Article in the Feb/March 2009 edition of Scientific American Mind reports that there is a correlation between lack of unstructured play time for kids and crime, “By age 23, more than one third of kids who had gone to play-free preschools had been arrested for a felony as compared with fewer than one tenth of play-oriented preschool alums.”
They are not counting organized activities like soccer, dance lessons, etc. This is they type of play where kids make it up on the fly! They go on to state cite a study that claims, “children’s free-play time has dropped by a quarter between 1981 and 1997.”
Their fast facts state:
1. Childhood play is crucial for social, emotional and cognitive development.
2. Imaginative and rambunctious “free play,” as opposed to games or structured activities, is the most essential type.
3. Kids and animals that do not play when they are young may grow into anxious, socially maladjusted adults.
If what they are saying in the article is true, then I should be one the less maladjusted individuals around. Our mother used to kick us out of the house after breakfast and tell us not to come back until it was dark. That is pretty much what we did, except to sneak back for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Of course, this was a the dawn of history when color TV was only a dream, video games had not even been thought of, men were men, and women liked men…
I do think it has gotten a little crazy they way the current batch of parents of young children are pushing their children and filling their time. Childhood is a precious time. Let kids be kids.