I've just read Suzanne McFadden's wonderful new book, Striking Gold, the story that for far too long has been untold, of the New Zealand men's hockey Olympic Gold in 1976.

It's a great read, and when I say it's not really a sport book that's a huge compliment. It's beautifully structured and well told. I picked it up initially because I have a family interest in hockey but the book is so much more than that.

LISTEN: Suzanne McFadden speaks to Jack Tame

It details the lives and early experiences of all the men in that astounding team, and half way through I realised they pretty much all had something in common. They spent their childhoods outside, mucking around, playing with their mates in an unstructured way. Many came from big families and had plenty of brothers to form a team, be it cricket, hockey or something else. Generally they were loosely supervised at best.

After school they headed to paddocks, parks or cul-de-sacs to run around. Their parents didn't hot-house them particularly – if you're from a big family, competitiveness comes naturally. (Confession – I am the oldest of six children. My youngest sister was the Black Sticks goalkeeper at the London Olympics.)

Several of the team went to the same primary school – little Redcliffs School in Christchurch, the one that's been doomed since the 2011 earthquakes to closure. You know, that one where the rest of the country can't understand what the fuss is about, and why the school community continues to fight to keep it open. Well, that school has a hell of a history and it's a familiar theme too in this book. A hockey-crazed teacher of that era kept a big bin of cheap sticks handy which would form the basis of whole-school hockey games over the space of sometimes a week.

What a grand way to learn - just imagine the joy of it! Don't forget this was well before astro-turf, the pitch would have been a cut up and lumpy stretch of grass and mud... and the kids played in bare feet.

So here's the thing. A lot of parents have complicated their own lives with high hopes for their children. Little Sophie gets taken to violin on Monday, swimming on Tuesday, extra maths on Wednesday, play date with upwardly mobile mum's offspring on Thursday, gymnastics on Friday. If little Sam shows an ounce of talent in something he's sent to extra tuition/ special coaching. Sometimes that works and they'll be the next Lydia Ko. Sometimes Sam and Sophie get fed up and flag the whole thing early, shrugging off the weight of parental disappointment.

Have we gone backwards by trying to push our kids forward? Instead of trying to cram their lives with richness should we be letting them slide under the supervision radar? Should town planners be putting a basketball hoop at the end of every dead end street? Should we be making sure, as Auckland's intensified housing plan heats up, that there are fewer fences, bigger berms, wider footpaths, more shared empty spaces? We have the chance to do this now. We should.

And read that book. It's a cracker. Send the kids out in the street to play while you sit down with it.

Alexia Russell is Newstalk ZB's news director