”Further research has shown that while we are wealthier than 50 years ago, our young people are experiencing increasing levels of anxiety and mental health problems, where one in 10 teenagers has a clinically diagnosed mental health disorder.” – Bob Reitemeier
It should be noted that fifty years ago, most mothers did not work; they generally stayed home to raise their children instead. Perhaps we can learn a lesson from that.
THE TELEGRAPH: A generation of children are being "contaminated" by a cocktail of addictive computer games, test-driven schooling, increased traffic and an irrational fear of strangers which leaves them unable to play outside, according to a lobby of more than 270 experts.
In a letter to the The Daily Telegraph, the group of academics, authors and charity leaders say modern life has eroded children's ability to leave their homes unsupervised, seriously undermining their long-term development. Modern life ‘is destroying children’s play’ (more)
Concern must be turned into action By Bob ReitemeierLetter signed by 270 experts: ‘Let our children play’
Sir – Since last September, when a group of professionals, academics and writers wrote to The Daily Telegraph expressing concern about the marked deterioration in children’s mental health, research evidence supporting this case has continued to mount.
Compelling examples have included Unicef’s alarming finding that Britain’s children are amongst the unhappiest in the developed world, and the children’s charity NCH’s report of an explosion in children’s clinically diagnosable mental health problems.
We believe that a key factor in this disturbing trend is the marked decline over the last 15 years in children’s play. Play – particularly outdoor, unstructured, loosely supervised play – appears to be vital to children’s all-round health and well-being.
It develops their physical coordination and control; provides opportunities for the first-hand experiences that underpin their understanding of and engagement with the world; facilitates social development (making and keeping friends, dealing with problems, working collaboratively); and cultivates creativity, imagination and emotional resilience. This includes the growth of self-reliance, independence and personal strategies for dealing with and integrating challenging or traumatic experiences.
Many features of modern life seem to have eroded children’s play. They include: increases in traffic that make even residential areas unsafe for children; the ready availability of sedentary, sometimes addictive screen-based entertainment; the aggressive marketing of over-elaborate, commercialised toys (which seem to inhibit rather than stimulate creative play); parental anxiety about "stranger danger", meaning that children are increasingly kept indoors; a test-driven school and pre-school curriculum in which formal learning has substantially taken the place of free, unstructured play; and a more pervasive cultural anxiety which, when uncontained by the policy-making process, routinely contaminates the space needed for authentic play to flourish.
A year on, the signatories of the original letter to the Telegraph are joined by other concerned colleagues in calling for a wide-ranging and informed public dialogue about the intrinsic nature and value of play in children’s healthy development, and how we might ensure its place at the heart of twenty-first-century childhood. [Source]
See all 270 signatories of this letter
Peter Abbs, research professor of creative writing, Sussex University
Kay M. Albrecht, Innovations in Early Childhood Education, Houston, Texas
Dr Waseem Alladin, Editor in Chief, Counselling Psychology Quarterly and Head of Psychology Autism Care UK
Chris Allison, ex-infant school headteacher, University of Portsmouth
Joan Almon, coordinator, US Alliance for Childhood
Mark Alexander
