What Happened to Childhood?

We’ve paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Joni Mitchell

We’ve built a society that treats symptoms, not causes.

Headache? Take ibuprofen.
Anxiety? Sertraline.
Type 2 diabetes? Metformin.
Bad behaviour? Punishment.
School truancy? iPad.
Neurodivergence? Celebrate it. Adjust society. Move on.

Rarely do we ask why.

But when we do, we change lives.
We linked smoking to cancer—and changed behaviour.
We made seatbelts mandatory—and saved millions.
When we look upstream, outcomes change.

Yet today, we’re facing another crisis, and no one’s looking upstream.

This morning’s news:
Children’s absence from school is at a record high.
The media’s story?
Blame parents. Blame children.
Irresponsibility. Laziness. A breakdown in discipline.

But no one asked the most crucial question:
Why don’t children wake up with a WOW?
Why don’t they leap out of bed thinking:

“Today’s going to be amazing. I love school.”

Maybe the children aren’t broken.
Maybe it’s the environment that’s broken.
Maybe it’s the system we’ve built—one that trains conformity, not curiosity.
One that rewards compliance, not wonder.

We forgot something essential:
Joy isn’t the enemy of education—it’s the fuel for it.

Our normalised environments disconnect children from their agency, rhythm, and vitality. And then we wonder why they withdraw, act out, or disappear.

Neurodiversity is real. But so is neuroplasticity.
The brain responds to the environment. Always.
So, let’s stop labelling the outcome and start questioning the cause.

It’s time to move from reaction to intention.
It’s time to redesign childhood.