We've normalized institutionalizing children in institutions that will never let them take any risks due to insurance concerns. So many colleagues and friends put their children in day care a few weeks after birth and then straight to school. These institutions are naturally conservative and don't let children engage in the kind of rough and tumble play that they need. Moreover, in order to appeal to parents, they focus on doing 'activities' with the child.
My children are at home with my wife (not school age yet). This is apparently abnormal now. So many people have expressed concern that our daughter is not in preschool or daycare. My own mother is concerned she hasn't started academic work like my niece and nephew (they're all around four and five). A neighbor has commented that we're pursuing an 'alternative' lifestyle just by having our kids at home. It's crazy.
Now back to play deprivation. Hot take: the play at preschool, etc is not the same as play with parents, family, and friends. At the end of the day, daycares, schools, etc are businesses (yes, even public schools) that need to protect themselves from liability, which means they are naturally going to promulgate the safety culture that we now know leads to all sorts of mental health issues for teenagers. To get around the issue of lack of play, they announce new activities for the kids. One preschool we were looking at bragged that they did a 'research project' with the children! Now, I'm sure research projects while sitting inside carry less liability concerns, but I'm not sure a preschooler needs that. But, this is the best business decision as they get the benefits (low insurance premiums and ability to get more revenue by enrolling more kids) while they outsource the problems (a teen's mental health issues are the parents problem).
We are lucky to have an active community and my wife and other stay at home moms take the kids on play dates basically every day. On the days they're not with friends, they're at one of the grandparent's houses. Over the summer, they've done things like gone hiking, gone fruit picking, zoos, museums, playgrounds, pools, etc with other kids. The best part is that, since it's not a professional environment, the kids get to do things like jump off rocks, fight with each other, fall of playground equipment, run down hills, climb tall trees, etc. Now of course, not all parents are like this, and some probably think my wife is negligent (I've seen many of these parents at the playground and they seem dreadfully boring). However, some parents allow their kids to play. On the other hand, I've never met a teacher or daycare worker that would allow these things. My carers growing up certainly wouldn't. I don't even blame the teacher; they're often watching 10+ kids at a time, and it's simply impossible to pay attention to a kid doing anything fun at that scale.
But, when you have a group of adult friends supervising children, what ends up happening is that the adults sit around having fun, while the children play, which is awesome. So many times I've seen one of the kids come up to the adults with a complaint about play, and the unvarying response from all the adults is "if you're not having fun playing, why don't you sit down and engage with the adults?" Sure enough, after you put it that way, every kid goes back to playing regardless of whatever slight initially sent them away.
We need to normalize being a child again, and we need to have an honest conversation about how to make that possible.