the anti-helicopter parent’s plea: let kids play! - whiteboard wall

It was a Friday afternoon at Mike Lanza's house in Menlo Park, California.
The boys are crazy.
There were boys playing on the street while in the backyard the boys strolled at the top of the fence while others wrestled on the trampoline.
The house itself is nothing special.
Modern Square, casual-
But even with the high standards of Silicon Valley, Lanza's game space is extraordinary.
It has a map of the neighborhood painted on the driveway, a fabulous 24 hoursfoot-
Game River-
Installation artwork designed for children's museumand a two-story log-
There is a sleeping attic in the cabin playroom with a whiteboard wall that can be colored and the speakers are very good and can burst out the talking head.
Leo Lanza, 5, was laughing at my children at the time, claiming they were too scared to climb 12 feet to the roof of the game room with a toe butt, then jumped on the trampoline and there was no net around.
My daughter Violet is the only girl there and she continues to decorate the walls of the playroom with a purple marker pen.
"I don't care if you're hurt," she replied lightly.
Her twin brother Kieran's round face turned pink.
"This is not true! ” he wailed.
"I am not afraid.
"My child joined the pre-kindergarten program with Leo, the youngest of the three Lanza boys.
I 've heard a lot about Mike's house, only a few miles from our house, but that Friday-
The pizza party a year and a half ago was my first time there.
Through the glass door in the kitchen, I could see Mike opening a bottle of wine for some guests. Mike is a well-
If it is polarized, the characters in our community are known.
Entrepreneur in his early 50 s, with a boyish smile, big tan eyes and curly salt --and-
Like all the other mid-range, pepper hair, jeans and sneakersaged tech guys.
After three Stanford degreesa B. A. , an M. B. A.
Master's degree in education)
And sell a handful of successful start-ups
Ups, Mike decided to focus on his thoughts on parenting.
He began to write a blog and gave a speech, and finally realized himself.
Published a book called game state, which is the phrase he created to describe the environment of the child he wanted. (
He's also very good at technology.
He created an app, a map. based photo-
The shared service is being released for a week. )
Mike was very convinced of the idea that "children must find their own balance of power.
"He wants his children to be able to create their own society according to their own rules.
He consciously turned the house at home into a place where the child went out to play, spreading the word that even if the home was not at home, the local child could play in the yard at any time.
Mike was unhappy with the typical expensive, well-structured summer camp in the area, and he started his own camp: Yale camp, named after his street, where the children play their own games, and roam nearby.
"Think about your own 10 best memories of your childhood, most of which may involve outdoor free play," Mike likes to say . ".
"How many of them happened with an adult --up around?
I remember growing up.
Ups came over, we stopped playing and waited for them to leave.
But now mothers will never leave.
In Mike's world view, today's boys
His focus is on boys)
Overprotective mothers deprived men of their experience and were allowed to dominate passive fathers.
At the heart of Mike's philosophy is the importance of physical danger: encouraging boys to take risks, play rough games, fall and get-or inflict —
Scratch once or twice
The core of his mother's philosophy (
Can be described in the contemporary philosophy of Parenting)
On the contrary: play well for safety and don't hurt other children or yourself.
Most mothers are reluctant to leave their children's safety to chance.
Of course not.
Mike invited me to drop the kids off-not to hover.
But I can see Leo waving a long rubber tube as if he was going to hit my son and he looked worried.
Under cold pleas, it's clear that Mike thinks I'm putting my son at the risk of becoming what used to be called a sissy --
A concept he regretted.
I think Mike puts his son at risk of being bullied and Mike thinks the label is now used to normal, healthy, childish attacks.
Mike came to the yard with a glass in one hand and a piece of cheese in the other.
His wife, Perla Ni, is a lawyer who directs non-profit organizations and works late.
Mike has a loud, huge and noisy presence there (
Once a neighbor compared him to a Labrador hound, happily trampling on the bushes of everyone)
, Perla is quiet, petite, deliberate and selfcontained.
She is the only child of Chinese immigrants, and she wants her sons to have a lot more fun than she does.
"Well, can you look after it?
I reluctantly packed up my stuff and let Mike go.
