Does society get back to non-fearful hands off parenting of kids?

I’ve been reading books and doing research for my job and also for my ability as a parent, I also have my own experiences as a father of two and as someone who works with children and families on a daily basis.

I have become convinced that our society has an over parenting, over protection, and lack of trust problem. Most of you probably grew up with quite a bit more freedom than kids and grandkids enjoy, Especially if you are over 40 (I’m not). Over the past 50 years, and especially rapid in the past 30, parents have become fearful that their children will get hurt or abused if left alone. This has led an increase of “activities” kids have, but a huge decrease and unsupervised free time to play and learn, everything kids do today supervised. Although the reasons for this are good, we want our kids to be set up for success, the result is children who grow up unable to problem solve and fearful of everyone around them that they don’t know.


The issue I am having as a parent who is determined to give my kids more freedom to learn and grow naturally by having freedom and making mistakes, is that they don’t have anybody to do that with. My kids are still too young to wander the neighborhood alone, even by pre-1990’s standards (my oldest is 5). We wander the neighborhood together all the time, and 90% of the time they are the only kids out there. The other day my son was riding his bike, he stopped at a stop sign to let cars go by, and an old lady drove by me and let me know I need to watch over my kid better so he doesn’t get hurt, I was maybe 200ft from him walking with my 2yr old, he was in my sight, and did everything correctly to let the cars pass. That right there is the whole problem, even if I want my kids to be independent and play on their own, there is no one for them to do it with, most kids aren’t allowed any freedom at all, and most adults now a days can’t be bothered or are too worried about repercussions to keep an eye out for other people’s kids. And based on my research, this is true, no matter where you live in America, even in small towns, it is likely that while kids get to play more freely, they still have severe limitations on who they are playing with, and where they can go, they are generally always supervised.

So how do we go back? There is not a group of kids roaming the neighborhood for my kids to play with even if they wanted to, we play with our neighbors a lot but it’s always under parent supervision. We have a group of like-minded parents from our sons, private school, but there is still a general sense of constant supervision most of the time. As a parent who wants freedom for their children, where can you go to find it today?

TLDR: There are almost no opportunities for kids to play unsupervised today, even for parents who want that for their kids, and constant supervision is not the way to turn kids into healthy well adjusted people.