Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/reclaiming-play-helping-children-learn-and-thrive-in-school/5018044/
Child development theorists, researchers, and educators have long known that play is one of children’s most valuable resources, vital to their social, emotional, and cognitive growth. Through play children make sense of the world around them and work through new experiences, ideas, and feelings. But in recent years, a host of social forces and trends �" the influence of media, commercialism, fast-paced family life, academic pressures in schools �" have been eroding healthy play, robbing children of this valuable resource for optimal growth and learning.Children today are playing less at home, outdoors, and at school. According to a national Kaiser Family Foundation survey, children in the two- to seven-year-old age group now average about three hours per day in front of screens �" time they don’t spend in active, child-centered play (Rideout, et al., 2003). More parents today work, and work longer and harder than they did a generation ago, and without a system of quality national child care and after school care, many rely on screens or structured activities to occupy their kids. In our nation’s schools, teachers have had to cut recess and open-ended play in order to meet pressures in a ...