Thanks, Julian. First, I love your line: “If the solution is simply to give play back then I'm going to be a part of that.” That’s it. None of us can change the whole system alone, but we can loosen the grip a little wherever we are - our homes, classrooms, neighborhoods, faith communities, extended families. Every kid who gets more real play, even in tiny doses, is a win for humanity. And you’re totally right to flag the “tiered support framework” line. That’s my educator brain slipping into jargon. A lot of what I’m writing applies just as much to parents, grandparents, counselors, coaches, neighbors, anyone who loves kids. I need to get better at translating “school-speak” into human-speak as this idea travels beyond education! I’m really glad you’re here and pushing on that. Thanks for being part of the “give play back” side of this.
Hi Kevin. Your writing makes so much sense! I’m a retired elementary teacher of 38 years and it rings so true. It made me think about how my grandkids are being raised and what a great job their parents are doing to make sure they have a solid foundation. My time with them is also full of play. Your message is well written! Thanks for this!!
Oh wow, 38 years in elementary school! That’s a whole career of kids you’ve loved and launched. Congratulations!
It means a lot that this rings true to you, and I love hearing that your grandkids are getting that solid foundation of play and real life with their parents and with you. Grandparent time might be one of the last safe harbors for Tier 0 in a lot of kids’ lives.
Thank you for reading, for the kind words, and for all those years you spent in the classroom. Your kids and grandkids are lucky to have you!
So interesting. I'm coming at this from the lens of being the parent of a college student who is struggling to launch and as a long time middle school educator who recently became an elementary school librarian. I've been really baffled by my students' inability to sit and listen to a (funny! age appropriate!) story. I do allow for a lot of free play time in the library because I can see how starved they are for it. My daughter is often slightly reproachful for how hands off we've been in various ways, but I don't subscribe to the idea that I help her grow by protecting her from everything.
I really feel that mix of lenses you’re holding, as a parent watching a young adult struggle to launch and as an educator suddenly staring at a room full of kids who can’t even settle in for a fun read-aloud. That bafflement you’re naming is exactly what pushed me toward Play Deprivation Delay Theory in the first place: if kids are starved for real play and agency, of course they’re wobbly with listening, focus, and frustration tolerance later on. I love that you’re making space for free play in the library anyway, even when it doesn’t “look” academic. That’s probably doing more for their nervous systems than any perfectly curated storytime. And for what it’s worth, your daughter’s mild reproach sounds like a pretty healthy sign. You gave her enough space to have her own opinions and still know you weren’t checked out, just not trying to bubble-wrap her life.
How early can kids be let to figure it out amongst themselves? I’m more or less on team “as early as they start interacting with others” but I feel like *the only one* on that team. My daughter is only 13 months and I don’t mind at all when other toddlers take a toy from her or bump her out of the way, but adults immediately step in to stop it. Obviously I won’t let her get actually hurt, but do age-appropriate slights really need to be corrected? There is a strong social expectation to step in and redirect all her little behaviors. I feel like if we start correcting every minor thing right as they start exploring it only builds as they get older (and lack more and more foundational skills)z Am I wrong in this? Does child-led play and peer interaction start later? How much do you let kids self correct because of social feedback and how much do you step in to shape acceptable behavior? I’m really struggling with this.
You are absolutely not the only one on that team. I’m right there with you. At 13 months, “figuring it out” mostly looks like clumsy grabs, bumps, and confused faces, and that’s okay. My rule of thumb is: step in for safety or true meanness, but not every age-appropriate slight. Instead of swooping in to correct everyone, you can be the calm lifeguard on the edge, stepping in only as-needed.
That way she’s getting exposed to real social friction, but with your nervous system as a safety net, not a referee blowing the whistle on every tiny foul. Over time, that’s exactly what builds the skills everyone is so worried they’ll miss.
Thank you for this comment, I struggle with this, too! I find it really disheartening (and tiring) when parents on playgrounds feel the need to intervene in pretty much every interaction, sometimes even before it starts! Luckily, I sense that my son’s Montessori daycare does a great job of allowing kids experience social friction in a safe way.
Lucy, you're not alone in your observations or experiences. Our western world is full of cautious moms (and dads, I suppose, but the moms seem ubiquitous). I remember meeting a good friend and her 2 kids (about 6 and 3 yes old) after a program, and our kids were running around a grassy lawn near the parking lot. She was constantly calling them back to her and warning them against every little action. My son climbed a small tree nearby (no more than 6ft off the grass) and she nearly had a condition fit. Her son was begging to climb the tree but she ended our conversation and bundled her kids off to the car. I remember shaking my head at her idea of safety. Fast forward to now, her son is 14 and playing lots of sports and is taller than his mom. She has relaxed A LOT. I think she had to learn that being a parent involves calculated risk, and nothing of consequence is learned without a struggle. I hope our society can start broadcasting that message earlier in the parenting journey. I've seen so many kids over the past few years in my education programs and friend groups who are struggling with basic life/social situations and issues. Conversations like the one in this article are critically needed.
