Thank you for making and sharing your graphic. I’m going to print out copies for parents at our fall Back to School night. It’s an incredible resource!
That means so much to me. This is exactly what I hoped the graphic could become: something practical enough to hand to parents, but deep enough to start a bigger conversation about what children actually need to grow. I love the idea of using it at Back to School night because it frames the year around development, not just academics and behavior. Thank you for helping it travel and for your constant support, Adrian!
I spent 35 years working with young children and families, observing as kids worked and worked to climb a tree, providing lots of water, sand, and dirt to mix, allowing children to wade in the brook and gently capture and release frogs, toads, grasshoppers and spiders, guiding them to the secret spots where wild strawberries grew. Bare feet were encouraged, as was agency around risk-taking. My own children ate a lot of sand and dirt, stayed out after dark in the summer playing flashlight tag with their friends, rode their bikes independently around our small village.
There were occasional injuries, dramatic quarrels, a few poor decisions - but all in all, childhoods that felt free. Every child deserves to experience that freedom somehow, to feel the hush in a forest or the fierce wind of an incoming storm.
Thank you so very much for this essay, and your graphic. My older son, now 30 and an elementary school counselor, will be receiving this from me shortly. I hope it evokes similar memories to my own, and supports him in his work. Thank you.
This is such a beautiful description of the kind of childhood so many children are missing: mud, frogs, quarrels, risk, wonder, and the deep bodily memory of freedom. I love the way you named both sides of it: there were injuries and poor decisions, yes, but there was also agency, courage, belonging, and a world large enough for children to grow into themselves. My childhood was exactly the same. The image of your son receiving this as an elementary school counselor means a lot to me, because that is exactly where I hope this work travels. Thank you for carrying that kind of childhood forward.
"There are no kids outside." I'm just coming to terms with this right now Kevin. I have created a loose parts playground, I am ready to be the lifeguard-on-duty but for 6 months I have been trying without luck to get kids to play together with my grandson. Schedules! Everyone is on a schedule. All those parents are doing the best they can in the world they've found themselves in so it just means I have to put my thinking cap back on and come up with a better alternative.
Yes, exactly. That “there are no kids outside” realization is heartbreaking because it shows this is not just a parenting problem, it is an access problem. One family can build the loose parts playground, have the right posture, and be ready to step back, but kids still need other kids and that now often requires rebuilding the social infrastructure first. I love that you are not blaming the other parents/grandparents either, because you are right: most are doing the best they can inside a wildly over-scheduled culture. Sometimes the first step is not creating play itself, but creating the predictable gathering point where play can finally find enough children to begin. Here’s to hoping things turn around soon!
Yes, other parents have also realized that there aren’t kids around, and so in order to be with other kids, they have to schedule it, or participate in some organized activity.
You know what’s fun? Taking a child to a playground and just playing, letting the child dictate what you do, until enough kids have joined so that you can pull back and watch.
And yes, it builds all the skills you mention. Buts it’s also tons of fun.
Absolutely. That is the sweet spot: join them until the play has enough momentum, then quietly become unnecessary. And yes, sometimes in all the research and frameworks, we forget the simplest truth: it is fun. Childhood should build skills, but it should also feel alive, joyful, and a little wonderfully ridiculous.
Adults need recreation and play too! When we grow out of being able to laugh and be silly, we begin to die inside.
This is absolutely brilliant… I love it. There’s just one thing that occurs to me about number one, self regulation and what builds it. I think self regulation starts earlier with attentive parents in infancy and early childhood. Otherwise, they’re going to arrive at this step with deficits already. What do you think?
Yes, I completely agree. Self-regulation begins as co-regulation, with attentive adults helping infants and young children borrow calm before they can generate it on their own. I kept the graphic somewhat open because I wanted it to be useful across settings: schools, pediatrician offices, churches, therapy rooms, YMCA programs, parks departments, and homes. But you are absolutely right that responsive relationships and early attachment are the ground under everything else. I am an elementary teacher, so my focus is always there, but you’re right. I could create an even earlier ages graphic focused on birth-3 years.
That might be a good idea! Train parents how to regulate themselves and regulate their little ones so that when they are ready for school, they are in a good place ☺️ I love where you’re going with this whole thing… Great job!
