May 23, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:Seriously?
From a New York Times article on the quest to revive old kids' games:
Conn Iggulden said in an e-mail message that he routinely received correspondence from parents who yearn for a “return to simple pleasures,” which seems to stem from “potent forces, like the realisation that keeping your kids locked up in the house on PlayStations isn’t actually that good for them; or the appalled reaction of many parents to a health-and-safety culture that prevents half the activities they took for granted as kids — and that they know were important to their growth and confidence.”Nevertheless, such simple pleasures have not always been conspicuous in the lives of children over the last two decades. “These kind of games, including tag, have practically died out,” said Joan Almon, who is coordinator for the United States affiliate of the Alliance for Childhood, a play advocacy group in College Park, Md.
I am aware that kids these days lead more scheduled, sheltered, and electronically enriched childhoods than I did. But is it really true that they don't know how to play tag? It seems to me that I spent hours playing tag, kickball, etc at recess, where the little blighters presumably don't have access to their computers . . .
The disappearance of monkey bars, on the other hand, is a clear national tragedy. Ours were helpfully made out of steel and soared over our parents heads, so that when you fell onto the concrete below you knew you'd really climbed something. The current models in that playground are less than two feet off the ground, made of plastic, and look like about as much daring fun as Singles Bingo Night at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows.
Posted by Jane Galt at May 23, 2007 6:47 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksMaybe I'm just a nervous Nellie but the fact that monkey bars where ever built over concrete makes me wonder if people were just not thinking back then. Government regulations, and even fears of lawsuits, aren't always bad, just usually bad.
I think the play advocate lady is wrong. My kid is nine and he says at recess they play tag, freeze tag, foursquare, and the modern equivalent of cowboys and Indians - Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.
As for monkey bars, I am proud (???) to say that his school still has them and there have been no less than two monkey-bar related broken arms in the last month.
I'd tend to be skeptical of a "play advocate's" opinion - wouldn't her whole job rest on trying to convince people that there's not enough play?
Some of the uberplaygrounds I've come across recently look like they would have been fantastic fun when I was a kid. The bouncy surface seems more fall friendly, and the heights don't seem like they would be terribly different (everything seems HUGE when you're 7).
Kudos for anyone managing to land a career as a play advocate. I think they should move into corporate America. Everyone complains about Americans not getting enough exercise, but no one schedules tag and kickball at lunch.
Then (1978) - three recesses, one, maybe two teachers to watch hundreds of kids.
Now (2007) - one recess at lunch that is short, hired playground watchers that WATCH.
Granted, this is a report from my friends who send their kids to the local, rich, white public school. My kids go to Montessori, where the distinction between work and play is a little softer.
Ah, monkey bars. They ignited my interest in gymnastics and later, diving. A real shame ifthose are gone.
The truly menacing fun equipment, though, was the old-syle jungle gym. The hexagonal kind where you'd climb up to the top, then slide down the poles in the middle. I've got two scars on the back of my head, the result of ten stitches, from a fall from the top to where those poles were planted in concrete.
Wasn't all bad though. It made my first-grade self famous to the whole elementary school (as the kid that cracked his head open), including those giants in fifth grade.
I used to love the monkey bars when I was a kid. Unfortunately girls were not allowed to play on them unless they were wearing shorts under their skirts. And wearing pants to school was verboten (for girls).
I think every generation in some way redefines play. As long as the play allows kids to form friendships, alliances and rules of their own, I don't think the form matters that much. Coming from a ganeration that played hopscotch and tag, I do find video games to allow for just as much imagination and creativity (as for physical exercise, that a whole differnt issue)
What I found truly ridiculous is grown people teaching kids how to play!! C'mon.
For whatever reason, the over-protection of children seems to be a creeping trend.
My uncles used to ride the trains as teenagers back in the Great Depression. Two of them specifically would be gone for three or four days at a time. That would result in a bitchin' out when they got home, but it was not uncommon for kids in that neighborhood to do that. My wife had an uncle who was sent to help out a farmer when he was 13 or 14 years old. (Again, Depression era) He ended up farming a piece of land of about 25 acres BY HIMSELF that was two hours away from the farmer's house. The farmer or his wife would check in on him about every six weeks.
His only complaint was that it was lonely as hell.
When I was a kid, just about every girl in my neighborhood was an experienced babysitter by the time they were 12. Today, I have friends who have gotten into trouble with the local authorities because they were letting their 13 year old come home to an empty house after school.
We had a story on the news not long ago where someone was upset because a statue of a child riding a bike did not have a helmet on!
I predict that in future, all children will be required to wear Michelin Man suits 24 hours a day.
***Proud parent of a son who broke his arm falling off monkey bars***
I simply offer the following observation:
In today's America it is practically unthinkable for a ten year old kid to consider running away from home. When I grew up, boys who didn't at least think about it and plan to were considered punks.
It's about time to re-read Huckleberry Finn.