Then realize that they're the good ones who are at least bothering to take their kids to the playground which places them already a deviation above the norm. I don't think society is ready to discuss what below the median actually looks like and gets up to and that those kids will be the foundation of the people running tommorow.
Yes, yes and yes. From a mental health counselor seeing families and kids in the US.
Let’s go tier -1 . For this tier 0 to happen we need varied adults available and trusted around: moms at home, extended family around, parents not working 60 hrs a week, trusting neighbor adults - whatever you wish but varied adults, availability and trust Something changed in adulthood availability and trust that changed the ability to provide tier 0.
Definitely. Tier 0 can’t exist if kids don’t have a web of trustworthy, available adults around them, and we’ve quietly shredded a lot of that safety net. I really like this framing because it keeps the focus on how adulthood and community changed - not on “what’s wrong with kids.”
AND adults whose own nervous systems are robust enough to tolerate letting the kids have big emotions, fall down, and otherwise struggle. That's the circular piece of all this - the rapid pace of technological change and the associated state of information overload that *Adults* are living through (way too much information about things over which any individual has no control) means that many adults are struggling to regulate their own emotions enough to be the stable scaffolding kids need. It's an incredibly toxic stew, and one that our pandemic responses exacerbated by disconnecting many from existing social supports and routines.
In fact, I'm tempted to look at Tier -2. The wider society, the economy we have built - or, in many cases, had imposed on us. As a father, I was able - just - to parent my children as a stay-home dad. But this was 25 years ago - and even then there was a huge financial penalty.
On teenagers, to add to Kevin's list of factors, I'd add the steady disappearance of third spaces.
I guess the only available response for ordinary people is as Kevin says: 'Do what we can un our own community.' It's Voltaire's response at the end of Candide: 'In a world gone mad, all we can do is cultivate our garden'.
Also, there is a compounding effect to this: kids who didn’t get to play and have thin regulation, simmering anxiety etc become parents … and … even less tier 0. It increases over time is the point.
Parents are stressed out and play doesn’t intuitively seem like the way to assuage their fears. Fears which are not invented. Some may be exaggeration (crime rates etc) but others (do well in school to go to university and have a decent paying job) are absolutely legit. Many are losing their jobs or worried they will. And AI tsunami is about to hit.
My point is play deprivation delay theory may well be correct, yet addressing it seems like needing to address a larger context though: How to have less stressful lives where we trust each other and let kids play mindlessly but developmentally critically for a while?
Yes, that compounding effect is exactly what I’m trying to name with PDDT too. Kids who grew up underplayed and under-supported become parents in an even harsher, more anxious world, so of course Tier 0 keeps shrinking. You’re right that their fears aren’t made up (money, housing, jobs, college, etc.) that’s real pressure, and “just let them play” can sound tone-deaf if we don’t acknowledge that. For me it’s a both/and: we absolutely need less brutal lives for adults and we can still carve out protected pockets of real, “mindless but critical” play right now in schools, neighborhoods, churches, and communities so this delay cycle does not keep rolling forward unchecked.
So smart. Thank you. I’m sending to my daughter (5th grade teacher) and son (father of two who understands and supports all of this) so that he can understand better the kids his two will meet in school.
I can tell you, as an adjunct teacher at a regional college, the habits of study, patience, and cooperation are absent/unpracticed in many… and these young people aren’t defiant, they are unhappy. Life is lonely if you are looking for companionship but don’t have the skills to cultivate new relationships.
Ground zero for success in college involves so many things we don’t prepare kids for at home or in high school—where I taught for 21 years. The ability to read for long stretches of time and interact with the text, preparing to consider what others think in response, for one. The ability to sustain thinking and conversation about a subject you are unfamiliar with.
And writing… it is a process, not a product. Working through the process is where the joy is…students find it with sustained engagement with their ideas, hopes, and life stories. This practice is hard to accomplish when the cost of college has soared so far out of reach for most that they work full-time jobs while taking a full course load. These are all choices our country has made.
Thanks for providing a clear understanding of what’s needed for little ones.
This is so beautifully put, and it hits me how your comment spans the whole arc, from little kids on the playground to exhausted college students trying to read, think, and connect without a solid foundation. That line about students not being defiant but unhappy really lands - it’s exactly what I see in younger kids too when they’re missing the chance to practice patience, friendship, and sustained effort in low-stakes ways early on. You’re right: these gaps are not accidents, they’re the result of accumulated choices about school, work, society, and the cost of simply trying to learn. Thank you for seeing the through-line so clearly and for carrying this perspective into both high school and college classrooms (and now into your own kids’ work with the next generation).
