It’s Playtime For Kids!

Kids

oi-Staff

By Staff

Friday, June 5, 2009, 12:51

Do you know what might adversely affect the mental status of kids in the present generation? It's none other than the fewer playtimes for them. Today's kids are not playing enough as their predecessors.

The trouble with the adults of tomorrow is that the children of today are not playing enough. It's as serious for our culture and society as is global warming. In 30 years we're going to find out that we haven't created explorers any more as children. We haven't created children who know how to flexibly think because we've taken away their playtime and supplemented it with more rigid instructional time.

There were two types of valuable play—the first is free play in which children let their imagination define the rules. The second is play-based learning which is a very content-rich exploration based environment for young children that to them looks for all the world like it's playful, and to adults can have the purpose of exposing them to different kinds of arts, social studies, psychology.

Dr Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, of Temple University in Philadelphia conducted this study.