"5-Societyyear-
The old people are vulnerable and may fall into barbarism!
"Yes, yes," he replied kindly.
"I am a man who believes in Rousseau's theory --
What is it called?
"About a noble barbarian? ” I said.
"I believe more in the authenticity of the Lord of the Flies.
For the Love of God, can you put your drink down and look at the children?
His smile told me that he had wanted me to leave.
In 2006, when their eldest son, Marco, was 2 years old, Mike and pela began their two-year-old life.
Menlo Park and annual home search near Palo Alto.
They are eager for the classic community Mike recalled from childhood on the east coast of Scott town, a suburb of Pittsburgh.
They lived in San Francisco at the time, but they wanted to move out of town to play.
A version of American children's lives appears in programs such as "little hooligans" and "give to Beaver" where children build forts without supervision and ride bikes outside
No danger, but always lucky in the end. (
The oddity of what has recently been considered a "neighbor" requires new words will only reinforce his point of view. )
Mike is driving on one street after another, unquestioned: kids take a break in a Lego robot class, a Kumon learning center, or diving practice, or walk around the screen at will.
Even though Mike's family has a higher socioeconomic status than when he was a child, he feels his son has the potential to have a bad childhood.
Growing up in the middleclass Italian-
American families in their 1960 s and 70 s, Mike thinks school is boringto-O. K. And after
The time at school to play with the gang was fantastic.
Silicon Valley, like many places, is sports.
Crazy, kids for a year.
Work with a personal trainer.
But Mike felt that organized team sports did not teach him the key life skills he and his friends learned in the pickup game, and that they had to judge themselves.
They are forced to settle their dispute because the game ends if they don't.
He said their focus is not on winning or losing like adults, but on keeping the game going.
Mike recalled that his gang often failed to reach the game quorum.
He says there are two other boys the same age as them, but one is deaf and the other is "regardless of P. C.
A way to describe what used to be called "mental retardation.
He said because they didn't want to "bend all the way to the girl" and gave me a smile, they found a way to change the rules to accommodate the two boys with special needs in the game --
"Not because of an adult.
Mike said they were forced to be "inclusive" but because they were motivated.
Then, when Mike was in seventh grade, his family moved to a better house in a nearby upscale development zone, and the fun was over.
Although the new house is not far from the old house-
All Mike has to do is go up and play with his old friends --
Instead, he watched TV all afternoon, drank Coke and gobbled.
He did not blame his parents.
Bad luck-
Unpredictable anomalies
New developments are not a game.
But today, this is the norm.
The game is almost gone.
"Everyone complains that the children don't have enough free time to indulge in technology," Mike said . ".
"Millions of studies have documented the negative effects of children's lack of free play.
We know the harm.
I asked myself: what am I going to do for my children?
He analyzed the problem like entrepreneurs, treating children as consumers, and treating their time as scarce resources.
Playing outside must compete with screen time. (A typical 2-to-10-year-
Old children spend at least a few hours a day on the screen;
It took more than four Tweens. )
As local families often do, parents who limit screen time tend to compensate for it through a lot of extra-curricular activities and tutoring.
Mike explained that even if a boy wants to play outside, who will he play?
At any given time, there may be a 30% chance that some children play outside. But the so-
The so-called network effect is the behavior of mutual influence between children, which means that 30% may be zero because it is low enough that no boy can rely on it, so the default is his screen-
Resulting in a decrease in percentage.
That is, because other children are not playing outside, the children are not playing outside.
Play outside like Betamax.
Just out of date.
But in the case of gamers, the vicious circle becomes a virtuous circle: most children want to play when there is always another child to play.
As part of Mike's quest for fun in the game, he began his research and visits in different parts of the country, which he thought might fit his vision.
The first place he visited was N Street, Davis, California.
A cluster of about 20 houses that share the land and hold dinner together on a regular basis.
Children wander around freely, through the backyard and play in the collective space: Ping-
Pizza oven at Pong table and community garden.
Mike told me the story of Lucy, a toddler adopted by a single mom living on N Street from China.
When Lucy was three years old, her mother died of cancer.
But before her death, her mother gave each house a fridge magnet with photos of Lucy on it.