There seems to be a pervasive feeling of fear in my small community of Colonial Heights, VA! As a Recreation Specialist, I hear it from the parents as a reason why they do not let their children play outside of the house or yard. My wife, a routing coordinator for school transportation, hears it from parents who do not want their children to walk a few houses away to a bus stop. I witnessed, just this morning, parents accompanying or driving their children to a bus stop that is some 50 yards away from their house.
I struggle with this often as my chilhood, I am 65, was nothing like this. Fear was not in our vocabulary, skinned knees and broken bones were but so were endless days of discovery, play and fun. I have written songs about it.
My concern is that this deprivation of play has gone on for so long that the parents of the 5 and 6 year olds have no comprehension of what free play means. Therefore when I speak to them about it, it is like I am speaking of a bygone era that was probably pretty cool, you know “Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn” cool, but not understanding that all of the components are still available if they would only let it happen today!
I think it’s super important to mention that daycare is not good for children. Many think they can sort of advocate for maternal care of infants by encouraging lengthy maternity leave followed by universal childcare. They package this as the way forward to meet the mother’s perceived need to work.
However, only the mother can allow her 1 yo to fall down. Only the mother can see her toddler take a risk and let it happen. Only the mother can see her 6, 4, and 2 yo out on some dirt pile and let whatever happens happen.
The daycare facility CAN NOT do it for reasons that should be obvious to everyone, especially when you consider the ire of that same mother, should her child get hurt at daycare.
Daycare standards, motivated as they must be by dealing with numbers and liability, as well as with staff who are just doing a job (not loving a person), are the drivers of the phenomenon you are describing.
But feminists do not want to hear this and most do not want to say it for the inevitable backlash it causes.
I really appreciate you naming the liability piece out loud. That’s a huge part of this. You’re absolutely right that most daycare settings are structurally pushed toward “no bumps, no bruises, no risk ever,” and that absolutely feeds into the Tier 0 problem I’m trying to describe. When you’re caring for a roomful of kids, under tight regulations, with parents (understandably) on edge, it’s really hard to be the adult who says, “Yeah, you can climb that small obstacle. Where I’d push back is on “only the mother” and “daycare is not good for children” as a blanket rule. I’ve seen kids get rich, risky, dirt-under-the-fingernails childhoods with dads, grandparents, neighbors, and in small, play-forward childcare settings run by people who love those kids fiercely. And I’ve seen at-home setups that are basically all-screen, no-play because parents are exhausted or scared. For me, the real fault line isn’t “mom vs daycare” or “feminists vs mothers,” it’s do the adults around this child have the freedom, support, knowledge, and courage to let them live a real childhood? That’s the system-level piece I’m trying to pry open.
Your Tier 0 way of thinking about how children develop is so important. The matrix of grandparents, dads, big brothers coming home after school to run around with the 3yo, and so on, simply requires a mother who is not off working in some office somewhere.
This is not something I’m speculating about. Look around. These important people are not in kids’ lives, though they were back when… when what?
Like I said, no one wants to say it. But feminism absolutely requires daycare and daycare is already known not to be good for children, nor could it ever be. Once you monetize something as fundamental as how a child grows up, the whole thing devolves into a system that has its own rules.
I’m with you that Tier 0 used to be quietly held up by a whole web of adults and older kids who were simply around and available. We hollowed that out, and kids are paying the price. But I don’t think “moms at home” is the only (or even the main) missing piece. What changed is the entire ecosystem: wages that require two incomes, long commutes, zoning that killed neighborhoods, fear narratives, screens, and school structures that eat up family time. That’s a systems story, not a “mothers working ruined childhood” story.
Great article! Two big questions on my mind that I want to seek answers to are…exactly when and how did free-range childhoods end? What were the causes? Because I think to bring them back will require everyone having a much better understanding of how they went away. How did we lose Tier Zero?
The second question I’m pondering is, how best to restore free-range play to teenagers as opposed to kids of single-digit ages? It feels like more of a challenge with teens, because by that time they’re old enough to get into far more serious trouble. The consequences of just “releasing them” are considerably greater. (Example: your neighbors aren’t as likely to notice your teenagers two miles away and give them a ride home.)
I love these questions because they force us to zoom out from “kids these days” and actually ask, “What did we do to childhood?” Free-range childhood didn’t end on a single date. It was more like death by a thousand cuts: 24-hour news convincing us the rarest tragedies are everywhere all the time, rising college and test anxiety, liability panic, stranger danger assemblies focusing on the worst possible (and wildly rare) of scenarios, and then screens quietly moving into every empty moment. So then we kept kids away from the real world (as Lenore Skenazy says) because, “We thought we were keeping them from dying, but we were really keeping them from living.” Over time, adult fear and busyness just squeezed Tier 0 out of the picture. Naming that story feels like step one in getting any of it back.
