Play: It's More Than Just Fun and Games |
Written by Fancy Builder | |
Sunday, 18 July 2010 17:00 | |
We've all heard the criticisms: kids watch too much tv. They play too many video games. They're over-programmed and don't get outside enough. But is it really true? And why does it matter? According to David Elkin, author of The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activites Lead to Healthier, Happier Children, our moms and grandmothers had some things right. Our kids are too plugged in and it's impacting their development.
According to NPR, "A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different. "Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad." So play is important. But what is play, exactly, and how can we support it as parents? According to Elkin, it's unstructured, unscheduled, and flexible. It's not as much a toy as an activity, or a healthy balance between the two. It's make-believe and what can look like "doing nothing." So play a game of freeze tag with your kids. Spend a day pretending you're princes and princesses. Your kids will thank you for it. Comments (0)
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