Tag: child development

The older you get, the more you notice how much society changes.

One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen in our Western world is this thing called anxiety.

When I was young, it wasn’t a word that got thrown around the way it does now. Of course we got nervous — before a test, before speaking in front of a group, before doing something new. That’s normal. That’s part of being human.

But now the word anxiety is everywhere. It’s almost a badge. Who has more of it. Who struggles more. And at the same time, I can see that people genuinely do seem more worried.

We live in a constant stream of information. News. Opinions. Worst-case scenarios. Parenting advice from online strangers. If you absorb enough of that every day, of course you’re going to feel on edge.

But I often think about perspective.

If you’ve got a job and income coming in, if you’re reasonably healthy, if you’ve got a roof over your head and your relationships are mostly steady — that’s not a small thing. That’s actually a lot.

I grew up with parents who lived through the Depression. Gratitude wasn’t something you practiced — it was something you understood. You knew life could change. You knew nothing was guaranteed. You didn’t have everything. And I think we understood that life doesn’t have to be happy all the time to call it a good life. Life moves.

And as children, we were free. We roamed bushland. We walked down to the river alone. We didn’t have smart devices tracking us. We figured things out without adults hovering over every move. We fell off bikes without helmets. We argued with friends and sorted it out. We weren’t monitored every second.

Would that happen now? Probably not.

Today, children are often bubble wrapped. Not because parents don’t care, but because they care so much. Because they’re exposed to story after story about what could go wrong. Because social media pretty much says if you’re not hyper-vigilant, you’re negligent.

But here’s the interesting part — everything goes in circles.

For years we increased supervision, reduced independence, eliminated risk and structured children’s every spare minute. And now many experts are starting to acknowledge that overprotection has consequences. There is a growing body of research around “risky play” in early childhood — yes, that is the actual term — encouraging children to climb higher, balance on uneven surfaces, explore natural environments, test their limits and get bored.

Authors like Richard Louv, in Last Child in the Woods, have written about what he calls “nature deficit disorder” and the impact of removing children from outdoor exploration. Psychologists such as Peter Gray have linked the decline in independent play with rising anxiety levels in young people. The message isn’t reckless parenting. It’s measured exposure. Manageable risk. Real experiences.

In many ways, we are rediscovering what previous generations practised without labelling it.

Resilience doesn’t grow from protection. It grows from experience. And creativity grows from boredom.

You don’t build strong legs by never walking on uneven ground, and you don’t build emotional strength by never feeling uncomfortable. And you can’t think creativity if you’re never given time to think.

Children need to try and fail. They need to feel left out sometimes. They need to climb a bit too high, work out a disagreement, be bored, and be disappointed. That’s not cruelty. That’s development.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t parent at all. That won’t help either.

Resilience doesn’t grow from neglect. It grows from guided experience. Children still need education, communication and clear boundaries. They still need adults who step in when something genuinely isn’t safe. There’s a big difference between allowing manageable risk and abandoning responsibility.

We don’t remove every obstacle from their path. But we also don’t throw them into chaos and call it character building. It’s a balance.

There’s also a difference between genuine clinical anxiety — which absolutely exists and deserves proper support — and ordinary nerves. Ordinary nerves are part of growing up. Starting school is nerve-wracking. Going to a birthday party where you only know one child is nerve-wracking. Meeting new people can be scary.

If we rush in and remove every uncomfortable feeling, we accidentally send a message: “You can’t handle this.” When often, they can.

Children borrow our nervous systems. If we react like everything is a crisis, they learn that the world is a crisis. If we respond calmly, with perspective, they learn that most things are manageable.

Resilience isn’t about raising fearless children. It’s about raising children who think, “I felt uncomfortable and I survived. That was so hard, but I figured it out. I was upset and it passed.”

The world isn’t less safe than it used to be. What’s different is the volume of the constant noise.

The real skill now isn’t removing risk from our children’s lives. It’s helping them build the internal strength to handle life as it comes — good and bad — without assuming disaster is always around the corner. Because life has always been uncertain.

And children have always been more capable than we give them credit for.