#48. More Play, Less Therapy
Schools produce anxiety and depression, and then they hire therapists to reduce it.
If schools would stop stressing kids out as they do, and stop preventing them from being kids, our kids wouldn’t need so much therapy!
Would it be too cynical for me to suggest that one reason we look to drugs, therapy, and SEL programs rather than play to solve kids’ problems is because many adults make money from drugs, therapy, and SEL courses, but nobody makes money from play?
What we need is LESS school, not more, and we need to restore long recesses and other opportunities for play and fun in school. Kids need more time to play and just be kids, both in and out of school. Mother Nature designed kids to play, explore, and socialize freely with other kids, without adult intervention, because that is how kids develop the skills, confidence, and attitudes that are necessary for mental health and overall wellbeing, as I and colleagues described, with multiple lines of evidence, in this article published in the Journal of Pediatrics.
