Ashley Burnett

PSY 218
Article Review
08/26/15
Results of Decline in Free Play

The amount of young people suffering from depression, anxiety, and other mental

disorders has risen dramatically in the last fifty years. Questionnaires have been given to

adolescents and college age students to assess mental disorders. The Minnesota Mutliphasic

Personality Inventory, MMPI given to college students started back in 1938 and the MMPI-A for

high school age began in 1951. Anxiety and depression in youth were lower during the Great

Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the tumultuous sixties and seventies.

In the early 50s Julien Rotter developed a questionnaire called the Internal-External

Locus of Control Scale. What controls you? Do you have control or does circumstance around

you control you? Scores have shifted dramatically from Internal to External over the years. This

external thought process creates anxiety. What will happen to me today? I cant control it.

Extrinsic meaning materialistic and intrinsic meaning rewards within. Goals have also shifted

from Intrinsic to Extrinsic. Being well off and having material things is much more important

than developing a meaningful philosophy of life.

Which leads us to the decline of free play. We deprive children from free play. They are

constantly being directed and controlled in school, sports, and other extracurricular activities.

This takes the joy out of learning and their sense of self-control. They are not in control which

creates anxiety. Discovering and exploring things they are interested in and love is not promoted.

This increases the chances for anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders. Children spend

each day at school where tests and grades are being given more and more priority than learning.
Outside of school they spend more time being directed, ranked, judged, and rewarded by adults.

In all of the settings adults are in control. What matters is the teacher, coaches, or leader choices

for them.

Children are spending more time in settings where they feel unhappy or not good enough.

This article is saying we are creating a generation of anxiety ridden and depressed young adults.

There are some democratic schools or unschoolers which encourage free play. They let self-

directed exploration prevail. Given the freedom without being directed, young people educate

themselves in a happy, joyful way. These students also develop internal values, self-control, and

emotional well-being. We put way too much stress on our children these days to succeed in

school and sports when we should just let them be children and play.

The Decline of Play and Rise in Childrens Mental Disorders. Peter Gray, Freedom to Learn,

2010.

Peter Gray, Ph.D. is a research professor at Boston College.