Peter Gray

They believe we live in a very competitive society.

They didn't expect their child to become a professional chess player or dancer or professional, but they believe that these experiences were teaching their children

The virtues of being competitive, the virtues of winning, the virtues of trying to win, the virtues of sticking it out even if you don't like it.

I know a lot of successful people as it turns out.

The really successful people that I know are not particularly competitive.

They're successful because they know how to cooperate.

So this view that it is true we're a competitive society, but the route to winning with quotation marks around is not to beat other people.

The route is to collaborate with other people, cooperate with other people.

And that's what children learn and practice in free play.

Yes.

Well, of course, the view of what age children are able to be independent has changed remarkably in modern times compared to the past.

By the time I was five, I could go on my own anywhere in town.

And that was pretty much true for other kids at that time in our history.

Objectively, the world wasn't much different from today.

Crime rate was about the same as today and so on and so forth.

So it's primarily a difference in attitude, a difference in belief.

Here's the way I have often addressed the question to individual parents about how do I gain more trust in my child, allow a little bit more freedom to my child.

I suggest the following.

Sit down with your child and have a conversation.

and start the conversation with something like this.