In a kronik in the Danish daily Politiken, the chair of the International Play Association Denmark and the secretary-general of UNICEF Denmark argue that childhood needs ‘a little more chaos and mess.’ Their point: until recently, childhood was defined by the freedom to discover the world by trial and error; in recent decades, well-meaning protection has gradually taken that freedom away. Children, they write, do not become robust by being shielded from the world but by experiencing it with others.
What is interesting is who is saying it. The call for risk, mess and unsupervised experience is coming not from contrarians but from the institutions charged with children’s welfare — at the height of a public debate about young people’s wellbeing. When UNICEF argues for less shielding, the pendulum on protective parenting is visibly turning; resilience is being reframed as something children build, not something adults install.
So…:
Where could less protection — not more — be what actually builds your users’ confidence?
Source:
Picture:
Spider.Dog / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)