Why children need to learn to play
Play is 'shorthand for imagination, curiosity, ... our creative dispositions,' says the author of 'The Hurried Child.' And it's in increasingly short supply.
Three-year-old Nicole carefully arranges beige, fringed cloth napkins at each place setting on a small wooden table. Five-year-old Maria totes a tiny colander and a child-sized pair of tongs, announcing, "Spaghetti for dinner and cherry pie for dessert!" Nicole pours mugs of pretend lemonade.
The two commence eating their pretend feast, passing bread, welcoming guests, and making salads, cookies, and cakes.
It's a typical kindergarten scene at the Pine Hill Waldorf School here: pretending … imagining … experimenting with arts and crafts. In a word: playing.
"Play is a basic human drive," says David Elkind, author of "The Power of Play." "It is simply a shorthand for imagination, curiosity, and fantasy – our creative dispositions." Dr. Elkind is perhaps best known for writing "The Hurried Child" in 1981.
This tall, thin, tanned man frowns when he thinks about the future of play in our society. "Play is currently in disrepute," he says. "The not-so-subtle message these days is that play is superfluous. And if you are going to play, you may as well learn something at the same time."
But this overlooks the vital role of play in human development, Elkind says. Through play, children create new learning experiences. These self-created moments enable children to acquire social, emotional, and intellectual skills and grasp concepts they can't acquire any other way, he maintains.
"If, for example infants did not engage in self-initiated playful babble, they would never learn to speak," Elkind says.
Yet the concept of "unstructured, self-initiated play" is vanishing from our culture.
Computers, TV, a plethora of organized activities, electronic toys, and mounting pressure to excel academically at a much earlier age are just some of the influences changing the way children interact with each other and the world around them.
"Over the past two decades, children have lost 12 hours of free time a week," Elkind writes in "The Power of Play." This includes "eight hours of unstructured play and outdoor activities."
This time has been supplanted by organized and more sedentary activities. "The time children spend in organized sports has doubled, and the number of minutes children devote to a passive spectator activity … not including television … has gone from 30 minutes to more than three hours a week," Elkind continues.
Even schools contribute to this scarcity of playtime: Some have eliminated recess in favor of more time in the classroom.
"The pressures on kids today also constrain their ability to play and use their imaginations," says Elkind. Kindergartens, which were once dedicated to children's learning through play, have become mini- first grades, focused upon academic learning, including testing and homework.
During his 50-year tenure as a professor of child development at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., Elkind has seen this change affect his students. "Many young people today don't know how to play," he says. Their time has been so programmed, so structured that they have had little time or opportunity to engage in self-initiated activities.
Some children must learn how to play
Lisa Freeman, a Waldorf kindergarten teacher for 17 years, agrees. "Not everyone who comes to our kindergarten can play at first," she says. "They cannot act out their own ideas." One of her first responsibilities at the beginning of each school year is to help develop the children's innate ability to do just that.
Ms. Freeman describes a typical experience: "Groups of children were deeply engaged in building a houseboat, draping big cloths over wooden play stands," she says. "A boy was roaming from one group to the other, and suddenly he pulled down the wall of the boat, creating great indignation." The children repaired it, but he kept doing it.
At story time, which is told without books or pictures, this same boy could not sit still or be quiet, perhaps because he was not able to create inner images from the words.
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How parents can encourage play
First, make time for play at all ages. "An infant playing with a rattle is learning a lot more than he or she is getting from watching 'Baby Einstein,' " says David Elkind, a longtime professor of child development. As children get older, parents need to help them balance time spent watching TV and playing video games with time spent playing with peers, reactive play, or reading.
Second, model play. When reading a story to a preschooler, for example, change your voice in keeping with the characters. For older children, play cards or board games. These experiences teach young people strategies and interpersonal skills. You can also model play by telling jokes and riddles or by watching and discussing TV shows and movies.
"Parents interacting with their children is the most important kind of experience young people can have at all ages," says Dr. Elkind.
It's not only an opportunity to bond, but it allows children to see parents in a new way. Adults are power figures. "But when you are playing, you and the child are more equal," says Elkind. "This makes it easier to communicate," and both parent and child learn about each other.
And, while they may not verbalize it, children see parents giving up something to be with them. They see this as evidence that they are important and that the parent cares deeply about them.
Elkind sums up what parents can do in one word: Share. "Share your passions, share your experience, share your humor, share your decisionmaking and, most of all, share, your time," he says.
A brief list of play ideas:
All ages: Have daily chores; help someone else; read; play sports; joke; share stories about when you were a child; take walks or bike rides.
Preschoolers: Go to the playground.
Kindergarten to age 7: Make an art corner with paper, glue, ribbons, sparkles, fabric, boxes, string, and clay; make a fort; sleep out in a tent; play board games; play ball games, like catch; tell riddles and knock-knock jokes; cook and bake.
Ages 8 to 10: At this age, children are very much into playing with peers. Provide opportunities and materials (games, etc.) for such play, but don't intrude.
Ages 10 to 12: Again, preteens are very much into their friends, but they are happy to play catch or more sophisticated card games like poker or hearts with parents. Don't feel hurt if children prefer to play with friends.
Ages 13 and up: Now young people feel comfortable doing grown-up activities with parents: softball, golf, bowling, skiing, sailing, or hiking.
David Elkind
David Elkind is best known for "The Hurried Child," first published in 1981. The book warned of the dangers of expecting children to feel, think, and behave like "mini adults." He spoke of the stresses placed on children by overtesting and the too-early introduction of academics and organized sports.
In the preface of the 25th anniversary edition of the book, Elkind says things have only gotten worse. Computers and TV programs extend "hurrying" into infancy and the diaper set. Childhood, he says, has moved indoors, thanks to the prevalence of television and video games.
The commercialization of childhood is another way society "hurries" kids, he says. Children are directly targeted as a lucrative consumer market. Advertisers engage in "age compression," in which products designed for adults or older children are marketed to ever-younger age groups. Two- and 3-year-olds now play with Barbie dolls, for example.
The cost of speeding through childhood has been high. "Despite the early introduction of reading and math, children are not doing any better, and in many cases are doing worse than past generations," Elkind says. Academic achievement has become the No. 1 stressor of children.
"We need a level of concern like we now have for global warming," Elkind says. "We don't need more research. We have the data," and we know what to do. Politics, economics, and "social/cultural dynamics" are what stand in the way, he says.
