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As the previous chapter
indicated both animal and human studies strongly suggest that free play, rough-and-tumble, and exploration in children is important for both emotional
and cognitive development. Juvenile play correlates with the production of
brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF, a substance associated with the neural development
and the increase of dendrites on main nerve cells, or axons.
Frances Carlson, points out that "social roles practiced and learned in
rough-and-tumble play provide
children with the social knowledge needed for future relationships."1 That
said, what has been the trend in play advocacy in the United
States? Are children playing more? Are there societal consequences related to
the amount of play time afforded
children?
Howard Chudacoff in his book Children at Play: An American History, points out that opportunities for free
play have diminished
since the 1950s. For one, the move to suburbs reduced the acres of woods and
fields along with a substantial increase in vehicles on the new roads, thus
lessening the space that children would roam freely. Add to that the reduced
number of births per family that limits the number of playmates.2
The trend of mothers
becoming part of the workforce along with the keen awareness of child
abductions has led to a consequential increase in supervision and
parent-directed play.2 The actual incidents of these child
abductions have decreased in recent years but more extensive and graphic media
coverage has worsened the fear in parents.3,4,5
In one study, eight
hundred-thirty mothers from rural and urban areas of the United States were
surveyed for outdoor activity by their children. Eighty-five percent responded
that their children play less often outdoors than they did as children.6
Okay then, how
about schools?
Do schools recognize
the value of explorative play in the emotional
development of children? Many educators do and maintain a play and social
atmosphere in the preschool and kindergarten classrooms, but the educational
community is concerned, nevertheless, about standardized test scores that are
published and scrutinized by parents and legislators. School boards and
administrators have consequently taken measures to provide more instructional
time to help students learn more material. Free play does not stack up to the
public awareness of math and language scores with the result being reduced
recess time and/or the
expansion of the school day. Many school districts feel that creating a
facts-based learning atmosphere as early as possible will academically benefit
children in the long run.
There has been a shift
in how schools and families prioritize time for children. Sociologist Sandra
Hofferth looked at time spent weekly on various
activities in for children 3 to 12 years old. She found
· 18% more time in
school
· 145% more time doing
schoolwork at home
· 19% less time
watching television
· 25% less time playing
(both indoor and outdoor) in 1997 than in 1981.7
Emotional
impact
One data gathering instrument
that might shed light on this issue is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) which was
administered and assessed in normative college groups. Narcissism is defined as
excessive selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's talents and craving for
admiration. It is accompanied by the inability to form two-way relationships or
feel empathy for others. The questionnaire, called the Interpersonal
Reactivity Index, has been administered since the late 1970s.
The trend in recent decades reveals a significant increase
in narcissism and a decline in empathy. Along with overrating their abilities, narcissistic
individuals often lash out in response to criticism, and they commit
white-collar crimes more frequently than the general population. It appears
then that our nation is cultivating people that are more engaged in bullying (cyber,
verbal, or physical) and less likely to provide support for other individuals.8,9
Coupled with Hofferth's
data is psychologist Cassandra Newsom's analysis of fourteen to sixteen-year-old
responses to questions indicating changes in personality in the designated
areas. (from Gray p. 15)10,11
1948
|
1989
|
|
I
wake up fresh and rested most mornings
|
74.6%
|
31.3%
|
I
work under a great deal of tension
|
16.2%
|
41.6%
|
Life
is a strain for me much of the time
|
9.5%
|
35.0%
|
I
have certainly had more than my share of things to worry about
|
22.6%
|
55.2%
|
I
am afraid of losing my mind
|
4.1%
|
23.4%
|
Furthermore, the
suicide rate between 1950 and 2005 has gone up four times in the United States
for children under fifteen years of age, with it doubling for the fifteen to twenty-four-year
age bracket!12
Is it safe to conclude
that an increase in narcissistic behavior correlates with less free play, exploration, and rough-and-tumble opportunities in
children? Peter Gray would likely say
yes. The bottom line in his opinion is that (p.18):
In social
play, children learn how to negotiate with others, and how to modulate and
overcome anger that can arise from conflicts. It is also the primary means by
which children practice and acquire the physical and intellectual skills that
are essential for success in the culture in which they are growing. (p.18)11
Moreover, Gray finds that there is
a causative relationship between lack of free play in our American
culture and a rise in mental problems. He cites the research of Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University,
who has examined commonly employed psychological testing instruments such as
Taylor’s Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). She scrutinized the results of these
tests for young people through college age and noticed that:
Five to eight times as many young people
today have scores above the cutoff for a likely diagnosis of clinical anxiety or depressive disorder than was the case half
a century ago.
