Do Preschoolers Need a Little Privacy?

Long before I even considered a career in early childhood, I had a boss who liked to joke, "I'll give you enough rope to hang yourself." It was his macabre way of saying that he was going to trust his underlings to make our own decisions about how to use our time, how to tackle assigned tasks, and even propose our own initiatives. When we succeeded, we got the glory. When we failed there was no one to blame but ourselves. I adopted the same approach to the people who worked for me.

This arrangement suited me. Everything I worked on felt like my own project which tends to be motivating and when you're motivated you give it your best. When things went haywire, and they always do, I worked wee hours, but when things were going well, I was free, without the concern that my boss was hovering judgmentally over my shoulder, to knock off early, take a long lunch, or just goof off in the coffee room. 

Research consistently finds that workers who are subjected to excessive oversight feel disempowered, are less likely explore or experiment, and are, as a result, less creative. In an assembly-line setting, I imagine that this might be exactly what some employers want: workers who go through the motions in a consistent, efficient, and, frankly, thoughtless, manner. But when surveyed, most employers at least give lip-service to creativity. They say they want their people to be self-motivated, to innovate, to make suggestions for improvement, and to assume ownership of, and even take pride in their work. But this is unlikely, if not impossible, in a micro-managed workplace.

The flip-side of this research is that less oversight leads workers to feel empowered. They know that they can experiment, make a mess, and even occasionally fail without judgment or reprisal. In other words, if the goal really is creativity and innovation, employers must give their employees some level of autonomy and that requires the promise of privacy.

The concept of privacy is an interesting one. Babies and young children tend to want nothing to do with it. Indeed, babies, if left too much alone, simply roll over and die. We are born so helpless that we need near constant assurance that there is someone there to care for us. Parents and other caretakers are familiar with opening the bathroom door to find toddlers waiting on the other side, unable to bear even a few minutes of their adult's absence, and they have no understanding for why adults might want a little privacy.

In this example, privacy is a product of "good manners". We've been taught that toileting, and pantsless-ness in general, is for private moments. Shame plays into it as well. I may be worried about my reputation should others catch me, say, engaging in silly walks, hear me singing in my most ear-splitting falsetto, or see me hanging out in my underwear with untidy hair. Manners and shame are likewise incomprehensible to babies.

But there is more to privacy than shame and manners. For most of human history, privacy simply wasn't a thing. As professor John Locke of Lehman Collage of the City of New York says, "Our distant ancestors could see each other at all times, which kept them safe but also imposed a huge cognitive cost. When residential walls were erected, they eliminated the need to look around every few seconds to see what others were doing." The result is that "a human vigil, one beginning with ancestors that we share with apes, was reduced to manageable proportions, freeing up many hours of undistracted time per day."

And this undistracted time is becoming ever more important in a world in which abstract thought is increasingly in demand. As Annie Murphy Paul writes in her book The Extended Mind, "Walls became necessary as a way of relieving the mental strain that comes along with closely packed populations of unfamiliar others."

Young children have much more in common with our ancient ancestors than do modern adults. They still tend to thrive without too many walls, in environments in which they can look around "every few seconds" to see what others are doing. It makes them feel safe to know they are not alone. This is how humans have evolved to feel.

Likewise, much of what we learn through our early years comes from observing and attempting to imitate others. This is how we learn to talk and to walk and, eventually, to close the bathroom door. It's not surprising that young children so often seem to "bounce off the walls: they're in the way of cognitive development. Indeed, the walls and ceilings that we find so necessary to our modern world of abstract thought, can create their own distractions as they echo and intensify sounds, are illuminated by artificial light, and provide few escape routes, which is why most young children, most of the time, are most contented in outdoor spaces in the company of others.

For adults trying to thrive in the modern world, it's a different story. I know many tech workers, for instance, who feel that they were more productive and creative while working remotely (privately) during the pandemic. But as many employers are finding, teamwork and collaboration suffers when most of their workers, most of the time, work from their homes. There is something essentially human in looking around every few seconds to see what the others are doing. From my own experience, many of my best workplace ideas came to me while imbibing at happy hour, lunching with colleagues, or goofing off in the coffee room.

While babies and young toddlers don't really need privacy, older preschoolers often benefit from the ability to separate themselves, to get off the radar of others in order to reflect, to self-sooth, and to think. I often find these children alone at the art table or sensory bin, lost in their creative process, but not every child is capable of creating the mental walls necessary to do this. 

Many of us have created small, dark, cozy spaces in our classrooms as refuges for children. We think of them as places to take a break, but the need for privacy isn't simply about rest: it is about creating the conditions for abstract and creative thought.

Most preschool programs build "quiet time" into their days. Lights are dimmed, napping mats are rolled out, and silence is enforced. That certainly serves the preschoolers' need for rest, but I don't think that this fully embraces this need for privacy because privacy doesn't necessarily mean quietly napping. Privacy might just as easily be a place for primal screams and banging about.

Even so, this quiet time is better than nothing. Sadly, it goes away once children reach kindergarten. Most schools, most of the time, are exactly the sort of full-on, overly supervised, micro-managed and disempowering work environments that stifle creativity. Children spend their days doing what the adults tell them to do, when they tell them to do it, all, often literally, with an adult looking over their shoulder. And they know that they are always being judged. Even their attitude and posture may come up in evaluations.

If we are hoping that education leads to citizens who are capable of abstract and creative thought, research tells us that we are doing it exactly the wrong way. We say we want our children be self-motivated, to innovate, to make suggestions for improvement, and to assume ownership of, and even take pride in their own educations. But this is unlikely, if not impossible, in a micro-managed school. In other words, if the goal really is creativity and innovation, educators must give their students some level of autonomy and that requires the promise of privacy.

I've lately been entertaining how it would look for our schools to provide privacy spaces for children. Ideally, each child would have their own "room" with a door. It would need to be big enough to sit, to sprawl, and to pace a few steps. Children would be free to decorate the room as they please, to populate it with personal items, and to retire to it whenever they felt the urge. Most importantly, it would be a place where the adults don't go except when invited. 

I recognize that this ideal is impractical for most current school settings. I also recognize that some children hate school as it's currently configured so much that they would just hole up in their room for the entire day. And yes, there is the concern that they would "get up to no good" in their private rooms. But we ought not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Most school facilities have space for some form of private space for kids, even if they would probably have to take turns. If kids are just hiding out in these rooms, then maybe we should view this as a child with a problem rather than a problem child and help them. As for mischief making, how much trouble can a kid get into while alone in a room?

I know that for me, it's about creating a natural ebb and flow. Spending time with others is invigorating, but too much and I start to feel frazzled, distracted, and mentally exhausted. Spending time in privacy allows my mind to wander, to connect things, to formulate my thoughts (especially when I'm writing), but too much and I begin to feel dull and disinterested, even trapped in my own thoughts. Ideally, I spend my days with some of both, moving from one to the other as need be.

It seems that this would be likewise ideal for students in schools that are interested in more than test scores. Most of our schools do not accommodate the need for privacy, the assumption being that this is what home is for. Of course, for many children, home is not a place for privacy so they find themselves without appropriate opportunities. But even if every child had a perfect home, our long school days, and our societal need for abstract thought, seem to necessitate the opportunity for children to access genuine privacy. It's something to think about.

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