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I love Tim Burton. Not only did he attend my alma mater, which instantly makes me dark and cool by association, but his movies are terrific; Coraline is one of the best movies I have ever seen, hands down. One of my dearest blog friends, Barbara at TherExtras, is hosting a pseudo-carnival which, after finally figuring out the rules, I decided to enter. I never win anything when I post about poop, so hopefully this one will get me her cool Nightmare Before Christmas Collector’s Edition.
Children don’t play anymore. We, as parents, think our children play, of course, but the definition of the term has changed and this has serious developmental consequences.
It is no secret that active and exploratory play assists dramatically in social and cognitive development in children; research has supported this statement for decades. Think about what ‘play’ means to you as it pertains to your own childhood for a moment. Chances are you will remember some of the same things I do, Playdough, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians; general make-believe imaginative activities. Our children, however, do not play in this manner. At least not as often as we used to.
According to the American Psychology Association and a report published recently by a non-profit group called the Alliance For Childhood, today’s kindergarteners in New York and Los Angeles (the geographical targets of the study) receive less than a half-hour of “choice time” per day. This term refers to unstructured, free play time during which the child can choose freely what type of activity to engage in. It extends out of the classroom as well. These same children receive an average of eight fewer hours of unrestricted play per week than did children 20 years ago. While children today do engage in developmental activities throughout the day, unrestricted play is lost to sports, video games and computer-based learning programs.
What is the difference? Simple. Exploratory play is better. This is not new thinking or aggressive avant-garde child-development theory, it is fact. Children respond better and more quickly to active, free and exploratory play than they do to instructor-based lectures or “edutainment” toys, and research has supported this since before I was born. In a study published in Developmental Psychology just last year, a group of preschool-aged children were shown magnets that would stick to a metal table. When the children were handed de-magnetized versions, they became very interested in why they would not stick, and played with them longer in an attempt to learn how they were different than the ones that would. Inversely, the group of preschoolers who had the de-magnetized versions explained to them beforehand by a teacher knew they would not stick before they were handed to them and lost interest in both types of magnets very quickly, also losing knowledge that would have been gained by playing with them for a longer period of time, such as physical properties, polarization, etc.
Why then, if we know that exploratory play is better, do we continue to push our children into framed educational environments, force feed them “edutainment” toys and structure their play? Fear. Child development researchers feel that this phenomenon stems from the basic fear of falling behind.
To me, this holds a great deal of water. Consider the advertisements we are barraged with on a daily basis. Two in particular come to mind. The first is a transitional segment that I see repeatedly on the Noggin network. It features a montage of clips from Noggin’s daily preschool lineup, and is voiced-over by a number of parents explaining how proud and impressed they are by their child’s knowledge. “…I pulled up to a stop sign and my three-year-old said ‘Look, Mommy. Octagon!’” gushes one voice. Another is that of a proud father explaining how his toddler knows the Spanish word for “red” and how amazed he is at this. The second example (the product shall remain nameless as I do not support it) is for an infant reading program that features one-year-old babies “reading” two and three-syllable words off cards. I remain skeptical as to whether the babies are actually interpreting the letters and not simply recognizing the shape of the word form, as they would with sign language, but the goal of the program is clear – get your child reading as soon as you can! As a result of this fear, LeapFrog, a company which makes toddler laptops and other so-called developmental toys (which, by the way, my daughter has never played with for more than 30 seconds) saw it’s annual sales quadruple from 2000-2006. Advertising has instilled a fear in us that, if we miss those precious early years during which our children’s minds are so absorbent and so thirsty for knowledge, our kids will fall behind, and we’re buying it up like tobacco.
“Hey! Matt!” you ask. “I thought you were gonna do some cute Halloween thing. This post sucks.” Hang in there. I will come to the point.
Halloween, and costumes in particular, speak to the exact opposite developmentally. The costume itself, while it may just seem cute and fun, actually benefits the child a great deal more than it may seem. Dr. Laurie Zelinger, a licensed child psychologist, states that dress-up “fosters the imaginative processes, and allows for play without rules or script. Dress-up allows for experimentation, role play or fantasy.” She also points out that it can reveal possible inner conflicts or trauma, based on how the child expresses the particular role he plays. Additionally, dressing up can assist in conscience development; when a child sets up and “follows” a set of rules he has created for himself based on his character (i.e. – “No, I can’t fly, but I can run super-fast and have laser eyes!”)
Dress up, along with other types of free-exploratory play, allow a child to “stretch” the way his mind works. It forces the child to set his own structure and his own “rules” and, in doing so, allows him to develop in a more gestalt manner.
