I cannot emphasize enough the need to let kids be kids. In Childhood and Education #16: Letting Kids be Kids, I went over exactly how insane we have gotten about destroying the lives of children and along with them the lives of parents and others forced to devote endless hours to actively destructive supervision.

I’ll go over a refresher of that, some related new anecdotes, and then some other related questions.

People Don’t Let Kids Do Things

As a refresher, here are some quotes and statistics from last time, because I really do think exposure to this type of thing needs to involve spaced repetition to sink in:

A third of people, both parents and non-parents, responded in a survey that it is not appropriate to leave a 13 year old at home for an hour or two, as opposed to when we used to be 11 year olds babysitting for other neighborhood kids.
A third of people said in that same survey that if a 10-year-old is allowed to play alone in the park, there needs to be an investigation by CPS.

Harris Poll: More than half of the kids [...]

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Outline:

(00:37) People Don't Let Kids Do Things

(03:37) Half The People Are Worse Than Average

(04:42) Let Your Children Play

(06:09) Don't Fear The CPS

(10:52) Daycare

(14:06) Daycare Costs

(16:29) Lying

(18:56) Iterated Games

(19:40) Different Kids Are Different

(20:35) Punishments

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First published:
May 20th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ytoLzgKHutaKxkRZr/childhood-and-education-19-letting-kids-be-kids-2

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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