions as we continue to build trust and routine. It’s also important for certain messages to be communicated, like the kids understanding that their mom and dad aren’t the only people they need to listen to and can rely on—that we all can (and want to!) be caring adults in their lives. Parents also need to communicate their expectations to their kids (e.g. no going inside someone’s house to play unless you come and ask us) and then communicate those expectations to other parents. It’s a lot at first, but it gets easier as you get to know people’s rules and preferences. You never stop communicating though, which is honestly great practice as adults aren’t always great in the (very important!) area of communication skills. As I mentioned in the article, just the other day a neighbor set some new summer boundaries for her property based on a few new kids in the mix and some self-reflection on what she was comfortable with. The warm but straightforward communication was well-received by all.
Being okay with imperfection.
Even as things get established, there will likely be tricky situations that arise. We had an incident with pets one time that involved tears on all sides. Thankfully no pets were harmed2, and it was a good teachable moment. It’s important to see things like conflict and hurt feelings and mistakes as a normal part of life, and furthermore as an opportunity to practice real relationship, which includes apology and forgiveness.
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We’re thrilled to have a vibrant family neighborhood and a norm of unstructured time outside. As I say in the article, it’s not just good for the kids; it’s good for us as parents. We don’t feel pressure to constantly entertain our kids, and we’ve gotten to know our neighbors. A new problem we’re actually starting to deal with is our kids wanting to always be outside seeing who’s available to play! We’ve had to reign it in a little and make sure we’re still making room for family time.
A vibrant neighborhood with kids running around and adults in relationship feels like the way things should be, yet it’s something that has largely disappeared from modern life.
If parents wish to preserve childhood for their children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture.
Neil Postman wrote in the 90s, “If parents wish to preserve childhood for their children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture.” I couldn’t agree more. The norms of modern (American) culture are screens and busy, scheduled lives and fearmongering at every turn. We can’t change culture on a macro-level, but we can change it on the micro. We can lead the way in our own neighborhood.
What is your neighborhood like? Do kids roam freely or play outside without supervision at all? Is this something you’d like to try or feel is doable?
He doesn’t like that I wrote this; he thinks it sounds arrogant. So I’d like to clarify that his confidence in how fun free outdoor play is comes from his growing up in a large family and on an acreage, which I talk more about in the linked BI article.
Truly, we’re thankful, as two pets were put inside a bucket together and left there. Things like this will happen. Unstructured play increases creativity, and sometimes creativity… well… lol.
My kids aren’t old enough to play unsupervised yet (2yrs and 4 months), but I and my siblings were free range (some would say feral) children. There were six of us so we were like a small troop on our own. We used to climb trees and make dens and build rafts in ponds and stuff like that. It was awesome!
Yes, I love this. Over the last couple of years we’ve created this in our neighborhood as well. It started with me sending my kids outside to play in the street in front of our house (which is pretty quiet and safe) in the afternoon after lunch (we homeschool). Ive intentionally gathering things over the years for them to play with: scooters, bikes, jump ropes, sidewalk chalk, all different kinds of balls, rollerblades etc. So after a couple years of people regularly seeing my kids outside like this other kids started to join them after they get home from school. We also have a small, very simple park a couple blocks away that I would take them to a lot. These days they play there or in the streets with the neighborhood kids for hours every day (the only kids who are supervised there are the toddlers/preschoolers and there’s a big range of ages playing together). A lot of the time they make up big group games too- today a grandma apparently brought balloons and string to the park and they all played a game where they tied the balloons onto themselves and others tried to pop them. They had a blast! Most of the adults in the neighborhood love the kids running around being kids and keep an eye out for them. It’s become one of my favorite things about living here and a big reason we stay. I’m a big believer in this kind of childhood and know it can be done!