Parents: Keep Out!
Psychologist Peter Gray argues that modern societies have dramatically reduced children's opportunities for independent, self-directed play, replacing it with constant adult supervision, structured activities, and academic pressure. Drawing on anthropological work with hunter-gatherer societies, his own research, and personal stories, he explains how free, age-mixed play builds social skills, problem solving, independence, and psychological resilience, and links the loss of such play to rising anxiety and depression in young people. He and host Shankar Vedantam also discuss practical ways for parents, schools, and communities to restore more autonomy and unstructured play to children's lives.
572. Navigating Education, Ideology, and Children | Answer the Call
Michaela hosts a call-in episode with her father, where they answer listener questions about homeschooling, the corruption of K-12 education, ideological capture of schools, art education, and the limits of changing IQ. They discuss how parents can socialize homeschooled children, evaluate and supplement institutional schooling, inoculate kids against woke ideology through broad political and historical education, and the importance of teachers explaining why subjects matter. The episode closes with a reflection on IQ as largely stable, the difficulty of increasing it directly, and the greater importance of building character, wisdom, and motivation through challenging experiences.