Local parents often talk about the rash of suicides among Palo Alto high school students in recent years. “It’s been pretty clear to me since I moved here eight years ago that kids are just not happy here,” Mike says, and “the suicides are just the extreme examples of the broader problem.” He believes “the poor quality of children’s lives around here” stems from their lack of autonomy. Basic developmental psychology posits that if children develop a fundamental sense that they (not their parents) are masters of their own destiny, they will be successful adults, and that without that belief they will flounder: It’s easy to want to rid yourself of a life that doesn’t feel truly your own.

Research suggests that students with controlling “helicopter” parents are less flexible and more vulnerable, anxious and self-conscious, as well as more likely to be medicated for anxiety or depression. Similarly, children whose time is highly structured — crammed with lessons and adult-supervised activities — may have more difficulty developing their own “executive function” capabilities, the ability to devise their own plans and carry them out. Conversely, the more time children spend in free play, the better they develop these capabilities.

Mike says he often feels alienated when he’s talking to other parents. The common currency of conversation — rather than sports, politics or weather — is the achievements of your children. “I have exactly nothing to say in these conversations,” Mike says. “Am I going to brag my kids are jumping on their trampoline, or went to the store by themselves? Parents don’t measure themselves according to their kids’ independence, as they used to, but according to accomplishments. To me, that’s part of how I judge myself.”

Reactions to Mike in the neighborhood are mixed. When the Lanzas first moved in, Mike had the idea that the neighbors on both sides should take down the fences between their yards to facilitate play. But unlike on N Street, none of them agreed. Mike complained to me that a neighbor asked Marco to stop climbing into her yard to see her son, even though her son wanted to see Marco. Many neighbors disapprove of boys playing pickup games in the streets and of the younger kids biking alone. Leo was allowed to ride around the neighborhood on his own when he was 5, and two years ago, when Nico was in first grade, he was allowed to bike a mile and a half to school alone.

Mike believes his children have grown by taking risks. “Marco is naturally physically cautious, and now he is working on a back flip onto the trampoline,” Mike tells me. “I’m proud of that. He’s worked his way up. Other kids learn to take risks at our house.”

In the spring of last year, Mike installed 10-foot ladders in each of his sons’ bedrooms so they could climb through a hole in their ceilings into the finished attic. Perla was not enthusiastic. (“She’s not into the man-cave stuff,” Mike says.) She was worried they would fall. And indeed, once, when Leo was playing in the attic, he tumbled down the hatch and hit his head. “To me, it was a bump on the head, which is a normal part of being a kid,” Mike said. But Perla saw it as a head injury and took him to the hospital for a scan. “He was fine,” Mike said, rolling his eyes.