Date fields in forms

I have a form for users to submit data.  One of those fields is the date that they would like the work to occur.  In the form, there used to be a little calendar that the user could click on to select a date.  That forced the correct date format for the field.  Now our form has changed so that the date field is now a free text field with no calendar.  I went in to the column settings and changed it to "Restrict to dates only" but it still doesn't give the calendar option to select the date in the form.  Without adding a description below the heading on that item on the form, the user has no idea they have to enter it in MM/DD/YY format until the do it wrong and try to submit and the form fails to submit.  

Am I doing something wrong?  Why did this change in Smartsheet?  It doesn't seem like this was an improvement.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me correct this frustrating problem!