In only three generations, children in the British Isles as well as the United States have lost their freedom to roam, their independently explorable territories shrinking from hundreds of acres to the dimensions of each child’s own back yard. This is not an accusation toward parents; their decisions reflect their judgments about their children’s

Free, unstructured, cheeky, loud, reflective, spontaneous, crazy, attentive, wild play is vital to the health of our children, and also to our ability to reimagine the world. Without it, we are all the poorer, our streets fall silent and our imagination begins to dessicate.