"little blighters"??? I'm a Wodehouse fan myself, but wow. And you can't blame that one on the Economist, I doubt they let you write that sort of thing.
I, too, have fond memories of childhood play...we played Wildebeast Hunt. However, the silly lawsuits over the spear injuries and deaths eventually put an end to our fun.
My kids are now home schooled partly because of the demise of recess in the local public schools. Numerous studies have shown that kids concentrate better and retain more if they have periodic times of physical activity, yet the schools seem more and more inclined to chain the kids to their desks for 8 hours a day. My son was diagnosed with all kinds of learning disabilities while he was in the public school. All of those have disappeard now that his mother sends him out to ride the bike or jump on the trampoline for 10-15 minutes every couple of hours.
One of the reasons that my wife and I chose the school we did for our kids was because they still play dodgeball there. Both of my girls love it. Not many schools do that anymore.
I do find the comment above about video games providing for creativity and imagination to be utterly ridiculous. I grew up playing hours of video games every day and wish that my parents had destroyed the damn thing. Not only are video games a tremendous waste of time, but they are yet one more thing that is killing creativity in kids and contributing to the inability of kids to concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds.
Apart from the lack of physical activity, can you please explain how video games are a waste of time compared to say, hopscotch or tag? A previous poster wrote about 13-14 yr olds managing farms all by themselves, I am sure to their parents kids playing marbles 3-4 hours a day was a waste of time too (certainly a case with my grandfather whose parents looked upon such games as a frivolous activity that did nothing to build character)
I totally agree about parents being hyper-protective about kids these days. Let the kids face consequences of their actions and they will learn to be responsible -be it at monkey bars or video games.
Our local playground dispensed with the monkey bars and went right to the iron maiden. It's OK though, because they put woodchips around it.
I blame Bill Cosby. His bit on playground equipment was too funny.
I'd have thought that parents who truly "yearn for a return to simple pleasures" would be shooing the kids outside and letting them play whatever suits them with whomever else happens to be out there-- not herding them out of adult-organized games of soccer and into adult-organized games of tag.
I loved the monkey bars.
My greatest childhood downfall occurred on them. There I sat, holding a massive bag of chips atop the monkey bars, my friends down below with Italian ices, cupcakes and other snacks.
And lo, exiting from the 20 story building (Lefrak City in Queens), was my mom and older sister. They approached, and wondered why I looked guilty, and why all my friends were munching on snacks with they normally could not afford on kid income.
"I have a confession to make. I stole tithe money from daddy's shoe polish case," I said, knowing my moment as the best friend ever was over.
But for a few minutes, high atop the monkey bars, looking at my happy friends below, and with a bag of chips bigger than half my body, I felt what it was like to be God (or, maybe Satan).
I've seen some data that indicates that the rate of injury on the 'new' playgound equipment is not significantly lower than on the old...but I bet a lot of government dollars are going in to replacement.
The real tragedy is the degree to which kids are scheduled and programmed...from play dates to rushing from one organized activity to another. Too many are not going to learn how to amuse themselves, or how to make friends on their own.
And tag and dodgeball are endangered species in the California public schools...you can't have winners and losers because you might dent the self-esteem on the losers.....
Talking head,
Tag and hopscotch are much different than video games.
With video games, you sit and push pre-determined buttons which do pre-determined things. You are isolated even though another kid might be sitting next to you. There is no bartering, debating, arguing, compromising, teasing, apologizing, orphysical limitation (ie if you can puch a button, well then, you can scale a wall just like Spidey).
With hopscotch, you debate with your friend how many squares to draw, how many branch points, how big are the squares....
You compromise on all of these points.
You pick out just the right rock.
Do you roll it?
Do you throw it?
Do you toss it?
Maybe a little backspin? Is that even possible with a rock? What if you had an uneven, craggy rock vs. a smooth stone?
You hop. Hey! Your foot touched the line! Did not! Did too!
Nuh uh! Uh huh!
Okay, okay. Do over.
I could go on, but the point is that kids in these games are learning to deal with other people. To barter, compromise, resolve disputes. They learn about fairness, both what is owed to them and what they owe to others. They learn that if they press too hard for their own preferences, they will be playing with their special rock on their special grid all by themselves.
This is still true to some extent, but teh majority of your interactions are with a machine, not a human. Sure, you may compromise about which game to play, but that's about it. Also, zero physical activity (ok 3% if you count the index finger) vs. 100% physical activity.
Both my kids (9 and 6 years old) play tag all the time at school-- pretty much every recess.
And all of the playgrounds around here (Oregon) have monkey bars-- true, they all have soft surfaces underneath, either wood chips or some sort of rubbery stuff, but the monkey bars are definitely there. And my kids use them.
In fact, when my older child was in kindergarten, it was high drama when one of his classmates fell from the monkey bars and broke her wrist-- on grandparents day, no less. All of us parents arrived to see the ambulance, and I'm sure every one of us wondered whose grandparent had a coronary...
Comments are Closed.