Is free-play a thing of the past for children? See what an AAP report reveals about the changing face of childhood routine.
Factors Impacting the Routine of Childhood
Factors sited in the AAP report include the following in vastly condensed form:
There are more families with a single head of household or two working parents and fewer multigenerational households in which grandparents and extended family members can watch the children. The care of children have increasingly been left in the hands of professional caregivers and then as children age, school activities and enrichment programs.</li>
Many parents have learned how to become increasingly efficient in balancing work and home schedules. Immediate results have been for the parents to feel that in order for their short time with their children to be productive, they must be filled with activities that facilitate academics are the most efficient use of time. </li>
Parents receive messages from a variety of sources stating that good parents actively build every skill and aptitude their child might need from the earliest ages.Media pressure increases the guilt factor, making parents feel that if they do not produce super-achieving children, they have failed at parenthood. </li>
The college admission process has become much more rigorous in recent years, largely because of a baby boom hitting the college years. Parents and students feel the pressure to maximize their learning time in the hopes of being admitted to the college of choice.</li>
The pressure for admission to select schools begins for some families long before college. Parents are sometimes led by pressure to “package students” for admission, even to preschools! This in turn subjects children to unrealistic academic expectations and time spent in preparations.</li>
There is a national trend to focus on the academic fundamentals of reading and arithmetic.Although this in itself is not a bad trend, brought to the forefront by NCLB, but it added to the pressure of schools to drop creative play endeavors such as recess, the arts, and physical education in favor of more academic pursuits. In the end, the emotional and social development of children are likely to be impacted.</li>
The decrease in free play can also be explained by children being passively entertained through television or computer/video games.Natural activities, such as farm work, athletics, even hide and seek outside are being replaced with an inappropriate level of couch potato entertainment due to a change in modern cultural and parenting patterns. Unfortunately, these changes will not only impact the mental, social and physical development now, but the child’s future health. </li>
In many communities, children cannot play safely outside of the home unless they are under close adult supervision and protection.
According the AAP report, it is wrong to assume that the current trends are a problem for all children. There are obvious benefits to all children being exposed to cultural activities and there is also an advantage to providing increased funds for cultural exposure to children living in impoverished neighborhoods. That said; no child needs to be exposed to such a number of extra-curricular enrichment activities that it leads to stress and anxiety.
Children are not the only family members who suffer from a schedule which runs them from activity to activity. The adult members of the family also suffer. They feel guilt about what they are not able to provide and worry about the progress (or lack thereof) of their children. Moderation and balance would be the best message families could glean from this report.
Information for this article, much of it quoted exactly, was taken directly from the clinical report published October 9, 2006 in the American Academy of Pediatrics entitled The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, or paraphrased in the interest of time and accuracy. The initial report was submitted by Kenneth R. ginsburg MD, MS Ed, and the Committee on Communications and Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health.
The copyright of the article Free-play and Childhood in Early Childhood is owned by Connie Newbauer. Permission to republish Free-play and Childhood in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
