Where a generation ago, as Karen Graf’s mother recalled, children may have roamed freely for miles and spent hours outdoors, making up games and playing pickup ball games, today, many children’s zones of independence extend no farther than the end of the block,7 and only 6 percent of children between the ages of nine and thirteen play outside on their own in a typical week.8 Organized sports leagues have become so structured that there’s little room for fun. Kid participation peaks at age eleven.
