Lost Adventures of Childhood: The High Price of Hyper-Parenting

Combining factual data with expert commentary, Lost Adventures of Childhood explores the consequences of children's lives becoming increasingly structured over the past 30 years—with statistics indicating that contemporary kids now spend most of their time indoors, as planned activities trump imaginative play. Fearful moms and dads are not only keeping an ever-closer eye on their offspring—even tracking them via GPS—but are also more likely to enroll them in extracurricular academics or organized competitive sports, in hopes of providing them with advantages down the line. Interviews with parents and kids spotlight the adults' fears and ambitions as well as the stresses faced by overbooked children. Meanwhile, psychologists and teachers note that unsupervised play facilitates the development of mental skills necessary for effective functioning (one goes so far as to say the world's economic future is in peril if children do not learn interpersonal and problem-solving skills that would be acquired naturally through playtime). In a particularly interesting sequence, the film looks at recent scientific studies linking play to brain development, including a project in Great Britain in which children—left alone with a variety of materials and toys—quickly developed social skills that translated to improved learning behaviors in the classroom. Despite occasional melodramatic statements, this thought-provoking documentary is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)