For example, based on
the Depression Scale of the MMPI,
approximately eight percent of college students who took the test between 2000
and 2007 scored above the usual cutoff for clinical depression, compared to
approximately one percent of those who took the test between 1938 and 1955.
Twenge found the scores not a reflection of economic
cycles, wars, or global events.13
Gray connects her
findings to the reduction of free play time imposed by
increased academic structure in schools. For one, adults structure the lives of
children to a greater degree, minimizing opportunities to plan and problem
solve. In addition, he further cites the essay written by Russian developmental
psychologist, Lev Vygotsky in 1933, that
self-control is a significant
value in the development of a child and that the conscious control manifested
when abiding by rules while interacting (playing) with peers is critical toward
this end. The rules are intuitive, too, in that the participants perform
rough-and-tumble, mocking real fighting, yet not causing injury through
kicking, biting, or scratching.14
Gray extends Vygotsky's premise postulating that social play volleys between
cooperation and conflict, and experiencing fear and anger that transpires
develops emotional control. The over managed life of children in America has lessened
the practice of emotional regulation contributing to the high rate of
psychopathology among young people today, in line with Twenge's findings.
He further argues that
children suffering from anxiety disorders admit to
feeling a loss of emotional control and that even mildly
threatening situations lead to excessive fear. Moreover, children with
psychological issues have a reduced ability to control anger when facing
conflict, unable to foster positive, intimate social connections.
Play is a natural means to make friends, avoid
anxiety and depression that advances into adulthood
leading to the social isolation common in our culture. Play, therefore, is a
critical ingredient in anger management development in childhood.
Gray's major concern is that schools have unnecessarily
over-structured the life of children very much like that of a prison. Children
are genetically programed to become
problem solvers, and not allowing them to explore and interact with children of
a broad age range inhibits their natural tendency to play and nurture
creativity and impulse control. In my estimation, we as a culture must weigh the benefits
of movement and social engagement in the school day versus the ever increasing
structured, teacher-directed educational settings we are coordinating.
I wish Gray's book would have been available in the early days of my
career because he calls attention to the natural capacity for children to
achieve elevated levels of learning coupled with enhanced creativity. My philosophy evolved in the direction of promoting
creativity and freedom, yet there was more that I should have attempted, but
worried unnecessarily about administrative backlash. Correlating schools as
prisons might be extreme but Gray nevertheless makes
several observations that have relevance in school communities. His comments are worth pondering:11
1. Children have a burning desire to learn and
absorb unfathomable amounts of information and skills without school
instruction in their first four years.
2. Once in school children are put in a
restrictive neurological environment for extended periods of time where they are
confined to desks and dramatically reduced freedom to explore and interact.
3. Content is directed at students often without inspiring them to nurture a genuine
appreciation of subjects and knowledge acquisition.
4. Children are pawns in an educational
paradigm that relishes high standardized test scores. School districts then put pressures on teachers to
emphasize 'education' that stresses short-term memory to achieve these scores
over higher level cognitive processing including creativity.
5. The pressure that goes with structuring the
lives of children in the socially restrictive and facts-emphasis educational
programs has raised the anxiety level in children,
reducing their ability to develop confidence as thinkers or discover their
natural born talents.
Conclusion
Denying the very drives
that allow children to seek explorative and free play opportunities might
be having a negative consequence on their emerging personalities. Play with its
exuberant movement coupled with social cooperation is assertiveness training for
children. That assertiveness is what drives
neurotransmitter activity that
develops the cerebellum-forebrain-midbrain connections.
