The Evolution of Play
Back in my day… I mean, I’m only in my thirties, but I still feel like I can use that phrase, what with the exponential changes that have occurred in our world in the last decade alone. I was a kid before everyone had cell phones, when VCR and VHS were widely understood acronyms, and when my family could afford a house with a playroom and a backyard on a one-working-parent income. This relatively tech-free and space-heavy childhood is now a rarity, at least in a city like Vancouver. What this kind of childhood offered me included many perceived ‘pains’ (that I now see as perks)… being sent outside to play, being bored and needing to entertain myself, and nervously hoping that if you knocked on a neighbour’s door, they’d be free to play with you. The majority of family lives now revolve around the dual-working-parent model, and smaller living spaces. Currently, many parents are even using their living spaces as workplaces as well. Furthermore, technology is ever-present in our lives.
While none of these things are truly ‘bad’ on their own, the general shift over the last three decades has been from an unsupervised, free-range, tech-free childhood to a highly-scheduled, never-bored, tech-inundated one. In my opinion, this has not been a positive shift for the human race in general. For centuries, children have often been left to their own devices, been a useful part of the community, or have even been in charge of younger children. While there are many benefits to many modern inventions and new practices, I believe it is essential we do our best to thoughtfully and mindfully include classic play practices into early childhood. This will likely not be an easy feat, but hopefully making small changes and emphasizing particular values will encourage society’s shift towards a focus on the long-term benefits of free imaginary play.
On an NPR radio broadcast in 2008, Alix Spiegel reviews some of the work Adele Diamond (professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University of British Columbia) and Deborah Leong (professor emerita of psychology and director of the Tools of the Mind Project at Metropolitan State College of Denver), are involved in. Spiegel reports that “for most of human history, children played by roaming near or far in packs large and small. Younger children were supervised by older children and engaged in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and heroes. But, while all that play might have looked a lot like time spent doing nothing much at all, it actually helped build a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of elements, such as working memory and cognitive flexibility. But perhaps the most important is self-regulation — the ability for kids to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.” I believe that communal spaces and toys are an ideal, accessible way to help families access this kind of play again, while allowing parents to leave and engage in their own self-care, therefore benefiting everyone in the entire family.
Source: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=76838288
