Childhood Experts are feeling a wee bit troubled. They are worried about a generation of kids who aren’t getting enough of good old-fashioned playtime. The AP reported that this was the hot topic at the Wonderplay conference last week in New York City, a gathering that included 900 early childhood educators from 22 states. During his keynote speech, the psychologist and author Michael Thompson declared "We have to fight back. We're going to fight for play."
In these busy times of too much TV, too much school work, and too many video games, kids don’t have the free time to participate in spontaneous play. There is the worry, which was voiced by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a Temple Uiversity psychologist, that without play as part of children’s every day lives, that they will lose “the innovation and creative thinking” that is gained from free play. She made the scary prediction that “the lack of play in early childhood education ‘could be the next global warming.’”
Among the key factors, according to Thompson (From the AP):
-- Parents' reluctance to let their kids play outside on their own, for fear of abduction or injury, and the companion trend of scheduling lessons, supervised sports and other structured activities that consume a large chunk of a child's non-school hours.
-- More hours per week spent by kids watching TV, playing video games, using the Internet, communicating on cell phones.
-- Shortening or eliminating recess at many schools -- a trend so pronounced that the National PTA has launched a "Rescuing Recess" campaign.
-- More emphasis on formal learning in preschool, more homework for elementary school students and more pressure from parents on young children to quickly acquire academic skills.
Now stop reading this and go play with your kids.
Photo Credit
Story via: Salon/AP
