Children's Health: Make Plenty of Time for Play
America's pediatricians have struck a blow for all moms tired of driving the kids to endless rounds of sports practices and lessons–and for all kids who'd rather just hang out at home.
The American Academy of Pediatrics' new report on play, released Monday, urges pediatricians to evaluate kids for stress when they come in for checkups and to make sure they're not missing out on time to play. Play isn't just for fun, the doctors point out. It's where children use their creativity while developing imagination and dexterity as well as physical, cognitive, and emotional strength.
"Play is a really important thing," says Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who wrote the report. "In a school setting, play is a reboot that allows you to absorb new information more fully, grasp more concepts, and absorb them. If you have an intense experience and have some chill time, you remember the lessons more." Yet, says Ginsburg, 13 percent of children in elementary school have no recess, a number that rises to 28 percent of sixth graders from poor families.
That's not to say that organized enrichment activities are bad, but rather that families need to find a balance between organized activity and unstructured, "child-driven play." And hours in front of the TV aren't what the pediatricians have in mind. It's all too easy to let children be couch potatoes, maneuver video games, or play on the computer–passive entertainment that, research shows, is harmful to children's health.
Factors contributing to the loss of play, according to the report, include:
– Many school systems have reduced time allotted to recess, art classes, and physical education in order to prepare students to meet reading and math requirements in President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. The lack of physical activity may be one reason that boys increasingly appear to do less well academically than girls.
– Parents are applying the standards of efficiency and productivity they've learned at work to parenting, and worry that they're not doing a good enough job for their kids if they're just lying on the rug and playing with blocks.
– Products and programs are marketed to parents as essential to producing superachieving children, with little evidence to support those claims.
– A more competitive college admissions process makes parents feel that their children won't get into a good school if they don't excel at academics and also take on many extracurricular activities and volunteer efforts.
The answer, Ginsburg says, is to help parents feel confident in rejecting pressure from advertisers (or the superparent next door). "Look at your child. Is your child thriving, or tired? Is your child happy, or does she seem stressed? Look at your family. Are you spending enough time just being, or are you stretched too far in order to succeed and get ahead? Then you're missing what family is about."
The academy is asking pediatricians to:
– Recommend to parents that all children get unscheduled, independent time to be creative, reflect, and decompress. Parents can monitor play for safety, but much of the play should be child driven rather than adult directed.
– Emphasize the value of "true toys," such as blocks and dolls, which require children to use their imagination.
– Explain that putting children in charge of free time helps them become more self-sufficient and resilient.
– Reinforce that parents who spontaneously play with their kids are being wonderfully supportive, nurturing, and productive.
"We're not trying to create a slacker nation," says Ginsburg, an expert on adolescents and stress. "We want kids to work hard, we want them to be successful, we want them to be athletic. We're saying that as we create a good developmental environment, we need to include play and downtime, because it's good for people. It's good for children, and it's good for parents. Childhood is supposed to be incredibly fun, and parenting children should be fun, too."
Website where teens can build their own stress-reduction plan, from the American Academy of Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org/stress/teen1-a.cfm
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