I absolutely love the framework in the graphic. this will be the first thing I print tomorrow morning to share with teachers and parents.
Under "The Other Adult" paragraph I liked how you made the point of parents are letting their kids go out to play , but there are no kids out there. That is the childhood crisis indeed. If i think back to my time in the 90s, all I did is to play outside with kids of all ages in the neighbourhood, being outside is the norm.
Thank you so much. That “there are no kids outside” line really is the quiet heartbreak at the center of this whole thing, because parents who want more freedom for their kids cannot create a childhood ecosystem by themselves. I love how you are connecting this to referrals too, because before we rush to label, refer, or remediate, we should ask what developmental inputs have been missing. I’ll definitely read your piece, because “look at the whole child before we refer” sounds deeply aligned with what I am trying to name here. Thank you, Amy!
That is a fantastic translation, and I think it opens the door beautifully.
“Play is not a reward for kids behaving. Play is how kids learn to behave” says the whole thing in a way almost anyone can understand. It also gently challenges that old “fun comes after discipline” assumption without attacking people who grew up with it. The deeper truth is that, for children, play is often where discipline, self-control, negotiation, patience, and repair are actually built.
"Children do not always need a plan to gather. Sometimes they need to gather so a plan can appear." I raised my kids in an era that was already starting to schedule the spontaneity out of childhood, and I didn't have language for what we were slowly losing until I read something like this. My grown kids talk about the unplanned afternoons the most, the ones where nothing was organized and everything somehow happened. We protected the inputs without even knowing that's what we were doing. 🤍
Absolutely. That is exactly the kind of childhood we are trying to remember and rebuild. Kids do not always need adults to organize the magic. They just need open time, other kids, and enough room for something to happen.
I love your phrase: “nothing was organized and everything somehow happened.” That is real childhood in one sentence.
"Remember and rebuild" — that's the right framing and I think it matters that it comes from educators and not just parents. My generation stumbled into protecting those inputs mostly by accident, by not yet having enough scheduled alternatives to fill every hour. You all are doing it on purpose, against the current. That's a harder and more important thing. 🤍
That means a lot, and I think you named the shift perfectly. Earlier generations often protected those inputs because childhood still had enough empty space for them to survive by accident. Now the current is moving the other direction, so protecting play, boredom, freedom, and peer life has to become much more intentional. That is why educators matter so much here: if public institutions help rebuild these conditions, it is not just the lucky kids who get them.
I definitely agree and raised my kids this way, some intentionally and some from my understanding and needs of what my job as a parent was (while working full time) and they regularly reflect that back in appreciation (youngest is 18), which is certainly its own validation! And a blessed lack of interest on all our parts in organized anything :) Thank you for laying it all out so understandably - I think that is a great help in being more purposefully and crucially, giving ourselves permission as parents to do it this way
This is so interesting and I can see a lot of ways it could be helpful. I'll have to read through it a couple more times to get everything -- I appreciate the level of thought and work that must have gone into creating this!
Reading the first part made me happy, because the moment you described is actually exactly the kind of moment I look for as a teacher in a Head Start classroom when taking the required anecdotal notes every day, or that I look out for when observing a child with an IEP. The skills of compromise, problem-solving, innovative thinking, negotiation, verbal and non-verbal communication, understanding and responding to other's feelings, storytelling, etc. that occur naturally in play are all things we look for when documenting growth and change. Unstructured child-directed play and time outdoors are also a requirement of the program, as are individualized, child-led learning opportunities. We also learn to step back and avoid intervening in kids’ play when possible, while offering child-led opportunities to practice different skills they're learning. And while there is still room for improvement, of course, it makes me happy to remember that we are supporting kids in important ways that might not have been possible with how Head Start was implemented 40 or 20 or even 10 years ago. (Like the more frequent use of Conscious Discipline, which reframes “problem behaviors” as attempts at connection-seeking, and emphasizes scaffolding when teaching social-emotional skills so that, as teachers, we're interfering as little as possible with the skills that kids are naturally using and learning.
I know the classroom I've worked in isn't a universal representation of how early childhood is viewed/approached across the board, and there is always a lot of room for improvement, but it makes me hopeful to see that these approaches are becoming more normalized and built into early childhood programs, and more researched and talked about in general.
Thanks again for this, I'll definitely be referencing it in the future!
