ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

Good thoughts. Another consideration at play here (lol) is the interaction between brain hemispheres. We are, by design or by accident, promoting an overgrown left brain, which is the one that arranges, organizes, and keeps us on schedule. Sadly the right brain is left out (lol again) and this fellow is the one that, although messy and chaotic, can come up with new and fresh ideas. No free play, no left brain, and welcome to zombie-land! :(

Our parents group just had two fantastic ECE speakers on a similar topic: "Challenging Play." It's so interesting how as adults we are uncomfortable with certain types of play. For example when boys play with pretend guns or children pretend to be dead. I so often see parents try to tell kids to"stop or tell them it's wrong when they are really just exploring subjects they are curious about, life, death, violence, power... Thanks for a great post. We really have to help parents let children PLAY and not "hover" or interfere so much!

So glad that the Alliance for Childhood is doing this. It will be added to our library for staff and families to borrow.
Perhaps it's even deeper than a fear of play...perhaps it's a kind of fear of childhood. We have been, for a long time now, dressing children like teenagers and adults, introducing them to what were once considered activities for older children and expecting toddlers to "do" academics. My hope is that the nature/outdoors movement will help re-introduce childhood and play back into the adult psyche.

To all of you who appreciate the ideas in "The Fear of Play": watch for a new report called "Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School," to be published this month by the Alliance for Childhood, of which Joan Almon is founder and executive director. It documents for the first time how child-initiated play has nearly disappeared from U.S. kindergartens, and sets out a plan of action to reverse this disastrous trend.

What a wonderful article. I was a director for over thirty years and it sounds like the mantra I always invoked - I agree that people are afraid of play- true play places the power in the hands and mind of the child and away from the adult- very scary for many-I played on the street as a child, filled with dangers but unlimited possibilities to create and think and solve problems.Too many programs are impoverished because of this fear of play and fear of not being in control of the child.Bravo! I hope this is on the WF Play agenda!

The article presents many valid points about children's ability to play safely when having the chance. There was a time when childrn played more outdoors and were able to use available resources (pieces of wood, branches, leaves, mud, rocks and any other debris they could find. Imagination was the key in creativity. I am heartened to know there is a return to "natural play areas" beginning to spring up all over. Advocates of this form of in/outdoor play do not put children in harms way, but offer other opportunities for creative play using a more natural approach.
There are possible exceptions (children with boundary issues) or perhaps Children with Additional Support Needs, but provision for these children may be incorporated into the original design of play areas.

I LOVE this article....I have always been a great lover and observer, and sometimes participant of play with children. I've gotten to go to some fantastic places, and learned some wonderful lessons....

Since I semi-retired, I have not been a subscriber (I was for many years) but I would very much like to purchase this one issue of that's possible.
Please let me know how to do this.
Sincerely, Toni H. Liebman

Thanks to Exchange for highlighting this issue once more in the magazine, and in the World Forum. You've been steadfast in keeping our attention on play; we should all be grateful.

I agree with the other post that the
lack of play is even greater now that some parents and teachers have lost sight of its vital importance to learning. I also want to point out another reason why the US is so fearful. We have a big fear of lawsuits, and lawsuits do happen here frequently.

Our health and safety rules often rule out exploration and the safe use of things that could be unsafe--much
more than other countries, like birthday candles. We keep our children the safest children in the world. I believe our children are harmed by that. We all have some experience observing families with over-protective parents, and we have seen people who grew up without any right to adventure. When it comes to play, which takes many forms, we are much too afraid of it.

One strategy we could use would be
to require play in our licensing for early care and education programs. It could and should also be a funding requirement for programs funded
with state and federal dollars, and
it should be written into all Quality Rating Systems. It's time to put
these concerns into policy action.

I love this posting. It is right on.

I would add another fear of play that I think consumes our child care programs. It is the fear that when children are playing they aren't learning. Of course this is wrong, but is seems easier for many programs to offer various activities in place of play to assure learning.

I also think that it is difficult for many providers to know how to set up environments that encourage and allow play. We tend to think of 'playing with' the child rather than allowing the children to play alone. We don't know how to set up controls around noise and running around indoors.

We don't realize that rough and wild play are great for outdoors, and gentle quiet play is right for indoors. As a result indoor play is allowed to be too loud, wild and filled with running. This distracts other kids from focused play and soon everyone is wild and soon again it is out of control. So out come the activities again! And teachers are frustrated and over stimulated themselves. Not to mention confused and worried about the bad behaviors that they see.

There is way too little discussion about the difference between in and outdoors play. There is way too little discussion about how to set up an environment that encourages play. There is way too little discussion about the needless and mind numbing activities that we set up for kids. There is way too little discussion about the fact that kids will come to start these activities on their own if they were left to their own devices in and environment where the supplies were there and the teachers were responding to the kids.

We have a long way to go. At times I really despair of getting there. But at the same time I am finding parents more and more eager to sign up for my play based family child care program. There is a beginning of an intuitive sense among parents that what goes on in the highly time and activity structured programs is wrong. It is apparent in the poor behavior of the kids, the stressed out teachers and the noisy chaotic, or shut down environments.

Parents want something else. Kids deserve something else.

I grew up on a farm. We were gently ignored while we took my father's tools to build various structures, hurt ourselves, fought, and in other ways were just plain kids. All 11 of my siblings are employed professionally in various fields. We never touched a pair of scissors before we went to kindergarten. Sometimes we had crayons and paper. Usually not. We had books and my mother read to us daily. We had many trips to the ER. Ask anyone over the age of 50 or so, even younger and you will find that we 'ran wild' throughout our childhood and survived to tell the tale.