"During the second half of the 20th century... play changed radically.... Children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch, they played Star Wars with a toy light saber...."
Psychologists and child development experts believe the most formative and meaningful play for children is centered on their own initiative and emotional regulation. Experts believe that sustainable development happens when children are given specific rules regarding safety and socialization, and then are allowed freedom to explore and create with limited adult intervention, less safety rules are being broken. With this type of play we see children initiating interactions with others and the world around them in an unencumbered fashion. They learn through this exploration in make believe in myriad educational domains (social, intellectual, affective regulation).
A fascinating piece in this story also included the effect that psychologists believe that play, focused upon particular objects (light sabers, toys that represent mainstream media figures, etc.) are actually undermining the executive functioning of the brain, subsequently changing kids' developmental capacities.
"A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development. It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline."
The story continues...
"We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5, and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment... but the results were very different. Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago..."
It is fascinating to me that we have seen a slow regression in children's ability to regulate themselves since the ever-so-slight introduction of toys into mainstream media. We have to take a step back, evaluate where we want our children to be, not simply intellectually, but also socially and emotionally, in the next 50 years. No doubt they will be exposed to more intellectually stimulating activities and materials, but at what cost to the rest of their precious souls?