On teens, I agree it is harder. You can’t just “set them free” and hope for the best. But the alternative can’t be locking them down while they roam the internet. For teenagers, I think restoring Tier 0 looks more like expanding their real-world radius on purpose: clear boundaries, known places, check-ins, and real responsibilities that matter. In a weird way, giving them more freedom in the real world might actually make them safer than the version we have now, where all the risk is online and invisible.
And yes, those two questions you named really are the heart of it: How did we lose Tier 0, and what does it look like to rebuild it not just for little kids, but for 15-year-olds too?
Thanks @Kevin Stinehart - great response, I agree completely. For my teens, I’m thinking of getting them e-bikes (and teaching them to ride them responsibly). For me as a kid, my bike was freedom and fun—I rode all over the college town where I grew up and even out into the countryside beyond town. Great adventures. And while I wish I could convince my teens to ride human-powered bikes, I know they won’t go for it. <eyeroll> So I’d rather get them e-bikes just to “jumpstart” their mobility and freedom and let them go!
I love this article and observation. AND I don’t think everyone assumes Tier 0 is “just there.” I think it’s absolutely forgotten as a source of value and essential childhood development. I’m so grateful you’ve redrawn my attention to this sea of riches from which children are primed to develop their most important skills and habits.
This is so beautifully put, Sara. Thank you. You’re right to push on that nuance. It’s not that everyone walks around saying, “Tier 0 skills and characteristics will magically take care of itself.” It’s a systems thing - not an individual thing. It’s more that it becomes invisible within our school systems…so we stop protecting it. We race to patch Tier 2 and Tier 3 problems while the sea of riches underneath, the daily play, wandering, boredom, sibling drama, neighborhood adventures quietly shrinks. I love how you named it as a “source of value.” That’s exactly it: Tier 0 isn’t fluff, it’s the factory floor where all those “higher” skills are actually manufactured. I’m really grateful the article helped bring your attention back to that space. The more adults who can see that ocean again, the more chance kids have to actually swim in it.
I was told by a fellow teacher that I'd have to remove 30 minutes out of a total of 90 minutes play for year 1s in order to cover the content for the year.
I'd actually already got approval to extend their daily play by 30 minutes.
Ngā mihi Nui Kevin, really enjoyed the post. Teacher of 12 years here in New Zealand, who has spent most of that time working with year 2 students. So much of what you wrote rings true. When I started I would have 1 or 2 students in a class that struggled with self regulation and resilience. Now it’s more like 1/4 of the class. It feels like more of my day is spent on behaviour management than teaching content.
What are we doing here to fix it? Copying the UK education system, reducing play and worst of all principals are telling ECE educators that they need to spend more time training kids so sit down and listen. It’s heart breaking, I wish I had your hope but after twelve years of politicians trying to score points on education I don’t have it in me. Until we have a cross party agreement amongst politicians to keep politics out of education, as in Finland, I can’t see things getting better.
Wow. This puts language to so much of what I’ve been seeing as a first-grade teacher.
What I keep wondering is how we help schools move from “How do we get kids to comply?” to “How do we give kids more opportunities to develop these skills in the first place?”
If this is really a Tier 0 problem, it seems like the answer isn’t more charts, rewards, consequences, and interventions. It’s rebuilding the kinds of experiences that help children practice frustration, problem-solving, responsibility, and repair.
I’d love to hear more about what that looks like in real schools.
All of this is downstream of community and identity. We've disposed of those notions so that we can be sold an ersatz substitute in the form of fashion and lifestyle then doubled down and literally made it the basis for the continuation of the global economy. Buckle up, there are no brakes on this ride until the larger structural problems completely blow the head clean off the engine. This will be most likely due to incapacitance described because these kids will be in charge and expected to maintain complex systems very soon with completely predictable and unavoidable results.
This feels so self-evidently basic. That to even explain it through the ridiculously named Play Deprivation Delay Theory muddies the waters of obviousness. This isn’t a “deprivation” problem, it’s an encouragement problem. And / or a just-leaving-well-enough-a-&$#@ing-lone problem. The “raised on hose water and neglect” meme to describe Gen-Xers is funny, but true. We were the last free-range generation, reared at the tail end of “children should be seen, but not heard.” Yup, I was neglected (never cruelly, I might add), but I was “allowed” (via being unsupervised) to explore, get dirty, get bruised and knee-skinned, pick scabs, climb trees, and play with nails on construction sites we could easily access and roam around after hours. Not as a teen; as a five- and six-year-old! The foundation isn’t so much about play as it is about allowing for exploration without the hovering of parents, so autonomy, decision-making, and resiliency is learned naturally. Or, to be prissy… organically!
I find it hopeful too. If the solution is simply to give play back then I'm going to be a part of that.
You write, 'Most of us now teach inside some kind of tiered support framework.' Just a reminder that it's not all educators reading your content.