This makes me so happy to read, because early childhood educators have often been carrying this wisdom long before the rest of us found the language for it. I love how you named those “anecdotal note” moments as real evidence of growth, because play is where so many of those skills become visible before they ever become measurable in more formal ways. Head Start, Conscious Discipline, child-led learning, outdoor time, and stepping back instead of constantly intervening all point toward the same truth: children develop best when adults create the conditions, then give them enough room to actually use them. Thank you for doing that work so thoughtfully.
This makes me so happy to read, because early childhood educators have often been carrying this wisdom long before the rest of us found the language for it. I love how you named those “anecdotal note” moments as real evidence of growth, because play is where so many of those skills become visible before they ever become measurable in more formal ways. Head Start, Conscious Discipline, child-led learning, outdoor time, and stepping back instead of constantly intervening all point toward the same truth: children develop best when adults create the conditions, then give them enough room to actually use them. Thank you for doing that work so thoughtfully.
This makes me so happy to read, because early childhood educators have often been carrying this wisdom long before the rest of us found the language for it. I love how you named those “anecdotal note” moments as real evidence of growth, because play is where so many of those skills become visible before they ever become measurable in more formal ways. Head Start, Conscious Discipline, child-led learning, outdoor time, and stepping back instead of constantly intervening all point toward the same truth: children develop best when adults create the conditions, then give them enough room to actually use them. Thank you for doing that work so thoughtfully.
So much of what you have posted about current state of childhood is spot on.
But incomplete. You failed to mention genetics which has a 60% heritability. The past 20 years of behavioral genetic research has proven through twin studies and DNA evidence that there is a genetic default floor for temperament and executive functioning at birth. Temperament traits are the building blocks of executive functions(EF)which are our thinking processes. EF start around three and rapidly evolve until 7, then slow.
On your chart under executive functions, you only list the cool executive functions which have to do with learning. You did not list the hot executive functions which drive behavior and are impulse control, cognitive flexibility, and emotional control. Each child starts at a different level and just as in athletic ability, some can dunk a basketball and some never will.
The Blueprint by Robert Plomin is great reference for behavioral genetics research findings.
Children aren’t born a blank slate, they are pre-programmed.
This is such an important addition, and I agree that children are not blank slates. Genetics, temperament, and starting points matter enormously, and I should make clearer that the framework is not arguing every child begins from the same developmental baseline. My point is more that whatever starting point a child has, the child still needs real opportunities to practice agency, regulation, peer communication, frustration tolerance, and responsibility for those capacities to strengthen. I also appreciate the “hot” executive function feedback, because impulse control, cognitive flexibility, and emotional control absolutely belong in this conversation alongside the more learning-facing parts of EF.
I understand and your post was, as said, right on. I think you will enjoy The Blueprint.
When our culture shifted from a family center to a child center in the 1980’s we listened to
a more global raising children to a focus on Parenting. I feel this shift to parent’s actions lost the goal of preparing for adulthood. Keep up the good work. Parents need to know there are other important variables than their actions.
I really appreciate this, genetics, temperament, culture, neighborhood trust, school design, technology, peer access, and community all shape the child in front of us. I also like your point about the shift from raising children toward “parenting” as a kind of performance, because it can quietly make parents feel like every outcome is solely their responsibility. The better goal, I think, is not perfect parenting, but a whole ecology that helps children grow toward adulthood. Thanks again for the feedback.
Can’t wait to review this article and your graphic again later. Made me think of the best parenting book I read - Hunt Gather Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff, which looked at three modern-day hunter/gatherer societies and how they approach child-rearing.
My kids are grown now, but since they were small I’ve been saying that having adults organize, mediate, officiate their every interaction was not doing anyone any favors. Certainly not the kids, and the extra load wasn’t conducive to great parenting, just exhausted parents.
Thank you for making and sharing your graphic. I’m going to print out copies for parents at our fall Back to School night. It’s an incredible resource!
That means so much to me. This is exactly what I hoped the graphic could become: something practical enough to hand to parents, but deep enough to start a bigger conversation about what children actually need to grow. I love the idea of using it at Back to School night because it frames the year around development, not just academics and behavior. Thank you for helping it travel and for your constant support, Adrian!
