When was the last time you saw a group of kids – without adults – playing on a playground? Forty years ago, the average ten-year-old could expect to walk to school, bike to a friend’s house, or play games with other kids in the street. Today, our children are supervised and controlled at every opportunity. As world-renowned psychology professor Dr Peter Gray shows in Restoring Childhood, kids aren’t depressed and anxious because of social media. Gray offers powerful new evidence to show that social media use is just a symptom of the larger problem: the disappearance of childhood as a stage of life for experimentation, play and learning you can do things on your own. And if we continue to tighten the leash on our kids, no amount of screen-time restriction will reverse the alarming mental health crisis. Restoring Childhood is a radical examination of how societal trends – from strict curricula, to round-the-clock news coverage, to growing wealth inequality – conspired to create a fundamentally anti-child environment. If we want to raise mentally healthy and resilient kids, Gray argues, we must restore childhood to children. We must prioritise adult-free play and the time for it – in our schools, in our neighbourhoods, and as parents.