Am I suggesting that sending your child out for one night in a bedsheet with two holes cut out of it will make him a genius? Not in the least. Children do need information and they do need the guidance of parents and teacher to help them receive it. I am, however, suggesting that a child will benefit from how we choose to provide them that information, and that the child who is allowed to experiment, discover and fail on his own will blossom developmentally more quickly than a child who is spoon fed the information by teachers or computers.
My own daughter proves this theory for me on an almost-daily basis. I mentioned that she hates her LeapFrog laptop. It’s not only that item. She almost immediately loses interest in essentially any item that instructs her or guides her. In contrast, she will sit on the edge of our porch and play with seashells, two plastic horses (that do nothing) and a handful of dish towels for hours. I don’t fully know the extent of what is involved in this particular game, except that all the items have names, talk to each other, and seem to take a lot of naps. Whatever she is dreaming up while the horses trample the dish towels and the seashells are sleeping is coming 100% straight from her, and she is growing from it.
In my opinion, Maria Montessori had it right, and most of the premises behind her method have become more important than ever. This year for Halloween, my daughter is going to be a witch with an orange face and pink hair (assuming she still wants to do that come the 31st) and I am certain that, in addition to having a terrific time and consuming large amounts of sugar, we will all have a very clear definition of what the orange-faced, pink-haired witch talks like, who her friends are, what she eats and what her special powers are by the end of the evening. My daughter will have created an entire “witch world” completely from her imagination rather than conforming to the pre-determined environments of Dora the Explorer or Wow Wow Wubzy. I believe that there is a great deal of benefit in this for her, both now and in the future, and suggest not limiting costume time to one specific day, rather allow it on any day. Use gloves, sunglasses, hats, towels, old shoes…whatever you have lying around. Doing so will help your child understand how they can build their own minds, instead of us doing it for them.
As the authors of The Scientist In The Crib so aptly put it, “”We want to understand children, not renovate them.”
-Matt
If you’re out of dress-up ideas, check out our online baby store, RedSparks!.
October 6th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Outstanding, Matt. (Hoping Aline likes Tim Burton as much as you – you know, so she will go back into the kitchen again. Surely your efforts here redeem you in her mind.)
Since this is the first entry in the contest, I cannot gon on too much about how MUCH I like this post. Just a friendly reminder that the third part of the score is the number of comments on my blog. So here’s a deal – I will count all the comments from Redsparks together – yours and Aline’s together (just as I will for other couples I know in blogland).
Barbara´s last blog ..Fall Contest October Giveaway on Halloween
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October 6th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Barbara- I have been scarred, for days I could not get that image out of my mind! My poor child….However, I have safely made it back to the kitchen. And yes, I love Tim Burton. We would thoroughly enjoy the collector’s edition
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October 8th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Very well done Matt. I agree with every point you and the other experts raised. Dress up is a major part of life in our house and it’s not just princess gowns, although we have plenty of those. The girls have masks, hats, capes and all manner of other garb. I believe I can act out every part in all the major princess stories and even more that are born of some kind of improv routine after dinner and before bedtime. It’s some of the best times with my children.
I could go on.
I will mention that my kids both have the leapster handheld game and they love it. We limit the screen time but we can get a solid 30-45 minutes when we need it.
The other big thing is drawing. My kids love to draw. More often than not I can gauge where they are emotionally by what they put on paper. Just another excellent freely creative outlet.
I’ve really rambled. Good luck with the contest!
Chuck´s last blog ..Le Freak
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October 9th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Spot-on post, Matt.
We recently had to stay with my parents for almost 3 months with our 3 kids (we all survived- barely) and while there had only a few toys– a set of blocks, some play food, and some dress-up clothes. You know what? Our 3 and 4 yo’s did just fine. The V-tech laptop? Yeah, that rolled around under the driver’s seat of my minivan the whole time.
JessieLeigh´s last blog ..Homemade Treasures
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October 20th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
What a brilliant post! I’m always horrified when my stepchildren give me an accusing look and proclaim “IM BORED!”. Obviously I’m supposed to jump to it and structure their time for them, and entertain them. Or maybe not. I do tell them that if they can’t find anything to do on their own, that I have many chores that they can help me with.
They find something pretty fast then. LOL
Anna´s last blog ..Pool Decks: The Perfect Accessory for Aboveground Pools
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November 1st, 2009 at 7:59 am
Well, Matt, I read your post AFTER I entered the contest and thought for sure your entry was most excellent. Makes me want to put together a new dress up box for my son Nathan and my little grandson. Perhaps there is more to kids enjoying the present boxes on Christmas morning than what’s inside, eh?
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