What you’ve got to do in our world today to create real play is find ways to get a bunch of kids together at the same time, on a regular basis, and do it in a way that parents think is safe enough. That generally means there has to be at least one adult there. The ideal would be someone who will not tell the kids how to play, who will not intervene, but who is just there for emergencies. And so that is the kind of situation you have to work toward.

In an age of high-pressure childhoods, free play is more necessary than ever.