From a biological, evolutionary perspective, play is nature’s means of ensuring that young mammals, including young human beings acquire the skills that they need to acquire to develop successfully into adulthood. Over the last 50-60 years there’s been a continuous erosion in children’s freedom and opportunity to play, to really play, to play freely. Over that same period that play has been declining, we have seen a well-documented increase in all sorts of mental disorders in childhood. There’s good reason to believe that the decline in play is the cause of these deleterious changes. The hue and cry that we hear everywhere is for more school not for more play, and we’ve really got to change that.