Thanks, Julian. First, I love your line: “If the solution is simply to give play back then I'm going to be a part of that.” That’s it. None of us can change the whole system alone, but we can loosen the grip a little wherever we are - our homes, classrooms, neighborhoods, faith communities, extended families. Every kid who gets more real play, even in tiny doses, is a win for humanity. And you’re totally right to flag the “tiered support framework” line. That’s my educator brain slipping into jargon. A lot of what I’m writing applies just as much to parents, grandparents, counselors, coaches, neighbors, anyone who loves kids. I need to get better at translating “school-speak” into human-speak as this idea travels beyond education! I’m really glad you’re here and pushing on that. Thanks for being part of the “give play back” side of this.
Hi Kevin. Your writing makes so much sense! I’m a retired elementary teacher of 38 years and it rings so true. It made me think about how my grandkids are being raised and what a great job their parents are doing to make sure they have a solid foundation. My time with them is also full of play. Your message is well written! Thanks for this!!
Oh wow, 38 years in elementary school! That’s a whole career of kids you’ve loved and launched. Congratulations!
It means a lot that this rings true to you, and I love hearing that your grandkids are getting that solid foundation of play and real life with their parents and with you. Grandparent time might be one of the last safe harbors for Tier 0 in a lot of kids’ lives.
Thank you for reading, for the kind words, and for all those years you spent in the classroom. Your kids and grandkids are lucky to have you!
So interesting. I'm coming at this from the lens of being the parent of a college student who is struggling to launch and as a long time middle school educator who recently became an elementary school librarian. I've been really baffled by my students' inability to sit and listen to a (funny! age appropriate!) story. I do allow for a lot of free play time in the library because I can see how starved they are for it. My daughter is often slightly reproachful for how hands off we've been in various ways, but I don't subscribe to the idea that I help her grow by protecting her from everything.
I really feel that mix of lenses you’re holding, as a parent watching a young adult struggle to launch and as an educator suddenly staring at a room full of kids who can’t even settle in for a fun read-aloud. That bafflement you’re naming is exactly what pushed me toward Play Deprivation Delay Theory in the first place: if kids are starved for real play and agency, of course they’re wobbly with listening, focus, and frustration tolerance later on. I love that you’re making space for free play in the library anyway, even when it doesn’t “look” academic. That’s probably doing more for their nervous systems than any perfectly curated storytime. And for what it’s worth, your daughter’s mild reproach sounds like a pretty healthy sign. You gave her enough space to have her own opinions and still know you weren’t checked out, just not trying to bubble-wrap her life.
Very insightful— thank you! I love this model, of treating play as tier 0.
Excellent and helpful analysis! Thank you!
How early can kids be let to figure it out amongst themselves? I’m more or less on team “as early as they start interacting with others” but I feel like *the only one* on that team. My daughter is only 13 months and I don’t mind at all when other toddlers take a toy from her or bump her out of the way, but adults immediately step in to stop it. Obviously I won’t let her get actually hurt, but do age-appropriate slights really need to be corrected? There is a strong social expectation to step in and redirect all her little behaviors. I feel like if we start correcting every minor thing right as they start exploring it only builds as they get older (and lack more and more foundational skills)z Am I wrong in this? Does child-led play and peer interaction start later? How much do you let kids self correct because of social feedback and how much do you step in to shape acceptable behavior? I’m really struggling with this.
You are absolutely not the only one on that team. I’m right there with you. At 13 months, “figuring it out” mostly looks like clumsy grabs, bumps, and confused faces, and that’s okay. My rule of thumb is: step in for safety or true meanness, but not every age-appropriate slight. Instead of swooping in to correct everyone, you can be the calm lifeguard on the edge, stepping in only as-needed.
That way she’s getting exposed to real social friction, but with your nervous system as a safety net, not a referee blowing the whistle on every tiny foul. Over time, that’s exactly what builds the skills everyone is so worried they’ll miss.
Thank you for this comment, I struggle with this, too! I find it really disheartening (and tiring) when parents on playgrounds feel the need to intervene in pretty much every interaction, sometimes even before it starts! Luckily, I sense that my son’s Montessori daycare does a great job of allowing kids experience social friction in a safe way.
Lucy, you're not alone in your observations or experiences. Our western world is full of cautious moms (and dads, I suppose, but the moms seem ubiquitous). I remember meeting a good friend and her 2 kids (about 6 and 3 yes old) after a program, and our kids were running around a grassy lawn near the parking lot. She was constantly calling them back to her and warning them against every little action. My son climbed a small tree nearby (no more than 6ft off the grass) and she nearly had a condition fit. Her son was begging to climb the tree but she ended our conversation and bundled her kids off to the car. I remember shaking my head at her idea of safety. Fast forward to now, her son is 14 and playing lots of sports and is taller than his mom. She has relaxed A LOT. I think she had to learn that being a parent involves calculated risk, and nothing of consequence is learned without a struggle. I hope our society can start broadcasting that message earlier in the parenting journey. I've seen so many kids over the past few years in my education programs and friend groups who are struggling with basic life/social situations and issues. Conversations like the one in this article are critically needed.
