Creative Play

Simple play activities vanishing

(Here is an article from an E-bulletin i receive weekly.....sad sad sad and sad)

Today’s Family News
November 1, 2006

Parents and teachers are growing concerned that many young children seem to have lost any desire simply to play, Maclean’s magazine reported this week.

No longer are kids interested in “loose-parts play,” such as zoo animals and manipulating blocks or silly putty. Activities like marbles, freeze tag, kickball and skipping rope are likewise vanishing from playgrounds. Instead, children are attracted more by electronic devices that tell them what tasks to perform.

Diane Levin, professor of education at Boston’s Wheelock College, told Maclean’s, “I see kids poke at Play-Doh now and say, ‘What does it do?’” “Skipping [rope] doesn’t really happen anymore,” said Tanya Rutledge, a teacher in St. Catharines, Ontario.

An Ottawa home-daycare provider said she believes well-intentioned parents are partly to blame by overcompensating when their children complain of boredom. “We feel if we’re not stimulating and enriching our children all the time, that we’re neglecting them,” she said. “They’ve become addicted to being entertained.”

Alberta-based neuroscientist Dr. Bruce Perry is concerned that these children will be ill-equipped as adults to cope with a global marketplace ruled by innovation.

“We’re educating our kids to be cognitively homogenous and raising people who are very good at being followers and employees,” he said. “If there’s any shift in the economy, they will be ill-equipped to deal with it.”

Yet some are attempting to address the problem. Pearl Marko, a recreational therapist and mother of two in Edmonton, has launched Positive Playgrounds. It seeks to give help to parents, teachers and recreational leaders on how they can reverse this trend.

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Ah, sad isn't it?? I have experienced this working in childcare centres, it is so sad when a group of children cannot think of play on their own, but look to me to supply video games and stimulating movies, etc to entertain them.

I am encouraged to embrace more and more creative play with Julia, since she is in love with it that won't be difficult! haha. My link to "likeminded mommy" has a lot to read about creative play if you go to her topical index. She is incredibly inspiring and practical and honest. Refreshing to the soul.

enjoy your day, and help kids learn to play and imagine, today! :)