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| Fewer and fewer children have the time, or desire, to simply go outside and play. (File photo) |
The Inside Story: Remember When Kids Went Out to Play?
BY PEGGY O'CROWLEY
Posted on 04/01/2006 10:47:10 AM PST by Incorrigible
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The Inside Story: Remember When Kids Went Out to Play?BY PEGGY O'CROWLEY |
Ah, spring. (Peggy O'Crowley covers family issues for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. She can be contacted at pocrowley@starledger.com.)
The crocuses are blooming, the mittens are put away, the children are riding bikes, jumping rope, climbing trees ... uh, scratch that about the children.
The children are inside, playing video games, watching television or on the computer. If they're outside, they're playing organized sports, supervised by coaches and attended by doting parents. Or they're in the car dashing between clarinet lessons, tutoring sessions and play dates arranged by adults.
Today's children are out of the woods, literally. With fewer open spaces, paranoid parents and enough electronic gadgets to keep them cloistered for months, kids are less and less likely to have unsupervised, outside fun. These days it's hard to find children riding bikes, climbing trees or paying pick-up ball games with nary an adult in sight.
The disconnect is so deep that parenting magazines include tips on how to play backyard games like "red light, green light." A new publication, Wondertime, actually ran a feature on how to teach a child to climb a tree.
While some shrug and argue that it's a sign of our times, many others feel this new lifestyle is making children fatter, more isolated, less creative and less attached to the environment, raising concerns about the future.
"When you think about it, human children for eons of history went outside and played and worked in nature for much of their childhood. In the space of two or three decades in Western society, that's in danger of disappearing," said Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder" (Algonquin, $13.95).
Louv, a California newspaper columnist, coined the phrase "nature-deficit disorder" to raise the alarm about children losing touch with the real world in favor of the virtual world.
So what's wrong with kids whose encounters with nature are more likely to be on the Discover Channel than in their backyards?
Plenty, according to Louv and other childhood experts.
Take health, for example. An alarming new study by the International Association for the Study of Obesity projected that nearly half of all the children in North and South America will be overweight by 2010.
There are many reasons for the epidemic of childhood obesity, including overeating and calorie-filled junk food. But much of it is due to a decline in activity, a decline that cannot be made up by organized games and practices, said Sue Shapses, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Rutgers University and co-director of the New Jersey Obesity Group.
"Someone might read this and say, `Oh, my kid plays soccer,"' she said. "If you have an hour (of activity) scheduled every other week, or half an hour a day, it's not going to be as much as kids playing outdoors," she said.
Declines in physical education classes and daily recess are also to blame, she said.
Some experts believe children who spend hours alone, watching television or playing computer games, are also at risk of becoming socially isolated. An analysis of children's artwork, a joint project of Oregon State University and the Kaye Academic College of Education in Israel, confirmed that trend.
The project recruited 500 schoolchildren in grades 1 through 5 in Corvallis, Ore., and Beer-Shiva, Israel, and asked them to illustrate their favorite activities.
While playing sports was number one, of the remaining 60 percent of kids, one in four drew pictures of themselves playing alone or watching TV by themselves.
"They spend less time developing social skills and getting along -- things that we all need later in life, in the workplace or elsewhere," said Nell O'Malley of the College of Education at Oregon State University, a co-author of the project.
"Left unattended, we're looking at a future of people who don't have the social skills and some of the moral development that comes with social interaction," she said. "You develop empathy by interacting with people. Children at a certain point need to be learning about themselves in relationship to others."
The inactivity of today's kids might even influence public policy: The staff at the National Wildlife Foundation thinks that today's children might not be as effective advocates for the environment because the outdoors has no value for them.
"What the research says is that people get attached to nature by spending time in nature. Even if you grew up in a city, there were trees and parks. For us the issue is, if we don't get kids out more, how are they going to connect to nature?" asked Kevin Coyne, vice president of education for the federation. "Our conclusion is that, in the larger area of wildlife conservation and the protection of the environment, this is really a threat."
For Louv, however, all those practical reasons give way to something more profound: the sense of wonder that nature instills in human beings.
"To me, the most important word is wonder, a sense of where you are in the universe and the awe that should inspire," he said. "You're not going to get that playing `Grand Theft Auto."'
To Louv, nature is not strictly the majesty of the wilderness, something out of an Ansel Adams photograph.
"Nature can be a ravine behind the house or a little woods at the end of a cul-de-sac. That's maybe even more important than Yosemite," he said. "That wonder can begin when a 4-year-old goes out in his backyard and listens to the leaves and turns over a rock and sees a universe of bugs."
