Hilary Stout's "Effort to Restore Play Gains Momentum," published January 5 in the New York Times, warmed the hearts of children's champions across the land. What an uplifting start to the new decade.
Recent decades have not been good for our youngest children, with play vanishing and parental anxiety and stress reaching new--and dangerous--heights. Screen time--via internet, TV, and the latest smart phones--is increasing for all, including babies, whose parents have found compelling new ways to comfort and distract their cranky progeny. (I recently saw a baby mesmerized by an iPhone app on the NYC subway during the early evening "witching hour," when hunger and exhaustion descend.) Outdoor play--of the unsupervised and unstructured variety--as well as exposure to the natural world are becoming luxuries, as is recess, which has been on a steady downward spiral since the 1980s--a trend that accelerated with the enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001, and has shown no signs of abating. All of the above is contributing to the nation's soaring childhood obesity rate, inspiring the First Lady's "Let's Move" campaign.
At the same time, a growing chorus has been making the case for play, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose clinical report, The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, helped put play on the national policy agenda. The Alliance for Childhood, a national advocacy organization, has also been a prime mover. Their report, Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, argues that child-initiated play should be restored to kindergartens, from which it is rapidly disappearing. Among their findings: Standardized testing and preparation for tests are now a daily activity in most NYC kindergartens, with nearly 80 percent of teachers spending 20 to 30 minutes on test prep. Their synthesis of the research makes clear that children engaged in complex forms of play have greater language and social skills, more empathy, show more self-control, and demonstrate higher levels of thinking--all essential components of school readiness, not to mention the foundation for innovative, productive future citizens.
But parents have remained unconvinced that play is the way to success. From Baby Mozart, to test prep for preschool admissions, to the rejection of picture books for younger and younger children in the interest of promoting early reading, the parental quest for ever more precocious cognitive development continues with a vengeance. Last fall's Times story, "Picture Books No Longer A Staple for Children," featured Amanda Gignac, a Texas mom and author of the book blog, The Zen Leaf, who said that her 6 ½ -year-old son, "while he regularly tackles 80-page chapter books,"remains a "reluctant" reader. The next quote from Gignac sent chills up my spine: "He would still read picture books now if we let him, because he doesn't want to work to read." Gignac, who apparently fielded nearly three hundred comments in response to the NYT piece, posted a clarification of her remarks--still posted on her site--which she claimed were taken out of context.
Still, one mother's lengthy and impassioned defense of her child rearing and approach to literacy speaks volumes about the intersection of education policy and parental anxiety. In the post-NCLB age, as policymakers grasp at initiatives and reforms that promise higher standardized test scores (and improved standing globally), the acceleration of young children's skills acquisition is an integral part of every child and parent's landscape. In this land of modern childhood, the argument that play is critical to children's healthy development is a tough sell.
From David Elkind's The Hurried Child and The Power of Play to Vivian Gussin Paley's A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play , to Play=Learning: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children's Cognitive & Social-Emotional Growth, by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Golinkoff, and Dorothy Singer, the evidence base is deep, rich, and compelling. And the very loss of childhood is at stake. The campaign to restore play to children's lives needs an infusion of new and powerful advocates. Parents, are you listening?