When the founder of N Street formally adopted Lucy, the whole community supported her.
Mike pointed out that Lucy's childhood on N Avenue may be similar to the one she might like in a village in rural China, but it is unusual in suburban America.
Lucy knew she had 19 more houses and could walk in and eat some snacks so she could wander around fearlessly.
Mike spent some time near Lehmann square in the Bronx, where grandmothers and other resident organizations watched the streets --
It's too dangerous for children to play outside
And prevent them from creating a community camp of local teenagers and volunteers in the summer.
Mike also found a way to share.
It is located southeast of Portland, Oregon.
, A random intersection, when Dangdang architects mobilized neighbors to transform a condemned house in a corner into a "Klubhouse for children", the intersection became
Air structure with sofa, message board, books-
Solar AC box-
Electric tea table and toys.
Mike is aware of the limitations of the analogy.
Those games are lower. and middle-
Class community;
He and pela live in a house in the Union art district of Menlo Park, with a price of $2 million in the middle of the house. (
Nearby houses in North Palo Alto and Atherton are even more expensive. )
Mike finds himself opposed to the fact that wealth and community spirit often conflict in the United States: The rich believe that part of what they are buying is privacy and the ability to be picky about who they are dealing.
Mike is determined that his children will not only know their neighbors, but will see them every day.
In order to achieve this goal, Mike decided to surround his neighbors and log on to his platform.
He designed the neon lights.
The yellow plastic logo, like those used to warn wet floors, is printed with an icon for children to play and the word Playborhood.
He invited the children to the party and showed them to their parents to put them in the yard and put them on the road in front of the house so that their children could "from” (
We had this sign in our driveway, but my husband accidentally ran it over and the yellow plastic pieces were kept there for months --
He said it was a good reminder of what would happen to children playing on the street. )
Mike made another simple one. but-
Radical move: in an admirable neighborhood with only the front yard, Mike installed a picnic table near the sidewalk, where he and his family often sat, so people passing by have to talk to them.
Mike put a whiteboard on the fence and began to project videos and slides on it, hoping to attract nearby children.
It worked: the dog stopped for a drink in front of a fountain made of a large flat terrazzo shaped ice hockey, and the children strolled down to the game River, people stopped to read the quote on the mosaic that he had an artist designed.
One is the story in the children's book "Big Orange": "Our street is us, we are us.
Our streets are the places we like to go and look like all our dreams.
"Mike also influenced our family.
My kids and I make friends in our neighborhood by playing the Yale camp game, in which we ask neighbors to contribute an ingredient to what turned out to be Apple --pear-blueberry-
Strawberry pie;
We brought each of them a piece while baking.
My daughter loves the game so much that she recently asked to do her birthday cake.
And then, when our next
Door neighbors walked generously through their trampoline and I spread a message that other children are welcome to play in our yard at any time.
Sometimes, when my children are not at home, the tourists will be surprised, they will hear the laughter screaming from our yard, because the children of the neighbors are bouncing around in our fountain, spewing me thanks for Mike's vision.
Mike always says he wants his sons to have a normal childhood, while complaining that his thoughts about normal are no longer normal. His free-time-is-for-goofing-
The atmosphere in Silicon Valley is particularly abnormal.
Despite due respect for Westchester, Silicon Valley may be the most concentrated place for former engineers, executives and other highly educated women who have given up their jobs and turned to support what they saidparenting —
They want results.
Just as Silicon Valley is leading in smartphones, Silicon Valley parents believe they should produce model kids, optimized kids, kids with extra capacity and cool features: Kids with starting pointsups (
Or at least one job);
Doing environmental protection work in Galapagos;
Can speak multiple languages
Demonstrate a golf swing that can be repeated; or sing arias.
To the extent of antics, parents here justify this abnormal ambition by calling for research (
Expand the language center of the brain, etc)
However, the study of the negative impact of micro-management on children was ignored.
"What impressed me was that there was this extraordinary anxiety," Mike told me . ".
"Parents have no fundamental confidence in their offspring.
"He doesn't like to extend the role of parenting to all aspects of the child's life, including controlling the child's hobbies with extreme care, and he says he is keen to be" the opposite of the Tiger's parents ".
