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!
I love that you are talking about this topic Amber! I think it is really so important. It reminds me of how I would go to the A&W drive-in as a kid that backed up to an old trailer park in a not-so-nice part of town and feel envy of the kids who lived there. I saw them running around, from home to home, in the street. Parents hanging out on the porch or the steps or sticking their heads out the windows every so often. We didn’t live in a fancy neighborhood by any means, but my mom was pretty strict being that we lived on a pretty busy street with lots of traffic and most of our neighbors were older with adult children. This meant that seeing these packs of kids at the trailer park looked awfully tempting to me.
Our current living situation has so many pros and cons-we live on a back road on several acres, so my kids can explore pretty freely, especially my 12 year old. She climbs trees, explores the old barns in the woods, plays in the creek, takes care of the animals. They all have a ton of unstructured play outside and I have NO problem letting them figure out how to be bored 😂
But-we are a little isolated. I don’t feel comfortable letting my daughter ride her bike on the road alone for safety reasons (like no sidewalks and blind turns). Like my own childhood, most of the neighbors are either older with grown kids or childless so she has no one close by to play with. We have a few local dogs that are allowed to roam that I don’t trust. It’s a strange sort of spot, with both million dollar horse ranches and trailers with no electric hooked up and obvious drug activity happening in equal measure.
For our situation, I must be intentional about curating and facilitating time with friends for my older child while also encouraging that time to be instructed. With my younger children, they at least have one another. I knew this was going to be a trade off when moving here but I won’t lie, it is hard!
I appreciate what you said about not caring about being judged for being less worried about safety. I’ve always been one to let my kids play pretty freely at the playground and don’t necessarily jump when they get a minor bump or bruise. I tend to try and let them figure things out between themselves and other kids. But then I feel other parents watching me do this and sometimes act differently according to that feeling of being judged. So that was a good reminder to hold steady and be confident.
***related, my Dad grew up in one of the first consciously planned neighborhoods in the U.S. that made sure to include green space, parks, a pool, schools, churches, and a community center in its development, built in the 50s. It was designed on purpose to be very walkable-to be not only accessible to cars but more so for walking. Lots of sidewalks were included, included to a neighborhood grocery store, little parks etc. There was a ton of green space as well. The area behind my grandparent’s home was a almost like a huge shared backyard with a valley going down to a creek with multiple little trails neighborhood kids had made over the years. My parents even met at the neighborhood bar! This same neighborhood was bought out by the nearby airport and all of the house demolished due to “noise pollution”, and there is a thriving Facebook group of past residents who all tell stories about growing up there, share photos and nostalgia. The way people still talk about growing up there as kids (my Dad included), wild and full of opportunities and things to do, running from yard to yard-and how connected all of these people still are so many years later really is a testament to how special it was. I share this to validate the conscious work you and your husband are doing to make this happen not only for your own kids but the kids they are growing up alongside as well!