I spent 35 years working with young children and families, observing as kids worked and worked to climb a tree, providing lots of water, sand, and dirt to mix, allowing children to wade in the brook and gently capture and release frogs, toads, grasshoppers and spiders, guiding them to the secret spots where wild strawberries grew. Bare feet were encouraged, as was agency around risk-taking. My own children ate a lot of sand and dirt, stayed out after dark in the summer playing flashlight tag with their friends, rode their bikes independently around our small village.
There were occasional injuries, dramatic quarrels, a few poor decisions - but all in all, childhoods that felt free. Every child deserves to experience that freedom somehow, to feel the hush in a forest or the fierce wind of an incoming storm.
Thank you so very much for this essay, and your graphic. My older son, now 30 and an elementary school counselor, will be receiving this from me shortly. I hope it evokes similar memories to my own, and supports him in his work. Thank you.
This is such a beautiful description of the kind of childhood so many children are missing: mud, frogs, quarrels, risk, wonder, and the deep bodily memory of freedom. I love the way you named both sides of it: there were injuries and poor decisions, yes, but there was also agency, courage, belonging, and a world large enough for children to grow into themselves. My childhood was exactly the same. The image of your son receiving this as an elementary school counselor means a lot to me, because that is exactly where I hope this work travels. Thank you for carrying that kind of childhood forward.
"There are no kids outside." I'm just coming to terms with this right now Kevin. I have created a loose parts playground, I am ready to be the lifeguard-on-duty but for 6 months I have been trying without luck to get kids to play together with my grandson. Schedules! Everyone is on a schedule. All those parents are doing the best they can in the world they've found themselves in so it just means I have to put my thinking cap back on and come up with a better alternative.
Yes, exactly. That “there are no kids outside” realization is heartbreaking because it shows this is not just a parenting problem, it is an access problem. One family can build the loose parts playground, have the right posture, and be ready to step back, but kids still need other kids and that now often requires rebuilding the social infrastructure first. I love that you are not blaming the other parents/grandparents either, because you are right: most are doing the best they can inside a wildly over-scheduled culture. Sometimes the first step is not creating play itself, but creating the predictable gathering point where play can finally find enough children to begin. Here’s to hoping things turn around soon!
Yes, other parents have also realized that there aren’t kids around, and so in order to be with other kids, they have to schedule it, or participate in some organized activity.
Julian, consider turning it into a small democratic school. Even 5 kids is enough to get started
You know what’s fun? Taking a child to a playground and just playing, letting the child dictate what you do, until enough kids have joined so that you can pull back and watch.
And yes, it builds all the skills you mention. Buts it’s also tons of fun.
Absolutely. That is the sweet spot: join them until the play has enough momentum, then quietly become unnecessary. And yes, sometimes in all the research and frameworks, we forget the simplest truth: it is fun. Childhood should build skills, but it should also feel alive, joyful, and a little wonderfully ridiculous.
Adults need recreation and play too! When we grow out of being able to laugh and be silly, we begin to die inside.
And some of us never actually became adults even though we aged out in childhood.
Wonderful visual! Thank you!
Thankyou for sharing! This is a very powerful reminder .
This is absolutely brilliant… I love it. There’s just one thing that occurs to me about number one, self regulation and what builds it. I think self regulation starts earlier with attentive parents in infancy and early childhood. Otherwise, they’re going to arrive at this step with deficits already. What do you think?
Yes, I completely agree. Self-regulation begins as co-regulation, with attentive adults helping infants and young children borrow calm before they can generate it on their own. I kept the graphic somewhat open because I wanted it to be useful across settings: schools, pediatrician offices, churches, therapy rooms, YMCA programs, parks departments, and homes. But you are absolutely right that responsive relationships and early attachment are the ground under everything else. I am an elementary teacher, so my focus is always there, but you’re right. I could create an even earlier ages graphic focused on birth-3 years.
That might be a good idea! Train parents how to regulate themselves and regulate their little ones so that when they are ready for school, they are in a good place ☺️ I love where you’re going with this whole thing… Great job!
Grateful for the one page distillation of sources. And I find peace in knowing teachers like you exist. Keep on.
I absolutely love the framework in the graphic. this will be the first thing I print tomorrow morning to share with teachers and parents.
