Recently, children appear to have a weakness for human connection. They don't know how to play together. They don't know how to talk to each other. They come from homes where oftentimes the adult caregivers are consumed by their phones and or give their child a device to play with. Gone are the family dinners around the table so many of us grew up with. Gone are family game nights. Gone are family outings to the park. The victims are our children. They don't know how to even converse with one another. Ask older siblings to teach their younger siblings how to play a game
Play space has changed as play has moved from outdoor neighborhoods to the indoors. Additionally, the things children play with have changed, as well. Less time is spent in unstructured, mixed aged play -groups of family and neighborhood play. Why? Two-parent income families is the highest reason noted. Another is that families are concerned about the safety of their community parks. Parents feel frustrated that they can't let their small child go outside unsupervised because there are no other neighborhood kids around to play with.
Playing grocery store is actually far better for brain development than a math worksheet. How did educated, sensible adults push this aside and how did the developmental building blocks of early childhood development become so diminished? Why do parents and educators who loved unstructured play resist it for their own children when they, themselves loved it so much?
Play is usually assumed to be a social experience, but what about the times children play by themselves? Isn't digging in the dirt and making mud pies a form of play? It's hard to mount a case that decorating a virtual cupcake on an iPad is better than making mud pies or even baking the real thing in the kitchen with an adult who loves that child.
Play is not the same as organized sports that start as early as three years old. Children develop athletic skills just as well through the everyday acts of running, jumping, digging, pulling, and pushing, not adult structures and adult-mediated activity.
We have taken the craving for play away, which may be the single most important ingredient for a robust play habitat. Adding in outdoor play and the study of the natural world around them is one of the healthiest building blocks of helathy development. Preschoolsers' play is also made more difficult by their concrete stage of development. They have internalized the rules and regulations of play, but lack the knowledge of how to adapt them to different situations Take time to slow down and look at the world through the eyes of a child! Children need, dare I say, crave, a natural play setting. They love to climb, and dig, pour, mix. and dump. We should be giving them those opportunities.
According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, as electronics have become more afforable and more geared toward entertainment (cue Ruby Payne) the study found that children were found to spend, on average, ninety minutes more per day exposed to media. Ninety minutes....PER DAY!! That an hour and a half! An hour and a half that these children are glued to a screen with zero social interaction! Let's ask ourselves: Is being cooped up in a bedroom for a hour and a half each night, playing an action-packed (dare I say, probably not developmentally appropriate) video game an optimal way for children to grow and develop? Given what we know about early brain development, I should say not! This is over-stimulation at it's finest, leading to attention problems later in school.
Sit down and spend some time with a child. Give them the attention that they need! You would be surprised at the adorable and well-thought out ideas. For example, while supervising learning station roatations this week, one student said to me, "I'm going to use brown." I told him I thought that was a greawt choice. He said, "You know why I chose brown?" I asked him to please tell me. He told me it was his favorite color. "Do you know why it's my favorite color?" he asked me. I told him I'd really like to know. He said,"Because it's the color of chocolate milk and chocolate milk is my favorite!" So well thought out. I loved his reasoning! Spend time with children. It's so much fun to hear what they're thinking. Don't ignore them. Don't give them a device. Give them your TIME!
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