A child finds pleasure when they explore
and play, and the human brain is genetically geared to derive pleasure.
Cultural restraints on behavior are proper to live a safe life in a community,
yes, but the Baining have taken it to an extreme that none of us could tolerate
in our Western lifestyle.
Research and anecdotal
evidence suggest that exploration, play, and rough-and-tumble experiences are
necessary not only for anger management but also impulse
control extending into adulthood. It would seem then that brain development is
genetically managed by cues from
the environment, including playful vestibular and cardiovascular
pursuits that affect behavior and cognition.
Analogous to the rat
studies, brain-derived neurotrophic factor BDNF increases when these
play scenarios occur in
humans. BDNF is associated with the entirety of neural development, including
the vast range of intellectual skills that humans possess. It sets off a
complex neural development that targets many behavior genes. Among them are
those that lead to anger management and moral wisdom as
a child develops, including the rituals of physicality and talk.
The Hofferth and Newsom
studies cited above have revealed
increased narcissism in our society and these appear to correlate with
demographics related to play space, parental attitudes about safety, and school
scheduling. Our society should consider the negative consequences because as
Peter Gray says: "In
social play, children learn how to negotiate with others, and how to modulate
and overcome anger that can arise from conflicts."11 (p.18)
That is a significant statement in that the child in the school environment
must maintain a tremendous amount of self-control, during the entirety
of the school day to be attentive, quiet, physically passive, accepted by
peers, and processing information. I know of many people who were perfectly
content carrying out that passive role through most of their schooling and
devoted most of their energy studying for tests because grades had the greatest
relevance in their academic lives.
Schools may want to
consider setting up recreational areas in the complex that allow students to
experience a full complement of challenges that we see at various play centers
and outdoor education facilities. Pool and ping pong tables, climbing walls,
balance beams, and apparatus that allow for manipulation and physical
challenges should be readily available for children throughout the course of
the day. Include supervision by trained individuals and articulate safety
parameters. Maintain stations with access to video games. Do not forget fine
motor implementation since that also has a profound effect on cognitive
development. These include almost all art and ceramic work but also coloring
within the lines (crayons or paint), tracing pictures, as well as redrawing
pictures free-hand, cutting images perfectly along their edges with a scissors,
origami, or even threading a needle. All hand manipulation is relevant here.
The scientific
community revealed the interplay between lifestyle and the biochemicals that
stimulate brain development. Based on the evidence it seems that K-12 students
benefit from a wide range of activities that incorporate vestibular-proprioceptors to cardiovascular movements. The heightened
BDNF production aids in
the neurological development and certainly would enhance attention and along
with it memory in the hippocampus as the students
assimilate content during the instructional day.
Cultural distinctions
|
Jane Fajans, professor of Anthropology at Cornell University, studied the Baining people on the island of Papua New Guinea. The Baining are not hunter-gatherers, but small-scale agriculturalists, who subsist on their gardens and the few animals they raise. Here is what she documented:
…They regard children's play as "splashing in the mud," an activity of pigs, not appropriate for humans. They do not allow infants to crawl and explore on their own. …When one tries to do so, an adult picks it up and restrains it. Beyond infancy, children are encouraged or coerced to spend their days working and are often punished—sometimes by such harsh means as shoving the child's hand into the fire—for playing.
…They did not tell stories, rarely gossiped, and exhibited little curiosity or enthusiasm.
…Work, to them, is effort expended to overcome or resist the natural. To behave naturally is to them tantamount to behaving as an animal.
…The Baining also derogate sexual intercourse, because it is natural, although they apparently engage in enough of it to keep their population going. They consider adoption to be the ideal form of parenting because to raise someone else's child is less natural than to raise one's own"15
That said, could you live this pleasure-less, highly ascetic middle age monastery lifestyle? A person exhibiting Baining personalities would be considered abnormal and recommended for counseling.