Under "The Other Adult" paragraph I liked how you made the point of parents are letting their kids go out to play , but there are no kids out there. That is the childhood crisis indeed. If i think back to my time in the 90s, all I did is to play outside with kids of all ages in the neighbourhood, being outside is the norm.
Lastly, like you said we need to start deeper questions about the child and address unlying unfulfilled needs before referring as well. I wrote about the rise of referrals here: https://dramysee.substack.com/p/before-we-refer-look-at-the-whole
Thank you so much. That “there are no kids outside” line really is the quiet heartbreak at the center of this whole thing, because parents who want more freedom for their kids cannot create a childhood ecosystem by themselves. I love how you are connecting this to referrals too, because before we rush to label, refer, or remediate, we should ask what developmental inputs have been missing. I’ll definitely read your piece, because “look at the whole child before we refer” sounds deeply aligned with what I am trying to name here. Thank you, Amy!
I've been thinking more about this @kevin.
I've been trying to translate educator tone into something more accessible for my audience.
I want something to crack open the door to deeper conversations.
I'm going to try this...
Play isn’t a reward for kids behaving. Play is how kids learn to behave.
Because it reverses the assumption that older men especially grew up with: “Fun comes after discipline.”
That is a fantastic translation, and I think it opens the door beautifully.
“Play is not a reward for kids behaving. Play is how kids learn to behave” says the whole thing in a way almost anyone can understand. It also gently challenges that old “fun comes after discipline” assumption without attacking people who grew up with it. The deeper truth is that, for children, play is often where discipline, self-control, negotiation, patience, and repair are actually built.
"Children do not always need a plan to gather. Sometimes they need to gather so a plan can appear." I raised my kids in an era that was already starting to schedule the spontaneity out of childhood, and I didn't have language for what we were slowly losing until I read something like this. My grown kids talk about the unplanned afternoons the most, the ones where nothing was organized and everything somehow happened. We protected the inputs without even knowing that's what we were doing. 🤍
Absolutely. That is exactly the kind of childhood we are trying to remember and rebuild. Kids do not always need adults to organize the magic. They just need open time, other kids, and enough room for something to happen.
I love your phrase: “nothing was organized and everything somehow happened.” That is real childhood in one sentence.
"Remember and rebuild" — that's the right framing and I think it matters that it comes from educators and not just parents. My generation stumbled into protecting those inputs mostly by accident, by not yet having enough scheduled alternatives to fill every hour. You all are doing it on purpose, against the current. That's a harder and more important thing. 🤍
That means a lot, and I think you named the shift perfectly. Earlier generations often protected those inputs because childhood still had enough empty space for them to survive by accident. Now the current is moving the other direction, so protecting play, boredom, freedom, and peer life has to become much more intentional. That is why educators matter so much here: if public institutions help rebuild these conditions, it is not just the lucky kids who get them.
I definitely agree and raised my kids this way, some intentionally and some from my understanding and needs of what my job as a parent was (while working full time) and they regularly reflect that back in appreciation (youngest is 18), which is certainly its own validation! And a blessed lack of interest on all our parts in organized anything :) Thank you for laying it all out so understandably - I think that is a great help in being more purposefully and crucially, giving ourselves permission as parents to do it this way
This is so interesting and I can see a lot of ways it could be helpful. I'll have to read through it a couple more times to get everything -- I appreciate the level of thought and work that must have gone into creating this!
Reading the first part made me happy, because the moment you described is actually exactly the kind of moment I look for as a teacher in a Head Start classroom when taking the required anecdotal notes every day, or that I look out for when observing a child with an IEP. The skills of compromise, problem-solving, innovative thinking, negotiation, verbal and non-verbal communication, understanding and responding to other's feelings, storytelling, etc. that occur naturally in play are all things we look for when documenting growth and change. Unstructured child-directed play and time outdoors are also a requirement of the program, as are individualized, child-led learning opportunities. We also learn to step back and avoid intervening in kids’ play when possible, while offering child-led opportunities to practice different skills they're learning. And while there is still room for improvement, of course, it makes me happy to remember that we are supporting kids in important ways that might not have been possible with how Head Start was implemented 40 or 20 or even 10 years ago. (Like the more frequent use of Conscious Discipline, which reframes “problem behaviors” as attempts at connection-seeking, and emphasizes scaffolding when teaching social-emotional skills so that, as teachers, we're interfering as little as possible with the skills that kids are naturally using and learning.