"As a libertarian, one of the biggest problems we face in American society is that children do not have enough freedom "--
Children thrive due to benign neglect.
"You see, there is always a power struggle between children and adults," he said . ".
"One way to see it now is that the children are slaughtered.
Adults have so much control over them, which is not good for children.
"In recent years, local parents have often talked about suicides among students at Palo Alto High School.
"Since I moved here eight years ago, I know very well that the children are not happy here," Mike said . " "Suicide is just an extreme example of a broader problem.
He believes that "the poor quality of life for children here" stems from their lack of autonomy.
The basic developmental psychology believes that if children develop a basic feeling, they (
Not their parents)
They are the masters of their own destiny and they will be successful adults who will struggle without this belief: it is easy to get rid of a life that does not really belong to themselves.
Studies have shown that students who control "helicopter" parents are less flexible and more vulnerable to injury, anxiety and self
Conscious, and more likely to take medication due to anxiety or depression.
Also, kids with good time structure
Packed with classes and adults
Supervision activities
The ability to develop their own "executive function" capabilities, design their own plans and execute them, can be more difficult.
Instead, the more time children spend on free play, the more they can develop these abilities.
Mike says he often feels alienated when he talks to other parents.
General currency of dialogue-
Not sports, politics or weather.
It's your child's achievement.
"I have nothing to say in these conversations," Mike said . ".
"Am I going to brag about my kids jumping on a trampoline or do I go to the store myself?
Parents do not measure themselves according to their child's independence as before, but according to their grades.
For me, this is part of how I judge myself.
"The reaction to Mike in the neighborhood is complicated.
When the Lanza family first moved in, Mike had the idea that neighbors on both sides should tear down the fence between the yards for easy play.
But unlike N Street, they all disagree.
Mike complained to me that although the son wanted to see Marco, the neighbor asked Marco not to climb into the yard to see him again.
Many neighbors disapprove of boys playing pickup games on the street, and of young children riding bicycles alone.
Leo was allowed to ride his bike nearby when he was 5 years old, and two years ago, when Nico was in first grade, he was allowed to ride a mile and a half on his bike to school alone.
Mike believes his children have grown up by taking risks.
"Marco was naturally cautious about his body and now he is doing a back flip on the trampoline," Mike told me . ".
"I am proud of it.
He has succeeded.
Other children learn to take risks in our home.
"Mike installed 10 last spring-
Each bedroom of his son has a footladder so that they can climb into the finished attic from a hole in the ceiling.
Perla is not enthusiastic. (
"She doesn't like this man --
"Cave stuff," said Mike. )
She was worried that they would fall.
In fact, once, when Leo was playing in the attic, he fell off the hatch and hit his head.
"For me, it's a head impact, it's a normal part of being a child," Mike said . ".
But Perla thought it was a head injury and took him to the hospital for a scan.
Mike turned his eyes and said, "he's fine . "
Mike told me that people sometimes ask him if he is afraid of a lawsuit if his property is injured.
He said he would never let the fear of being prosecuted determine his way of life.
What about the second one?
I ask the extent of manslaughter: if another child --
Even one of his own.
Jumping from the game room to the trampoline broke his neck. (
No closed trampoline is the main item of the individualinjury law;
It is estimated that 85,000 children under the age of 14 were injured on the trampoline last year. )
Did he worry?
He glanced at me and laughed.
One day in last February, Peter Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College and a fan of Mike's ideas, spent a day watching the Lanza boys play.
When he talked about the critical importance of free games in normal development, Gray said, the audience pointed out that they were selling on the idea, but all the children were on their screens.
He always tells them about Mike's childhood and shows them how parents change their local culture.
As part of Gray's study, he accompanied Mike to school to meet the children.
When Gray and I rode Marco to the park on a skateboard with a friend, Mike rode home with young children.
On the way, they amused themselves by playing tricks on the porch of strangers.
In the park, with the arrival of dusk, with older, more skilled skaters, they wobbled along the steep cement curve.
"All mammals are playing dangerous games," Gray told me . "
"Dangerous Games are the way children learn how to quantify fear.
Not everyone has to learn the quadratic equation.
