Playtime is more than fun
Anyone born before the computer age has noticed: Playtime isn't what it used to be. Once satisfied with a stack of blocks or generic doll, yesterday's children littered the streets with bikes and balls every afternoon. Today's kids are rarely seen outdoors and even the dolls have screen names: Transformers, Angry Birds, and video game characters.
Imagination is terminally ill.
This is a bigger problem than we thought, say developmental experts. Even when parents limit the 7.5-hour screen time (TV, phones, and computer) the average 8- to 18-year-old gets daily according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the quality and type of play is limiting child development. That leads to poor creativity and erosion of problem-solving potential by adulthood.
Unrestricted, spontaneous, and highly imaginative play during childhood, especially pretending and interacting with peers, is how children learn to be independent thinkers, solve problems creatively, even rely on themselves. It also helps them build confidence by safely trying things out in self-generated scenarios, according to education professor Diane Levin of Wheelock College.
Playtime may be connected to responsibility and compassion. Dr. Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, conducted research on mass murderers. As reported this month in the Christian Science Monitor, Brown's interviews and history of 6,000 patients established a direct connection between play behavior and happiness. The murderers did not have positive play interaction with parents or standard play behavior as children.
Free play (as opposed to adult-guided play) is part of healthy development, perhaps as important as nutrition and love. In one MIT study also reported in the Monitor article, researchers observed children's reactions to a connective tubing toy display. Inside some of the pieces were hidden features such as a mirror and light-up buttons. Kids who were initially shown one hidden extra tended not to discover the others. Kids who were not guided at all tended to find more or most of the hidden features.
Even the toys parents buy for children may limit imaginative play, including the so-called educational toys. Computerized toys for young children tend to be stimulus-response, taking much of the imagination out of it. Visual displays prevent the child from imagining his own scene. A local teacher's aide at Fernan Elementary, who returned to work last year after a multi-year break, told me that kids she reads with have more difficulty describing or drawing a setting based solely on words.
Since the government deregulated children's TV advertising and more shows have essentially become long ads for character toys, kids want them. Power Rangers and My Little Pony are more exciting than the generic GI Joe or the plastic animals which once excited their grandparents Christmas morning. The problem is that today's children tend to limit even pretending with these toys to the characters' onscreen behavior and personalities, rather than relying on their imaginations.
While some education experts are catching on and crying out in favor of playtime, other aspects of education are hampering play. Standardized test pressure has changed classrooms and limited teachers' freedom, further limiting creativity at school. Schools are reducing recess, some even eliminating it altogether, especially at the middle school level.
Want a shock? The top-ranking nation in the world for education relative to test performance is Finland. Finland has a policy of outdoor recess after every class, totaling 75 minutes daily for grades 1 through 9. The U.S. average is 27 minutes. Other Finnish differences include more arts and crafts, more learning by doing, more rigorous standards for teacher certification and higher corresponding teacher pay.
Said one Finnish school principal to The New Republic in a January 2011 interview, "The children can't learn if they don't play. The children must play."
Sholeh Patrick, J. D. is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Email sholehjo@hotmail.com