Wheelhouse offers the free play kids need in a place that families trust!

Young people are experiencing a mental health crisis—and it’s getting worse.

We are raising the most anxious and depressed generation of kids in modern history. Both anxiety and depression among young people have more than doubled since 2010.

Chart: Zach RauschSource: American College Health Association (ACHA-NCHA II)

In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association issued a joint statement that child and adolescent mental health be declared a “national emergency.”

American Academy of Pediatrics. AAP-AACAP-CHA declaration of a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health; 2021. Available at: https://www.aap.org/en/advocacy/childand-adolescent-healthy-mental-development/aap-aacap-cha-declaration-of-a-nationalemergency-in-child-and-adolescent-mental-health/

Research shows why: We aren’t letting kids be kids.

What’s going on here? One of the biggest reasons our children are in crisis is the “decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”

In short, we are overparenting and over-structuring childhood, driving our kids and ourselves, nuts.

Welcome to WheelHouse!

The WheelHouse Way

  • No Parents Allowed

    "Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child." -- Tim Elmore. Without their primary care giver preparing the path, kids will experiment, fail, try again, and become more resourceful and resilient. WheelHouse playworkers ensure safety, but not direction. Think lifeguard; not coach.

  • Items From the Real and Natural World

    Nothing here is dumbed-down for kids. Every item or structure is from the real world (wheelbarrows, tires, cardboard, pots and pans, building materials) or the natural world ( boulders, trees, sand). In this organic play space kids can use their imagination to build, break and pretend.

  • Community and Responsibility

    We tell our kids: Independence has a twin sister and her name is Responsibility. They go everywhere together. At WheelHouse, kids take ownership of the space. They take care of the gardens, paint murals, and want to come back again and again to finish their projects.