Then realize that they're the good ones who are at least bothering to take their kids to the playground which places them already a deviation above the norm. I don't think society is ready to discuss what below the median actually looks like and gets up to and that those kids will be the foundation of the people running tommorow.
Yes, yes and yes. From a mental health counselor seeing families and kids in the US.
Let’s go tier -1 . For this tier 0 to happen we need varied adults available and trusted around: moms at home, extended family around, parents not working 60 hrs a week, trusting neighbor adults - whatever you wish but varied adults, availability and trust Something changed in adulthood availability and trust that changed the ability to provide tier 0.
Definitely. Tier 0 can’t exist if kids don’t have a web of trustworthy, available adults around them, and we’ve quietly shredded a lot of that safety net. I really like this framing because it keeps the focus on how adulthood and community changed - not on “what’s wrong with kids.”
AND adults whose own nervous systems are robust enough to tolerate letting the kids have big emotions, fall down, and otherwise struggle. That's the circular piece of all this - the rapid pace of technological change and the associated state of information overload that *Adults* are living through (way too much information about things over which any individual has no control) means that many adults are struggling to regulate their own emotions enough to be the stable scaffolding kids need. It's an incredibly toxic stew, and one that our pandemic responses exacerbated by disconnecting many from existing social supports and routines.
Absolutely right, CN.
In fact, I'm tempted to look at Tier -2. The wider society, the economy we have built - or, in many cases, had imposed on us. As a father, I was able - just - to parent my children as a stay-home dad. But this was 25 years ago - and even then there was a huge financial penalty.
On teenagers, to add to Kevin's list of factors, I'd add the steady disappearance of third spaces.
I guess the only available response for ordinary people is as Kevin says: 'Do what we can un our own community.' It's Voltaire's response at the end of Candide: 'In a world gone mad, all we can do is cultivate our garden'.
(Great piece, Kevin - thanks!)
Also, there is a compounding effect to this: kids who didn’t get to play and have thin regulation, simmering anxiety etc become parents … and … even less tier 0. It increases over time is the point.
Parents are stressed out and play doesn’t intuitively seem like the way to assuage their fears. Fears which are not invented. Some may be exaggeration (crime rates etc) but others (do well in school to go to university and have a decent paying job) are absolutely legit. Many are losing their jobs or worried they will. And AI tsunami is about to hit.
My point is play deprivation delay theory may well be correct, yet addressing it seems like needing to address a larger context though: How to have less stressful lives where we trust each other and let kids play mindlessly but developmentally critically for a while?
Yes, that compounding effect is exactly what I’m trying to name with PDDT too. Kids who grew up underplayed and under-supported become parents in an even harsher, more anxious world, so of course Tier 0 keeps shrinking. You’re right that their fears aren’t made up (money, housing, jobs, college, etc.) that’s real pressure, and “just let them play” can sound tone-deaf if we don’t acknowledge that. For me it’s a both/and: we absolutely need less brutal lives for adults and we can still carve out protected pockets of real, “mindless but critical” play right now in schools, neighborhoods, churches, and communities so this delay cycle does not keep rolling forward unchecked.
So smart. Thank you. I’m sending to my daughter (5th grade teacher) and son (father of two who understands and supports all of this) so that he can understand better the kids his two will meet in school.
I can tell you, as an adjunct teacher at a regional college, the habits of study, patience, and cooperation are absent/unpracticed in many… and these young people aren’t defiant, they are unhappy. Life is lonely if you are looking for companionship but don’t have the skills to cultivate new relationships.
Ground zero for success in college involves so many things we don’t prepare kids for at home or in high school—where I taught for 21 years. The ability to read for long stretches of time and interact with the text, preparing to consider what others think in response, for one. The ability to sustain thinking and conversation about a subject you are unfamiliar with.
And writing… it is a process, not a product. Working through the process is where the joy is…students find it with sustained engagement with their ideas, hopes, and life stories. This practice is hard to accomplish when the cost of college has soared so far out of reach for most that they work full-time jobs while taking a full course load. These are all choices our country has made.
Thanks for providing a clear understanding of what’s needed for little ones.
This is so beautifully put, and it hits me how your comment spans the whole arc, from little kids on the playground to exhausted college students trying to read, think, and connect without a solid foundation. That line about students not being defiant but unhappy really lands - it’s exactly what I see in younger kids too when they’re missing the chance to practice patience, friendship, and sustained effort in low-stakes ways early on. You’re right: these gaps are not accidents, they’re the result of accumulated choices about school, work, society, and the cost of simply trying to learn. Thank you for seeing the through-line so clearly and for carrying this perspective into both high school and college classrooms (and now into your own kids’ work with the next generation).
