Allowing kids a little more independence might help quell their anxiety.
 | By Susannah Meadows Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
In Times Opinion, we have been focused on the adolescent mental health crisis for some time, exploring what might be at the root of so much pain and how to find a way out of it. We've looked at the strong evidence that smartphones and social media play a role. In our pages experts have argued that the intense pressure on teens to achieve is making them depressed and anxious, as is growing up at a time when the world feels precarious and hope is hard to come by. It's also clear that the isolation of the pandemic hit young people especially hard. |
This week, as many children return to school, we consider another possible factor in their happiness. In a guest essay, Camilo Ortiz, a psychologist, and Lenore Skenazy, the author of "Free-Range Kids," argue that the decline in childhood independence over recent decades could be negatively affecting their well-being. |
Ortiz and Skenazy note how afternoons spent running around outside have been exchanged for the confinement of hovering parents worried about safety and structured, adult-led activities like tutoring and organized sports meant to ensure success. |
But those efforts may have backfired. "While there could be many reasons our kids are suffering," the authors write, "what if the problem was simply that kids are growing up so overprotected that they're scared of the world?" |
Ortiz and Skenazy also say that the fix should be just as simple: "Start letting them do more things on their own." |
And they report that when Ortiz tested this idea of independence as therapy in a pilot study of five kids ages 9 to 14 with anxiety disorders, the results were overwhelmingly positive. The kids did the things they wanted to do: go to the store, ride the bus, take a younger sibling to the carnival. After the exercise, they went from saying they felt worried most of the time to saying they felt worried only a little bit of the time. |
Given the small number of participants, more study of the approach is needed — but, as Ortiz and Skenazy point out, not before more kids can try it. After all, it's not exactly risky, and it costs nothing. It "could be the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to give kids back the bounce they've lost," they write, offering, finally, some good news on this front. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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