Childhood And Education #19: Letting Kids Be Kids #2

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Childhood And Education #19: Letting Kids Be Kids #2

Zvi Mowshowitz<br>May 19, 2026

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I cannot emphasize enough the need to let kids be kids. In Childhood and Education #16: Letting Kids be Kids, I went over exactly how insane we have gotten about destroying the lives of children and along with them the lives of parents and others forced to devote endless hours to actively destructive supervision.<br>I’ll go over a refresher of that, some related new anecdotes, and then some other related questions.<br>People Don’t Let Kids Do Things

As a refresher, here are some quotes and statistics from last time, because I really do think exposure to this type of thing needs to involve spaced repetition to sink in:<br>A third of people, both parents and non-parents, responded in a survey that it is not appropriate to leave a 13 year old at home for an hour or two, as opposed to when we used to be 11 year olds babysitting for other neighborhood kids.

A third of people said in that same survey that if a 10-year-old is allowed to play alone in the park, there needs to be an investigation by CPS.

Harris Poll: More than half of the kids surveyed have not experienced many real-life experiences on their own. According to the kids surveyed aged 8 to 12 years old:

45% have not walked in a different aisle than their parents at a store

56% have not talked with a neighbor without their parents

61% have not made plans with friends without adults helping them

62% have not walked/biked somewhere (a store, park, school) without an adult

63% have not built a structure outside (for example, a fort or treehouse)

67% have not done work that they’ve been paid for (e.g., mowing lawns, shoveling snow, babysitting)

71% have not used a sharp knife

Lenore Skenazy: During that visit, I was told that children could never be left alone, inside or outside the home—EVEN IN THEIR OWN BEDROOMS—until they were 13 years old. Social Services said specifically that I had to be in each room with them at all times until they were 13. That investigation ended without incident.<br>When I asked what constitutes supervision, she said that I had to be visible to my neighbors when the kids were outside, regardless of whether or not I could see the children. I asked where that was found in the Virginia law. She replied that it isn’t in the Virginia law, but that Social Services has its own set of rules.<br>Bethany: I just sent my 12 year old in to go get a dozen donuts while I waited in the car.<br>“Mom they will wonder why I’m alone.”<br>Polimath: My kids used to love walking to Target until the local Target changed their policy to “no unaccompanied kids under 18”<br>There are 72,000,000 kids in America and about 100 non-governmental kidnappings by strangers a year. If you left your child unattended, the original claim is that they would get kidnapped once every 750,000 years.<br>Maxwell Tabarrok: 37% of all American children are investigated by CPS. 2 million investigations, 530k substantiated cases, and 200k family separations every year.

Half The People Are Worse Than Average

As crazy as the statistics are, the anecdotes show how much worse it can get.<br>The original context here was: A mother was saying she wouldn’t let her 13 year old go to a friend’s house, because they wouldn’t let that mother stay to watch.<br>Whole Blinkin Market: “It’s ok she doesn’t have to go” is FRYING ME.<br>elizabeth: She is THIRTEEN. If she was 16 or 17, yes this would be crazy overbearing. What are they doing at just 13 they don’t want the mom to see? She’s too young to be totally unsupervised. I don’t think this is too much at all. They’re babies.<br>RednBlackSalamander: To give you a sense of how quickly the parenting world has gone insane, I’m a Millennial and my friends and I all worked as babysitters when we were like 12.<br>I double checked the Red Cross website because I feel like I’m being gaslit, but yeah, our babysitter first aid certification class had a minimum age of 11.

Let Your Children Play

Yes, it is actively good for children to learn to entertain themselves, at the earliest age possible. As a bonus, it is also excellent for you the parent, but it’s great for them too.<br>We used to know this. Now we need to be reminded. Last time I emphasized the general argument, here I will follow up with an example of the paranoia we instill about how this might somehow be bad, actually.<br>Girl about something: Is it ACTUALLY true that it’s good for me to let my baby entertain himself, or is it just selfishness because I can be doing something else while he plays? Tell the truth.<br>Based Sipper Wife | Mrs. Tomasone | Already sipped: It’s good for him! You know how people suffer from short attention spans and always needing to be entertained? Every time you let him play uninterrupted, you’re holding off that problem and helping him sustain focus<br>shiloh.: it’s so good, please teach your baby to...