There seems to be a pervasive feeling of fear in my small community of Colonial Heights, VA! As a Recreation Specialist, I hear it from the parents as a reason why they do not let their children play outside of the house or yard. My wife, a routing coordinator for school transportation, hears it from parents who do not want their children to walk a few houses away to a bus stop. I witnessed, just this morning, parents accompanying or driving their children to a bus stop that is some 50 yards away from their house.
I struggle with this often as my chilhood, I am 65, was nothing like this. Fear was not in our vocabulary, skinned knees and broken bones were but so were endless days of discovery, play and fun. I have written songs about it.
My concern is that this deprivation of play has gone on for so long that the parents of the 5 and 6 year olds have no comprehension of what free play means. Therefore when I speak to them about it, it is like I am speaking of a bygone era that was probably pretty cool, you know “Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn” cool, but not understanding that all of the components are still available if they would only let it happen today!
Very good article.
I think it’s super important to mention that daycare is not good for children. Many think they can sort of advocate for maternal care of infants by encouraging lengthy maternity leave followed by universal childcare. They package this as the way forward to meet the mother’s perceived need to work.
However, only the mother can allow her 1 yo to fall down. Only the mother can see her toddler take a risk and let it happen. Only the mother can see her 6, 4, and 2 yo out on some dirt pile and let whatever happens happen.
The daycare facility CAN NOT do it for reasons that should be obvious to everyone, especially when you consider the ire of that same mother, should her child get hurt at daycare.
Daycare standards, motivated as they must be by dealing with numbers and liability, as well as with staff who are just doing a job (not loving a person), are the drivers of the phenomenon you are describing.
But feminists do not want to hear this and most do not want to say it for the inevitable backlash it causes.
I really appreciate you naming the liability piece out loud. That’s a huge part of this. You’re absolutely right that most daycare settings are structurally pushed toward “no bumps, no bruises, no risk ever,” and that absolutely feeds into the Tier 0 problem I’m trying to describe. When you’re caring for a roomful of kids, under tight regulations, with parents (understandably) on edge, it’s really hard to be the adult who says, “Yeah, you can climb that small obstacle. Where I’d push back is on “only the mother” and “daycare is not good for children” as a blanket rule. I’ve seen kids get rich, risky, dirt-under-the-fingernails childhoods with dads, grandparents, neighbors, and in small, play-forward childcare settings run by people who love those kids fiercely. And I’ve seen at-home setups that are basically all-screen, no-play because parents are exhausted or scared. For me, the real fault line isn’t “mom vs daycare” or “feminists vs mothers,” it’s do the adults around this child have the freedom, support, knowledge, and courage to let them live a real childhood? That’s the system-level piece I’m trying to pry open.
Your Tier 0 way of thinking about how children develop is so important. The matrix of grandparents, dads, big brothers coming home after school to run around with the 3yo, and so on, simply requires a mother who is not off working in some office somewhere.
This is not something I’m speculating about. Look around. These important people are not in kids’ lives, though they were back when… when what?
Like I said, no one wants to say it. But feminism absolutely requires daycare and daycare is already known not to be good for children, nor could it ever be. Once you monetize something as fundamental as how a child grows up, the whole thing devolves into a system that has its own rules.
I’m with you that Tier 0 used to be quietly held up by a whole web of adults and older kids who were simply around and available. We hollowed that out, and kids are paying the price. But I don’t think “moms at home” is the only (or even the main) missing piece. What changed is the entire ecosystem: wages that require two incomes, long commutes, zoning that killed neighborhoods, fear narratives, screens, and school structures that eat up family time. That’s a systems story, not a “mothers working ruined childhood” story.
Great article! Two big questions on my mind that I want to seek answers to are…exactly when and how did free-range childhoods end? What were the causes? Because I think to bring them back will require everyone having a much better understanding of how they went away. How did we lose Tier Zero?
The second question I’m pondering is, how best to restore free-range play to teenagers as opposed to kids of single-digit ages? It feels like more of a challenge with teens, because by that time they’re old enough to get into far more serious trouble. The consequences of just “releasing them” are considerably greater. (Example: your neighbors aren’t as likely to notice your teenagers two miles away and give them a ride home.)
I love these questions because they force us to zoom out from “kids these days” and actually ask, “What did we do to childhood?” Free-range childhood didn’t end on a single date. It was more like death by a thousand cuts: 24-hour news convincing us the rarest tragedies are everywhere all the time, rising college and test anxiety, liability panic, stranger danger assemblies focusing on the worst possible (and wildly rare) of scenarios, and then screens quietly moving into every empty moment. So then we kept kids away from the real world (as Lenore Skenazy says) because, “We thought we were keeping them from dying, but we were really keeping them from living.” Over time, adult fear and busyness just squeezed Tier 0 out of the picture. Naming that story feels like step one in getting any of it back.
