The Middlebury Skatepark Project, a grassroots community group of parents, students, teachers, skateboarders, roller skaters, and rollerbladers, is working to bring a much-needed recreation space to town.

Skateparks bring joy. The feeling of freedom that comes with wheeled sports is undeniable. Skateparks also build resilience. They serve as vital spaces for youth to engage in the kind of unstructured, peer-based play that is essential for building confidence, sparking creativity, and fostering independence. Skateparks are more than just recreational areas. They are important “third spaces” — informal public gathering places outside of home and work/school where people go to connect with their community. Skateparks provide a healthy environment for the peer-based learning that allows young people to practice life skills needed to flourish — reading social cues, making friends, taking appropriate risks, building grit and imagination, and resolving conflict.

According to Okay You Got This, a website created by advocates for child welfare in Addison County, “Data from schools and organizations serving children show low levels of resiliency among youth and a feeling of being undervalued in their communities which is undermining their belief in themselves and their ability to handle life’s inevitable challenges.”  In a commentary published in The Journal of Pediatrics which highlighted links between free play and mental health, the authors noted that “the decline in children’s independent activity and, hence, in mental wellbeing is a national and international health crisis and should be treated as such.”

Many studies have shown that independent free play contributes enormously to the cognitive, physical and socio-emotional development of children. Skateparks provide an accessible venue for the unstructured play our youth desperately need.

In a recent article in The New Yorker, author Jessica Winter writes that “improvisational, unmonitored play functions as exposure therapy for life itself.” Winter also notes that “Kids need to trip over people and ideas, at the risk of scraping up their psyches, in order to learn how to move through the world and how to connect meaningfully with the people in it.” The independence and problem-solving skills that are built through free play allow children to make their own decisions and navigate social consequences without adult intervention.

Skateparks also help counterbalance the sedentary and often isolating nature of screen time, promoting overall physical and mental well-being. The ‘in-real-life’ social interaction and physical engagement found at skateparks helps develop empathy, builds communication skills, and contributes to a sense of belonging.

The Middlebury Skatepark Project is working to build a space where youth can engage in self-led activities, building life skills through exploration and experimentation. Skateparks allow people to try, fall, fail, and try again. A skatepark in Middlebury is an investment in our youth, providing a safe space for the unstructured, peer-based play that children need to grow, connect, learn, and have fun.

Our children deserve more of these spaces and our entire community will benefit from more resilient, confident, independent, engaged youth ready to take on life’s challenges, one trick at a time.

Kristen Carra

Middlebury Skatepark Project board member and former MUMS wellness teacher

Phyllis Stinson,

Middlebury Skatepark Project board member and local parent

Kathryn Torres,

Better Middlebury Partnership co-director and early childhood consultant