He pointed out that most people forget the moment they left school anyway --
"But at some point in our lives we are all under pressure and we need to stay calm.
Accidents sometimes occur, "he added. " little goats fall off the cliff or something while playing, but this rarely happens.
If this instinct is not the benefit of evolution, it will be eradicated.
"Well, Mama goat Won't Die of Heartbreak like we did," I said angrily.
He admits that mothers in many societies have a tendency to worry in humans.
"But there is no helicopter hunter --and-gatherer moms!
He said sharply.
"The kids are with their moms until they are 4 and then they are with the other kids and practice by playing the complex skills they need to survive: finding a way out in the jungle, make weapons and identify the source of food.
"I still remember the shock inside me after I picked up my kids at lanzas's house at the end of the pizza party and left them alone for an hour and a half.
On the way home, Kieran announced that he had climbed the roof with Leo.
In fact, twice, once at the party, once at the previous date of the show. “The roof?
The roof of Lanza?
Is there a railing?
Are you with an adult? up?
"Lanza has a multi-storey house with a sloping top and a narrow flat area about 25 feet metres from the ground.
If you fall from the back, you will land on the grass or on the stone terrace.
If you fall from both sides, you will be nailed to the fence or fall into the neighbor's yard.
Cement driveway, car, picnic table or fountain can be seen from the front.
"We climbed up from the attic window!
Kieran said with pride and surprise. “With no grown-up!
"I'm pretty sure it's a very high story and when I saw Mike when I dropped out of school, I was embarrassed to ask him --off.
"I'm sorry you felt uncomfortable about it," he replied flatly as we stood outside the kindergarten.
"But you know, I'm not worried about such a thing.
Perla was more ambiguous, and last spring, when she invited us to play in the house, she assured me that the hatch on the roof --
Open skylight-
It's closed.
In June, we went to a hotel in Lanza.
Celebrate Leo's seventh birthday early and Mark's twelfth birthday in the afternoon.
Once I went to Kieran and went to the attic.
Kieran wasn't there, but I found a group of little boys as I climbed through the open hatch from the roof.
The youngest seems to be around 4 years old.
They looked at me as if I was going to scold them.
I already know Mike's point.
"How likely is it to fall off the roof?
"He argued loudly when we tried to solve the problem before.
Do I know someone who fell off the roof?
Anyway, he said he did not give any restrictions to his children: they were not allowed to play or tag there. "Do you trust them? ” I asked.
"I want to believe them," he replied . ". “I’m O. K.
What I don't want to happen.
My oxygen when my kids have fun.
I am deeply rooted in their hearts and don't run on the roof.
It's an ongoing struggle for me, but if I can trust them honestly, I feel like I 've reached a higher level of parenting.
I believe they will care about my trust.
"Obviously we look at risk in a completely different way.
He considers risk from a probability perspective: How likely is any child to die?
Google has an answer to this question (
About 150 children die each year in the United States from waterfalls on roofs, windows and balconies)
But I know what we think about this number is going to be very different.
In any case, Mike's decision was not limited by statistics.
Mike's philosophy has an eccentric utopian libertarian quality;
Most importantly, he is a person guided by the theory of how his life should be. For him, low-
The probability event is extremely impossible, so it can be negated;
For me, they are the tragedy that comes to someone.
I think playing on the roof is more like taking a lottery ticket and if everyone's kids are playing on the roof someone's kids won't grow up --
I don't want a ticket either.
The real question is: Do you believe that the child who falls will be yours?
After the party, I decided to check out the roof.
I found Kieran and we climbed out of the attic and onto the roof.
I spent the first few seconds evaluating the likelihood that someone would survive the descent (remote)
But then I gave in to the exciting feeling of looking down at the world.
It's like in the top of a castle in a children's book: quilts for houses, yards and streets, dotted with green lawns and light blue swimming pools --
The neighborhood turned into a picture of itself, like a map on Mike's wall.
Below I saw the mosaic on the game River, fountain and driveway, and on the street the kids kicked a ball and forced the car to make way for them.
I saw the animation in the boy's thin body: making the power of an adult --
The upward world bends instantly around them.
I held Kieran's hand tightly and decided not to play there any more.