The importance of play

According to the Child Mind Institute, American children now spend an average of a mere 4-7 minutes a day on unstructured outdoor play, with elementary schools across the States reducing or eliminating recess entirely.

That’s a whole lot of life skills and creative tools fundamental to a child’s development and learning not being explored. 

 A 2018 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that play enhances creativity, imagination, dexterity, boldness, teamwork skills, stress-management skills, confidence, conflict resolution skills, decision-making skills, problem-solving skills and learning behaviour. Play is an essential part of the human experience, and a lack of play can have troubling short and long-term ramifications for children.

In this article by Brandon Hall, he highlights how the truth of play has been gradually diminishing over the past several decades, with the past ten years in particular seeing it come to a head.

So, how did this happen? What are the ramifications that ensue? And, more importantly, what can we do about it?

The post-WWII baby boom was somewhat of a ‘playground galore’ for those born in the 1950s and ’60s. Child labour laws passed in the 1930s meant that children were no longer allowed to go to work inside the coal mines and factories; the average school day had several recesses and the typical school year was four or five weeks shorter; and helicopter parenting didn’t exist. Parents shooed their kids outdoors, and you would see children playing until dusk when their parents called them in for dinner.

Organized youth sports were in their infancy, and those that were around were far from the ultra-expensive, classist parent-run little league teams that are found today.

Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College and the author of the book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, stated that kids going to games themselves by bike or walking became somehow dangerous. So parents felt the need to drive them there. Then if you're going to drive them there, you might as well watch. Then it became a sort of parental duty to stay and watch. If you don't stay and watch you don't care about your child. So you're supposed to be there, you're supposed to be cheering your child on. You're supposed to care if your child's team wins or loses...it was gradual, it happened over time. (Organized sports) came to replace actual play in people's minds—this is how my child gets exercise, this is how my child meets other children, and so on.

The rise of the household television also increased the likelihood of children staying indoors, but it was the shift in parental attitudes around schooling, free time, sports, and safety that was really the game-changer. Schools began pushing an emphasis on study and test results, with one study done by the University of Michigan showing that students aged 6-8 went from having 52 minutes of homework a week in 1981 to 128 minutes a week in 1997.

Furthermore, sensationalistic news report and the television reporting that the world was an unsafe place for children led to less and less time being spent outside, and with the rise in technology, more time being spent in front of screens - which is one of the biggest problems that we face today.

Not only does this coincide with the childhood obesity epidemic, but according to Gray, but the decreased levels of play also coincides with the increase in depression and anxiety in youth in our society.

Natural selection has designed children to play in risky ways so they learn how to deal with risk…I can do this thing that stretches my physical and emotional abilities and I can survive it, I can do it. What you're practicing is controlling your mind and body in a somewhat fear-inducing situation. But it's a fear-inducing situation that you can control, you put yourself there. But what you're learning is you can deal with feeling fear, you can hold yourself together. So when you experience something that produces fear in real life, it's not a new thing to you.

If children are no longer experiencing free play in their youth, how are they meant to know that they can handle risks and fear in real life? The increase in micro-management is having a more detrimental effect than we could have ever thought possible.

Some schools in America have realized this, and have introduced “play clubs” with great results. Once a week, various equipments are set out for kids to play and experiment with at their leisure, and a few adult supervisors are there and trained only to intervene when something dangerous is occurring.

It’s a far cry from the leisure of the ’50s and ’60s, but it’s a start - and with the increase of youth mental health crises, one that is truly needed.

What do you think about the importance of play? Let me know below.