Parents are limiting children’s freedom to play outside

Studies show that children have less freedom to roam outside today than those of previous generations. For example, according to a 1991 study by Sanford Gaster published in the journal Environment and Behavior (cited in Louv, 2005), by 1990, the area around the home in which nine-year-old children were allowed to play unsupervised had shrunk to one-ninth of its size in 1970. Similarly, while 56% of parents today were allowed to walk or bike to school alone when they were ten years old, only 36% of those parents would allow their own children to do the same, according to a TNS Intersearch study reported in American Demographics in 2003 (cited in Louv, 2005).

Source: Louv, R. (2005). Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. New York: Algonquin Books.