Old Fashioned Play
I happened across a story on NPR's website this week that confirms much of what I believe about how children learn. You can find the story here, if you want to take time to read the whole thing. It is worth it.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514
The story begins with history. Until the Mickey Mouse Club show there was no toy advertising outside of the Christmas season. Except for recent history, the majority of children didn't have many toys, or sports, or lessons, or TV or computer games. Children had a lot of unstructured time in which to choose their own activities. They could engage in imaginative play where they made up their own scripts, invented their own props and cooperated with other children in that play.
According to this article, the result of all that unstructured time where the children designed their own pursuits was an increase in 'executive function' which includes the ability to self-regulate. According to the article, "Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline."
In the 1940s researchers asked children, ages 3, 5, and 7 to do a variety of excercises. One of those exercises was to stand still for a period of time. The three year olds were unable to do it at all. The five year olds could stand still for about three minutes. The seven year olds could stand still as long as the researchers wanted them to.
This research was repeated in 2001. The results showed that the five year olds were now self-regulating like 1940's three year olds. Seven year olds now were at the level of five year olds in 1940.
This is important, because self-regulation is a better predictor of success in school than IQ. I'm guessing it is also a better predictor of success in life as well.
What are the enemies of self-regulation? The enemies are the things that keep our kids from long periods of self-directed imaginative play. TV and computer games play a part in that, but so do lessons and sports and multitudes of other activities that fill the days of children. And this is the part that is so difficult.
It has become the norm to have children's time very structured. We parents suffer from guilt if we don't have our kids in music and classes and sports and clubs and camps at the earliest possible ages. We wonder if we are depriving them of opportunities, and keeping them from achieving as well as their peers who do all those things. This study is saying to back off.
It is hard to feel like I'm doing the best thing for my kid when I say no to so much activity. What if they could be a musical prodigy? Will they even be able to compete athletically at the high school level if they aren't participating in comptetitive sports clubs at an early age? How do I deal with the boredom that comes before the creative play can begin? Wouldn't it be better to give them good constructive things to do with their time than to let them get bored and figure out their own activities?
I'm pretty much past this part of parenting, and since we unschooled for at least part of those years, I think we accidentally provided some of this for our kids. I sympathize with parents just starting out. The pressure to do more, learn more at early ages, and be in sports is even greater now than it was for us.
Maybe there need to be support groups for parents who choose to step out of that. Parents could have long relaxing conversations with other parents while their kids come up with their own imaginative play acting games in the back yard.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514
The story begins with history. Until the Mickey Mouse Club show there was no toy advertising outside of the Christmas season. Except for recent history, the majority of children didn't have many toys, or sports, or lessons, or TV or computer games. Children had a lot of unstructured time in which to choose their own activities. They could engage in imaginative play where they made up their own scripts, invented their own props and cooperated with other children in that play.
According to this article, the result of all that unstructured time where the children designed their own pursuits was an increase in 'executive function' which includes the ability to self-regulate. According to the article, "Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline."
In the 1940s researchers asked children, ages 3, 5, and 7 to do a variety of excercises. One of those exercises was to stand still for a period of time. The three year olds were unable to do it at all. The five year olds could stand still for about three minutes. The seven year olds could stand still as long as the researchers wanted them to.
This research was repeated in 2001. The results showed that the five year olds were now self-regulating like 1940's three year olds. Seven year olds now were at the level of five year olds in 1940.
This is important, because self-regulation is a better predictor of success in school than IQ. I'm guessing it is also a better predictor of success in life as well.
What are the enemies of self-regulation? The enemies are the things that keep our kids from long periods of self-directed imaginative play. TV and computer games play a part in that, but so do lessons and sports and multitudes of other activities that fill the days of children. And this is the part that is so difficult.
It has become the norm to have children's time very structured. We parents suffer from guilt if we don't have our kids in music and classes and sports and clubs and camps at the earliest possible ages. We wonder if we are depriving them of opportunities, and keeping them from achieving as well as their peers who do all those things. This study is saying to back off.
It is hard to feel like I'm doing the best thing for my kid when I say no to so much activity. What if they could be a musical prodigy? Will they even be able to compete athletically at the high school level if they aren't participating in comptetitive sports clubs at an early age? How do I deal with the boredom that comes before the creative play can begin? Wouldn't it be better to give them good constructive things to do with their time than to let them get bored and figure out their own activities?
I'm pretty much past this part of parenting, and since we unschooled for at least part of those years, I think we accidentally provided some of this for our kids. I sympathize with parents just starting out. The pressure to do more, learn more at early ages, and be in sports is even greater now than it was for us.
Maybe there need to be support groups for parents who choose to step out of that. Parents could have long relaxing conversations with other parents while their kids come up with their own imaginative play acting games in the back yard.
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