The lockdown provided children and parents time to learn they like one another. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Key Points: In surveys, children have reported feeling less anxious during the months of pandemic lockdown than they did previously. When asked to name one thing they liked about being in lockdowns, […]

Sometimes a fiction is repeated so often that people believe it’s true. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn “Well, what about Lord of the Flies?” How often I have heard someone say that after I’ve talked about the value of children’s independent play, away from adults, or about a […]

Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Two large surveys, a month apart, revealed family benefits of school closures. Two weeks ago, I published an article summarizing the results of a survey of 800 parents and 800 children (ages 8 through 13) that was conducted in April of 2020, approximately a month after […]

It’s important for successful adult-ing, experts say. Friendships can be made stronger through play-acting and problem solving. Robert Collins/Unsplash Archaeological records— and the modern-day antics of our primate relatives—make it clear that monkeying around goes way back. Less certain, however, are the developmental and evolutionary advantages that underlie our instinct […]

Shutterstock Most Australian children are stuck at home due to the outbreak of COVID-19. They need to find ways to socialise, do their school work, exercise and entertain themselves. It’s not surprising parents may be hearing “I’m bored” a lot more than before. People hate being bored. So much so […]

Views on school refusal depend on beliefs about children and human rights. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Every state and country where school is compulsory is faced with the problem commonly labeled school refusal. Everywhere, a significant number of kids strongly resist going to school and manage to skip a […]

An Australian family on the average wage typically spends close to A$6,000 out of pocket per year on child care, a new analysis from the Mitchell Institute shows. This is more than the average cost of sending a child to a private primary school. Unlike the school sector, families don’t have […]

Here’s my theory about why some early childhood programs help and others hurt. by Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Head Start was founded in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and it has been going strong ever since. This past year the program enrolled about 1 […]

Here are comments from exasperated kindergarten teachers throughout the country. From Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn Last month I posted an article describing the stand that kindergarten teachers in Brookline, Massachusetts, took in protesting the policies imposed upon them from above—the excessive testing, dreary drill, and lack of opportunity for playful, creative, […]

Fairness makes play possible, and children learn fairness in play. From Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn I am a long-time admirer of Marc Bekoff and his research on play among canids (wolves, coyotes, dogs and the like).  I was happy, therefore, to see his recent Psychology Today blog post entitled When […]