Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children's Mental Well-Being: Summary of the Evidence
From the Journal of Pediatrics
The article argues that rising rates of depression and anxiety among minors might be caused by the declining opportunities for kids to play without adult supervision. I cannot see the whole article but there is an correlation for which there is apparently some theoretical basis.
I know that growing up in the 1960s and 1970s my peers and I enjoyed enormous freedom of motion and decision-making. (Stranger danger had not yet taken over our society.) That we lived to adulthood often surprises me especially after the incident where we inflated an 8' surplus balloon with hydrogen; attached a strip of magnesium ribbon to it; and failed to light it. And the Bicentennial celebration where we last saw the beer can headed up and out to sea. The mortar tube had expanded quite impressively in the wet sand. Oh yes, the pound of sodium metal in the Pacific Ocean. Breaking into ARPAnet. Application of contact explosive (nitrogen tri-iodide) to doorknobs at our school.
Who could get depressed? We were having fun.
I tried filling garbage bags with hydrogen and oxygen, then shooting bottle rockets at them. Pure hydrogen just went "whoosh", rather feebly. But when I got a 2 H2 to 1 O2 mix, BOOM! (Not when I was a boy; it was during my second childhood a few years ago.)
ReplyDelete