1 in 10 children currently face mental health struggles. Not teenagers. Not young adults. Children. And the numbers are heading the wrong way.
A recent survey found that British children spend less time outdoors than prison inmates. The average UK child gets around four hours of outdoor time a week. Prison inmates are guaranteed at least an hour a day. Let that land for a second.
This isn't a moral panic or an overwrought headline. It's a slow, quiet crisis playing out in classrooms, in GP surgeries, and in the exhausted conversations parents are having with each other. Life for a seven-year-old in 2026 is genuinely overwhelming. Screens everywhere. Packed schedules. Social pressure starting earlier than any of us had it.
The algorithms are expert at keeping kids in and we're only starting to understand what that costs them.
I started Dubs because of a little girl with bonkers energy levels and shoes that kept slowing her down. That girl is Leila, my daughter. Outside, she's electric, loud, curious, fearless, completely lost in whatever adventure her little brain has cooked up. Inside, especially on a screen, she's flatter. More anxious. Less herself. Talking to other parents, this isn't just a Leila thing. It's a kid thing. And it turns out the research backs it up pretty strongly.
When children play, really play, unstructured, self-directed, out from under the adult gaze they're doing something the science describes as essential. Play changes the brain. It builds neural connections in the prefrontal cortex, the part that handles emotional regulation and problem-solving. It releases oxytocin and dopamine. Kids who play more are more adaptable, more creative, better at dealing with failure. Not because they've been taught those things. Because they've lived them, in miniature, a thousand times over in every argument about whose turn it is, every tower they built and knocked down, every time they fell off something and decided whether to cry or try again.
Play is also, as researchers have described it, a "practice arena" - a safe space to test yourself, mess up, feel uncertain, and come out the other side, without judgement. Every scraped knee is a tiny lesson in resilience. Every den built in the garden is a problem solved independently. Every game that ends in a fallout and then a reconciliation is an emotional intelligence class no curriculum could replicate.
None of this requires anything except time and space. That's sort of the whole point.
At Dubs, we've always talked about being the gateway to adventure. Shoes that are wide, flexible, featherlight and sensory friendly, because nothing should stand between a kid and what they want to do next. But we've been thinking lately about what that really means. It's not just about the shoes. It's about protecting the time and conditions for play to actually happen and then getting out of the way.
Play isn't the opposite of learning. It is the learning. It's how children figure out who they are, what they're capable of, and how to deal with a world that doesn't always go the way they planned. Removing barriers to that, social media algorithms designed to keep kids indoors and scrolling, shrinking green spaces, and a culture that's slowly forgotten what unstructured time is even for, matters more than we probably acknowledge.
But here's the thing we've also been sitting with. Play gets you a long way. It's not the whole answer.
What happens when the hard moment hits and running around isn't an option? When they're overwhelmed in the middle of the school day, or lying awake at night, or just feeling too much all at once and don't have the tools to deal with it? Physical freedom builds resilience, but kids also need something to reach for on the inside, something portable, something they own.
Which is why we've started working with Super Chill.
Super Chill is a Dutch not-for-profit, backed by the University of Amsterdam, with a single clear mission: help 10 million children across Europe build genuine mental resilience. Not just cope, actually get stronger. Their app, YouTube channel, and free content are built around small, practical, repeatable tools. Breathing exercises. Movement breaks. Simple mindfulness rituals that a six-year-old can actually remember and use. Not therapy. Not heavy. Just the small stuff that adds up, the kind of thing that, once a child learns it, they carry with them.
One of my favourites that we use: holding your thumb for a minute when you're feeling stressed. It's an acupressure technique drawn from traditional practice, adapted for kids. It genuinely works. There's a whole library of these, designed around what kids are actually feeling. Homesickness. Fear of failure. That buzzing, restless energy before school. The content meets kids where they are, without making a big deal of it.
The goal, explicitly, is that kids eventually stop needing the app. They've absorbed the tools. They can regulate themselves. That's how you know it's working.
Super Chill has over 217,000 app users, an NPS score of 51 — the kind of number large brands spend millions trying to reach — and 93% of users report being very satisfied. They're already live in thousands of schools in Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands. Now they're coming to the UK.
And for those moments when a screen is exactly what a tired kid…or a tired parent needs? Super Chill is about as guilt-free as screen time gets. No ads, no rabbit holes, no algorithms pulling them deeper. Just a child, a few minutes, and a tool that actually helps.
We've always talked about shoes that let kids be kids. Wide, flexible,sensory friendly and featherlight, because childhood shouldn't be spent fighting your feet. But the thing we're really talking about, underneath all of that, is a child who feels capable. Free. Able to handle what the world throws at them.
Super Chill is doing the same thing from the inside out. We're both building what you might call emotional armour, the confidence that comes from being comfortable in your own skin, your own body, your own mind. Physical freedom and mental resilience are two sides of the same thing. You can't really have one without the other.
Off screens. Up trees. And when the day gets heavy, tools to breathe through it.
That's a childhood worth protecting.
Stuart
Co-Founder & CEO
Find out more
Super Chill — superchill.org
Dubs — dubsuniverse.com
