Children have lost the freedom to explore and play independently. They now seek out autonomy in digital landscapes Around 1950, when the developmental psychologist Peter Gray was five years old, his family moved to a new town. He didn't know any of the kids in the neighbourhood, so his mother told him to go door to door and ask if any children lived in each house. He took her advice and, within a few minutes, had found a girl named Ruby Lou, who soon taught him how to ride a bicycle and climb trees. 'During that first summer,' Gray recalls in his book Free to Learn (2013), 'Ruby Lou and I played together almost every day, often all day.' Their adventures took them all across town, often far from the watchful eyes of adults. This kind of independent exploration is the very essence of childhood. But in the past 50 years, the autonomy afforded to many children has vanished. According to results from a 2025 Harris Poll, 62 per cent of American kids aged eight to 12 have never walked or biked somewhere without an adult. Roughly the same percentage have never made plans with friends without adult assistance, and almost half have never walked in a different aisle than their parents at a store. 'I'm not the only person who looks back at childhood and regrets that today's children have less freedom than we did,' Gray writes.