How to Get Kids Out and About in Your Town

I live in one of the few towns in America determined to give kids a normal, old-fashioned, go-outside-and-play childhood. It’s not that we never left the 1970’s — we’ve worked to get here.

Oddly, I can trace our town’s spark of passion for Free Play back to Europe in 2012. Our family was moving from Switzerland to the countryside outside of London (our third international move in five years). With an eye toward coming back to the US soon, we enrolled our kids in an American International School instead of the local schools they had attended abroad. 

But as I read through the orientation materials, I was taken aback by two things. One, they supplied an ADD medication form for each of my three children. And two, the safety rules on the premises stated that kids were not allowed to play with sticks or climb trees. My concern began.

Sure enough, when we moved back to America and threw ourselves into “going local,” the whole family suffered. 

Recess was a constant thorn  —  from how short it was, to rules about wearing coats and gloves, to safety limits on what the kids could and couldn’t play with, to the worst: recess being taken away due to bad weather or a classmate’s poor behavior.

Well, at least the kids could play after school, right?

Not easily. Organized sports and activities left little unscheduled time. And even when my kids were free, their classmates weren’t, so there was literally “no one to play with.” 

And it wasn’t just my own kids who were suffering. Through my volunteer work as a parent support group facilitator for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and as president of the Wilton Youth Council, I saw the breadth and depth of anxiety and depression in children, teens and young adults — their social and emotional struggles, the drugs they were taking (including opioids), and, tragically, the increase in suicide.

Meantime, I ran myself ragged ferrying my own kids around. One memorable week I counted thirty-seven drop-offs and pick-ups from activities, sports and school. I was exhausted. When a local mom posted about her much-needed, mid-activity-shuttling cocktail on social media, I knew it wasn’t just me — and that it wasn’t healthy.

I dove into researching recess and play in America. What I found was enlightening, powerful and disturbing because it turns out the vast majority of American kids weren’t getting what they needed. Conversely those outlier schools that were making recess a priority were not only seeing improvements in behavior and well-being, but improved grades as well!  

When a colleague and I attended a powerful presentation by Dr. Peter Gray on the alarming impact of “Play Deficit Disorder,” we realized that we needed to do more than just host a parent education event. We needed to shift the culture. That was in 2016. 

In 2017, we organized a Community Conversation Breakfast with another presentation by Dr. Peter Gray, this one on the “Importance of Free Play.”

Our little team of four blanketed the town with personalized invitations, outlining the benefits of play.

We invited: 

After the talk, we had incredible buy-in, most notably from our district superintendent, who announced, “I’m in.” We founded a “Wilton Free Play Matters Task Force” with the mission to inspire and educate the community about the critical importance of play, and to help create more play and “free-range” opportunities for children. 

We divided ourselves into three committees: 

Dr. Gray introduced us to Let Grow, the nonprofit he had newly co-founded, and we were thrilled to have some actionable next steps. The task force continued its mission by:

And it worked! Kids are really outside more now, going to stores, riding their bikes, playing. Our success can be attributed to: 

Our collaboration empowered parents and schools to value and prioritize play and gave parents permission and strength to let go a little — without the fear of judgment from others.

It gave the whole community a chance to reach out and connect with each other, as well as a new vernacular: “That’s a Let Grow kid” or, “Time to Let Grow, right?”

Now we are a community that better understands the very real risks of overprotecting our kids. Our town – and our kids – are stronger for it.

Vanessa offers the following services through Thrive with a Guide, LLC: one-on-one coaching, contributing writer and columnist, workshop facilitator, panelist, and speaker. 

Photo is of kids walking on their own in Wilton, CT.

Please drop a note to [email protected] as you embark on this journey, too. We want to hear!