I watched my daughter spend forty-five minutes last week arranging pebbles in the dirt. No instructions, no end goal, no adult hovering with suggestions. Just her, the earth, and whatever story was unfolding in her mind.
When she finally came inside, cheeks flushed and hands filthy, she told me she’d been “making a village for the tiny people who live under the rosemary bush.”
It struck me how rare these moments have become for many children. Our calendars overflow with soccer practice, music lessons, tutoring sessions, and enrichment programs. We shuttle kids from one structured activity to the next, genuinely believing we’re giving them every advantage.
But somewhere along the way, we forgot that children have been developing beautifully for thousands of years through something far simpler: unstructured play.
1) Loose parts play
Hand a child a pile of sticks, some smooth stones, a few pinecones, and maybe some old fabric scraps. Then step back. What happens next is almost always magical.
These open-ended materials, what early childhood educators call “loose parts,” become whatever a child’s imagination needs them to be. Sticks transform into magic wands, building materials, or characters in an elaborate drama.
The theory of loose parts, first introduced by architect Simon Nicholson in the 1970s, suggests that environments rich in moveable, combinable materials invite more creativity and engagement than fixed structures. A plastic toy car will always be a car.
But a wooden block? That’s a phone, a sandwich, a baby, a rocket ship, all before lunch.
You don’t need to buy anything special. Save cardboard tubes, fabric remnants, bottle caps, and natural treasures from your walks. Toss them in a basket and leave it accessible. My son has spent more cumulative hours with our “junk basket” than with any toy that came with batteries and instructions.
2) Risky play
I know this one makes some parents nervous. It made me nervous too, until I started paying attention to what my kids actually needed. Climbing trees.
Balancing on logs. Running fast down hills. Using real tools with supervision. These experiences that make our hearts race a little are precisely the ones building our children’s confidence and judgment.
As noted by Dr. Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College, free play, including risky play, has declined dramatically over the past several decades, and this decline correlates with rising rates of anxiety and depression in young people.
Children need to test their limits, experience small failures, and learn to assess danger for themselves.
This doesn’t mean abandoning common sense. It means resisting the urge to say “be careful” every thirty seconds. It means letting them climb a little higher than feels comfortable, trusting their bodies to learn what yours already knows. The scrapes and bruises are part of the curriculum.
3) Solitary, self-directed play
We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that children need constant companionship and stimulation. Playdates are scheduled back-to-back. Every moment of boredom is treated like a problem to solve. But children desperately need time alone with their own thoughts, their own ideas, their own company.
When a child plays alone, without an adult directing or a peer negotiating, something important happens.
They become the author of their own experience. They practice the internal dialogue that will eventually become their thinking voice. They discover what genuinely interests them, not what earns praise or fits in with the group.
I’ve learned to protect pockets of solitary time for my kids, even when it feels countercultural.
Sometimes that looks like quiet time in their rooms after lunch. Sometimes it’s letting one child stay home from an outing because they’re deep in a project. The ability to be content in one’s own company is a gift that will serve them their entire lives.
4) Uninterrupted nature immersion
There’s a difference between a nature walk with an agenda and simply being in nature with no plan at all. The first has its place. But the second is where the real magic happens.
When children are given extended, unstructured time outdoors, they fall into a different rhythm. Their nervous systems settle. Their senses sharpen. They notice things adults walk right past.
Richard Louv’s work on nature-deficit disorder has shown how disconnection from the natural world affects children’s physical and emotional health.
But you don’t need a study to see it. Watch a child who’s been outside for an hour versus one who’s been inside with screens. The difference is visible in their bodies, their voices, their eyes.
This doesn’t require wilderness or even a backyard. A patch of grass, a single tree, a container garden on a balcony. What matters is time without structure, without a lesson plan, without an adult narrating every observation. Let them dig. Let them sit. Let them get bored and then get curious. That’s where the learning lives.
5) Imaginative role play
When did we stop letting children play pretend for hours on end?
Somewhere between the push for academic readiness and the pull of screens, elaborate imaginative play has become almost quaint. But this kind of play, where children inhabit different roles, create scenarios, and navigate social dynamics, is doing heavy developmental lifting.
Through pretend play, children process their experiences, practice empathy, develop language, and work through fears.
The child playing “doctor” is learning about caregiving and vulnerability. The one playing “monster” is safely exploring power and fear. The elaborate games of “house” or “store” are rehearsals for real-world social navigation.
What this kind of play needs most is time and space. Long stretches without interruption. Access to simple props, dress-up clothes, or just permission to repurpose household items. And adults who resist the urge to direct the narrative. When we step back, children step into their full creative power.
6) Boredom
I’m listing this one separately because it deserves its own moment. Boredom is not a problem to fix. It’s a doorway. When children complain of having nothing to do, they’re standing at the threshold of their own creativity. Our job is not to rush in with solutions.
As Dr. Teresa Belton, a researcher at the University of East Anglia, has noted, boredom can be a catalyst for creativity, pushing children to find their own entertainment and develop inner resources. The discomfort of having nothing to do is productive discomfort. It’s the friction that sparks imagination.
This is hard for us as parents. We want our children to be happy, engaged, stimulated. But constantly filling their time robs them of the chance to fill it themselves.
Some of my kids’ best ideas, their most absorbing projects, their deepest play, have emerged from the other side of “I’m bored.” I’ve learned to say, “I trust you’ll figure something out,” and then walk away.
Closing thoughts
None of this means structured activities are bad. Music lessons can be wonderful. Sports teams teach valuable skills. But when our children’s lives become wall-to-wall programming, we squeeze out the very experiences that build resilience, creativity, and self-knowledge.
The good news is that unstructured play costs nothing. It requires no special equipment, no driving across town, no registration fees. It asks only that we trust our children and give them the gift of time. Time to wander, to wonder, to get bored and then get busy on their own terms.
Start small if you need to. One afternoon with nothing scheduled. A basket of loose parts left on the porch. Permission to climb a little higher. These simple shifts can open up a world of play that modern life has nearly forgotten, but that our children still instinctively know how to find.