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Anxiety in College
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Reporter Karen Herzog interviewed John Achter, psychologist and interim associate dean of students at UW-Stout and Sarah Van Orman, executive director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Health Services for a May 12, 2016 article published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She found that
Nearly 33% of the students in the UW System reported clinically significant mental health symptoms over the previous year on the 2015 National College Health Assessment. They also found that almost ten percent seriously thought about ending their life and that over one percent (2,000 students) attempted suicide.
At a UW Board of Regents meeting, Achter stated that anxiety "has really leapfrogged depression in recent years. Over half of our students report overwhelming anxiety in a given year" and those considering suicide "may be more common than many of us would think or like to believe."
The shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008 have made colleges more alert to symptoms of anxiety amongst students.
Van Orman reports that the UW System documents a thirty-six percent increase in campus counseling appointments even though enrollment increased just three percent. At UW-Madison alone, there will be a seventeen percent increase in student fees just to pay for more positions in the counseling area, including violence prevention and victim advocacy. She adds that fifty-five percent of students used counseling services at least once last year.
"Anxiety and stress are what we're really seeing," Van Orman said. "We often think of anxiety as problematic when it limits, and when it becomes incapacitating and overwhelming, and keeps us from doing what we want to do. Anxiety impacts students' ability either academically or socially. There's a pattern of short nights of sleep, heavy alcohol consumption, and then catching up on their sleep. It's really difficult to catch up, sleeping four hours Monday through Thursday, then 12 hours doesn't do it."16
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*******
References
1. Carlson, F.,
(November 2010). Rough-and-tumble play
101. ChildCareExchange.com.
Retrieved
from
http://www.ccie.com/library/5018870.pdf
2. Chudacoff, H.,
(2007). Children at Play: An American
History, New York: New York University Press.
3. Family Kids
and Youth/Research Now Oct-Nov 2009, International summary report December 2009
4. Finkelhor, D.,
Turner, H.A., Ormrod, R.K., & Hamby, S.L. (2010). Trends in childhood violence and abuse
exposure: Evidence from two national surveys. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 164(3): 238-242.
5. O'Brien, J.,
Smith, J., (March 2002). Childhood
Transformed? Risk Perceptions and the Decline of Free Play, British Journal of Occupational Therapy vol.
65 no. 3 123-128
6. Clements, R.,
(2004). An Investigation of the Status of Outdoor Play, Contemporary
Issues in Early Childhood, Volume 5, Number 1.
7. Hofferth, S.,
Sandberg, J., (2009). Changes in American children's time, International Journal of Time Use Research, Vol. 6, No. 1, 26-47,
19
8. Konrath S.,
O'Brien, E., Hsing C., (August 5, 2010).
Changes in dispositional empathy in American college students over time:
a meta-analysis, Pers Soc Psychol Rev. (2011).
May;15(2):180-98.
9. Thomaes S.,
Bushman B., Orobio de Castro B., Stegge H., (2009). What makes narcissists
bloom? A framework for research on the etiology and development of narcissism. Dev Psychopathol. 21(4):1233-47.
10. Newsom, C.,
Archer, R. Trumbetta, S., (June 2010).
Changes in Adolescent Response Patterns on the MMPI/ MMPI-A Across Four
Decades, Journal of Personality
Assessment I. Gottesman Published
online
11. Gray, P.,
(2013). Free to Learn: why unleashing the
instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better
students for life, New York: Basic Books.
12. Center for
Disease Control and Prevention
13. Twenge, J.,
Gentile, B., DeWall, N., Ma, D., Lacefield, K., Schurtz, D., (2010). Birth
cohort increases in psychopathology among young Americans, 1938–2007: A
cross-temporal meta-analysis of the MMPI, Clinical
Psychology Review 30 145–154
14. Vygotsky, L.,
(1966). Play and its role in the Mental Development of the Child, Voprosy psikhologii, No. 6; 1933.
15. Fajans, J.,
(1997). They Make Themselves: Work and
Play among the Baining of Papua New Guinea, University of Chicago Press.
16. Herzog, K.,
(May 12, 2016). Anxious? Deeply
depressed? More college students saying yes, Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel.