On teens, I agree it is harder. You can’t just “set them free” and hope for the best. But the alternative can’t be locking them down while they roam the internet. For teenagers, I think restoring Tier 0 looks more like expanding their real-world radius on purpose: clear boundaries, known places, check-ins, and real responsibilities that matter. In a weird way, giving them more freedom in the real world might actually make them safer than the version we have now, where all the risk is online and invisible.
And yes, those two questions you named really are the heart of it: How did we lose Tier 0, and what does it look like to rebuild it not just for little kids, but for 15-year-olds too?
Thanks @Kevin Stinehart - great response, I agree completely. For my teens, I’m thinking of getting them e-bikes (and teaching them to ride them responsibly). For me as a kid, my bike was freedom and fun—I rode all over the college town where I grew up and even out into the countryside beyond town. Great adventures. And while I wish I could convince my teens to ride human-powered bikes, I know they won’t go for it. <eyeroll> So I’d rather get them e-bikes just to “jumpstart” their mobility and freedom and let them go!
I have the same questions! Regarding question 2, though, I wonder if the fear of “more serious trouble” is the more serious trouble.
I love this article and observation. AND I don’t think everyone assumes Tier 0 is “just there.” I think it’s absolutely forgotten as a source of value and essential childhood development. I’m so grateful you’ve redrawn my attention to this sea of riches from which children are primed to develop their most important skills and habits.
This is so beautifully put, Sara. Thank you. You’re right to push on that nuance. It’s not that everyone walks around saying, “Tier 0 skills and characteristics will magically take care of itself.” It’s a systems thing - not an individual thing. It’s more that it becomes invisible within our school systems…so we stop protecting it. We race to patch Tier 2 and Tier 3 problems while the sea of riches underneath, the daily play, wandering, boredom, sibling drama, neighborhood adventures quietly shrinks. I love how you named it as a “source of value.” That’s exactly it: Tier 0 isn’t fluff, it’s the factory floor where all those “higher” skills are actually manufactured. I’m really grateful the article helped bring your attention back to that space. The more adults who can see that ocean again, the more chance kids have to actually swim in it.
I cherish the opportunity to be more thoughtful about something right in our faces, yet not!
I was told by a fellow teacher that I'd have to remove 30 minutes out of a total of 90 minutes play for year 1s in order to cover the content for the year.
I'd actually already got approval to extend their daily play by 30 minutes.
Ngā mihi Nui Kevin, really enjoyed the post. Teacher of 12 years here in New Zealand, who has spent most of that time working with year 2 students. So much of what you wrote rings true. When I started I would have 1 or 2 students in a class that struggled with self regulation and resilience. Now it’s more like 1/4 of the class. It feels like more of my day is spent on behaviour management than teaching content.
What are we doing here to fix it? Copying the UK education system, reducing play and worst of all principals are telling ECE educators that they need to spend more time training kids so sit down and listen. It’s heart breaking, I wish I had your hope but after twelve years of politicians trying to score points on education I don’t have it in me. Until we have a cross party agreement amongst politicians to keep politics out of education, as in Finland, I can’t see things getting better.
Wow. This puts language to so much of what I’ve been seeing as a first-grade teacher.
What I keep wondering is how we help schools move from “How do we get kids to comply?” to “How do we give kids more opportunities to develop these skills in the first place?”
If this is really a Tier 0 problem, it seems like the answer isn’t more charts, rewards, consequences, and interventions. It’s rebuilding the kinds of experiences that help children practice frustration, problem-solving, responsibility, and repair.
I’d love to hear more about what that looks like in real schools.
All of this is downstream of community and identity. We've disposed of those notions so that we can be sold an ersatz substitute in the form of fashion and lifestyle then doubled down and literally made it the basis for the continuation of the global economy. Buckle up, there are no brakes on this ride until the larger structural problems completely blow the head clean off the engine. This will be most likely due to incapacitance described because these kids will be in charge and expected to maintain complex systems very soon with completely predictable and unavoidable results.
This feels so self-evidently basic. That to even explain it through the ridiculously named Play Deprivation Delay Theory muddies the waters of obviousness. This isn’t a “deprivation” problem, it’s an encouragement problem. And / or a just-leaving-well-enough-a-&$#@ing-lone problem. The “raised on hose water and neglect” meme to describe Gen-Xers is funny, but true. We were the last free-range generation, reared at the tail end of “children should be seen, but not heard.” Yup, I was neglected (never cruelly, I might add), but I was “allowed” (via being unsupervised) to explore, get dirty, get bruised and knee-skinned, pick scabs, climb trees, and play with nails on construction sites we could easily access and roam around after hours. Not as a teen; as a five- and six-year-old! The foundation isn’t so much about play as it is about allowing for exploration without the hovering of parents, so autonomy, decision-making, and resiliency is learned naturally. Or, to be prissy… organically!