I know the classroom I've worked in isn't a universal representation of how early childhood is viewed/approached across the board, and there is always a lot of room for improvement, but it makes me hopeful to see that these approaches are becoming more normalized and built into early childhood programs, and more researched and talked about in general.
Thanks again for this, I'll definitely be referencing it in the future!
This makes me so happy to read, because early childhood educators have often been carrying this wisdom long before the rest of us found the language for it. I love how you named those “anecdotal note” moments as real evidence of growth, because play is where so many of those skills become visible before they ever become measurable in more formal ways. Head Start, Conscious Discipline, child-led learning, outdoor time, and stepping back instead of constantly intervening all point toward the same truth: children develop best when adults create the conditions, then give them enough room to actually use them. Thank you for doing that work so thoughtfully.
This makes me so happy to read, because early childhood educators have often been carrying this wisdom long before the rest of us found the language for it. I love how you named those “anecdotal note” moments as real evidence of growth, because play is where so many of those skills become visible before they ever become measurable in more formal ways. Head Start, Conscious Discipline, child-led learning, outdoor time, and stepping back instead of constantly intervening all point toward the same truth: children develop best when adults create the conditions, then give them enough room to actually use them. Thank you for doing that work so thoughtfully.
This makes me so happy to read, because early childhood educators have often been carrying this wisdom long before the rest of us found the language for it. I love how you named those “anecdotal note” moments as real evidence of growth, because play is where so many of those skills become visible before they ever become measurable in more formal ways. Head Start, Conscious Discipline, child-led learning, outdoor time, and stepping back instead of constantly intervening all point toward the same truth: children develop best when adults create the conditions, then give them enough room to actually use them. Thank you for doing that work so thoughtfully.
So much of what you have posted about current state of childhood is spot on.
But incomplete. You failed to mention genetics which has a 60% heritability. The past 20 years of behavioral genetic research has proven through twin studies and DNA evidence that there is a genetic default floor for temperament and executive functioning at birth. Temperament traits are the building blocks of executive functions(EF)which are our thinking processes. EF start around three and rapidly evolve until 7, then slow.
On your chart under executive functions, you only list the cool executive functions which have to do with learning. You did not list the hot executive functions which drive behavior and are impulse control, cognitive flexibility, and emotional control. Each child starts at a different level and just as in athletic ability, some can dunk a basketball and some never will.
The Blueprint by Robert Plomin is great reference for behavioral genetics research findings.
Children aren’t born a blank slate, they are pre-programmed.
This is such an important addition, and I agree that children are not blank slates. Genetics, temperament, and starting points matter enormously, and I should make clearer that the framework is not arguing every child begins from the same developmental baseline. My point is more that whatever starting point a child has, the child still needs real opportunities to practice agency, regulation, peer communication, frustration tolerance, and responsibility for those capacities to strengthen. I also appreciate the “hot” executive function feedback, because impulse control, cognitive flexibility, and emotional control absolutely belong in this conversation alongside the more learning-facing parts of EF.
I understand and your post was, as said, right on. I think you will enjoy The Blueprint.
When our culture shifted from a family center to a child center in the 1980’s we listened to
a more global raising children to a focus on Parenting. I feel this shift to parent’s actions lost the goal of preparing for adulthood. Keep up the good work. Parents need to know there are other important variables than their actions.
I really appreciate this, genetics, temperament, culture, neighborhood trust, school design, technology, peer access, and community all shape the child in front of us. I also like your point about the shift from raising children toward “parenting” as a kind of performance, because it can quietly make parents feel like every outcome is solely their responsibility. The better goal, I think, is not perfect parenting, but a whole ecology that helps children grow toward adulthood. Thanks again for the feedback.
I have posted the primary four variables in raising children and tonight will post about the first, the child.
Thanks for the comments and likes
Can’t wait to review this article and your graphic again later. Made me think of the best parenting book I read - Hunt Gather Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff, which looked at three modern-day hunter/gatherer societies and how they approach child-rearing.
My kids are grown now, but since they were small I’ve been saying that having adults organize, mediate, officiate their every interaction was not doing anyone any favors. Certainly not the kids, and the extra load wasn’t conducive to great parenting, just exhausted parents.