Reclaiming Childhood: Freedom and Play in an Age of Fear

Children are cooped up, passive, apathetic and corrupted by commerce… or so we are told.

Reclaiming Childhood confronts the dangerous myths spun about modern childhood. Yes, children today are losing out on many experiences past generations took for granted, but their lives have improved in so many other ways. This book exposes the stark consequences on child development of both our low expectations of fellow human beings and our safety-obsessed culture. Rather than pointing the finger at soft ‘junk’ targets and labelling children as fragile and easily damaged, Helene Guldberg argues that we need to identify what the real problems are – and how much they matter.
We need to allow children to grow and flourish, to balance sensible guidance with youthful independence. That means letting children play, experiment and mess around without adults hovering over them. It means giving children the opportunity to develop the resilience that characterises a sane and successful adulthood. Guldberg suggests ways we can work to improve children’s experiences, as well as those of parents, teachers and ‘strangers’ simply by taking a step back from panic and doom-mongering.

Helene Guldberg is co-founder and Director of spiked, the first custombuilt online current affairs publication in the UK. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in developmental psychology with the Open University and the US study abroad centres CAPA and IES.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: The good, the bad, and the history: a balance sheet of modern childhood
1. A childish panic about the next generation
2. Cocooning children
3. Childhood in historical perspective
Part II: Freedom and child development
4. Growing up: why risk-taking is good for kids
5. Play: what is it good for?
6. The bullying bandwagon
7. Virtual lives? Media, brands and the MySpace generation
Part III: Taking real responsibility: the role of adult society
8. Let parents be parents: the myth of infant determinism
9. Let teachers be teachers: not social workers and ‘happiness counsellors’
10. Let strangers be friends: how the ‘stranger danger’ panic is creating a hostile adult world
Afterword
Bibliography
Index