Fear of adult predators is one reason why kids don't have unstructured time outside. While such fears are understandable, fed by media reports of stalkers and child molesters, many experts feel the concern is far more inflated than it should be. Actual incidents of strangers snatching children off the streets are rare -- most incidents occur with an adult who knows the child.
Kids today have a higher chance of encountering a predator online than in their communities, Coyne said.
The loss of the backyard culture, in which there were supportive adults around so families felt safe letting their children roam the neighborhood, also feeds fears of stranger danger.
"Crime may not be greater today, but that culture of fear certainly is. We've replaced children's freedom with a great deal of isolation that ultimately might not be that healthy," O'Malley said.
Supportive neighborhoods have a positive effect on children's freedom to be outside -- and their physical health, research indicates.
A study by the RAND Corp. of 3,000 households in Los Angeles found that, in neighborhoods identified as supportive, children were half as likely to be overweight as children in other neighborhoods. Supportive neighborhoods were defined as close-knit, with adults who watched out for children's safety, spoke up when they saw bad behavior and were willing to help a neighbor.
"Kids are less likely to be playing outside if people are not watching out for them," said Deborah Cohen, the senior natural scientist for RAND who conducted the study. "In another study, we found that having parks around is another very good predictor of how much people exercise.
"I think this has a lot of messages about the way we deal with overweight and the lack of physical activity. We tell each individual they have to do something different, as if they themselves are responsible," said Cohen, a physician. "Here we clearly see that environment makes a difference. Beyond healthy families, we need healthy communities."
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Though New Jersey is already crowded, I welcome conservatives from anywhere in the country!
Alas, you just missed a nice 4 bedroom house with finished basement and inground pool that was for sale on my street. The weather is nicer for a pool in Arizona though!
The world needs more men like you, MineralMan.
We've lived in our house for 7 years. Until last summer, I had NO IDEA that there was an 11 year old girl living down the street. Her mom bought a dog and all of the sudden she and the mom were out taking walks.
People are kinda weird.
In my neighborhood in Chicago, we used to have about 15 kids play "cat one, catch all". Basically, it's like tag except everyone that is tagged goes out and chases the untagged. It was cheating to go out of a certain area. Very, very fun.
LOLOLOLOL....you were adventurous. Dang!
Not to mention trick or treating with out adults, telling one parent you would be over at a friends house and then telling friends parents you would be over at your house and then riding your bikes to hell and gone without them knowing it! Throwing rocks, shooting slingshots you made yourself, playing kick the can, ollie ollie oxen free(or whatever it was called) hide and seek, cowboys and indians or just cowboys, teasing girls and secretly wishing they would come play too:), playing with toy cars, watching and helping the bigger kids(teenagers) work on hardtops(cars)that they raced at the local dirt track, simply running because it felt good, hunting bottles for spare change and just reveling in being out doors without adults around 24 hours a day.
Todays world seems more dangerous but I don't think it is. I spent a large part of my childhood in one of the most dangerous neighbor hoods in Southern CA and lived through it thanks to quick wits and fast feet!
Todays kids don't know what they are missing and the adults aren't about to let them find out.
When I was a kid and lived in the Puget Sound area..we played flashlight hide and seek in the neighborhood on summer nights. What fun!!
I agree with this article 98%.
>>>paranoid parents<<<<
It is not paranoid parents! Maybe this is not the case in all areas; but here is mine for an example.
The market value for the homes in my neighborhood is $355,000.
Guess what? Where I live, I'm slumming!
Here is the reality.
My children can't play in the park ONE block away because the gangs hang out there. That is where they meet.
Around the park benches you will find used condems and used needles.
The adult immigrant men that hang out on the basket ball court will urinate right there in public with no consideration for who is in the park.
Couples have sex in the park because that is more privacy then they have in their over crowded rooms/houses/apartments.
The gang type people that just walk the neighborhood because they have nothing else to do will do passive harrassing moves like continuously walking past your home and watching what you are doing if you are out front. I don't care about that when I'm out front with my children; but I can't leave my children in the front yard while they hang at the corner and watch their every move.
So Kids have to have scheduled play dates with adult supervision.
Kids can't play on the park sport fields now a days without a permit from the township or county (depending which park it is). The fields have to be reserved by the coaches. So my kids are in organized sports.
So why don't we move? Well, the idea is 'they' want you to move. You are suppose to move into the $1,500,000 'developments'. This way they can continue the indoctrination. The 'homeowners' associations then get to tell you how to cut your lawn, what decorations you can put out and how to paint your front door.
The developments also don't allow you to change the oil in your car or any other unsightly self sufficient tasks like work on your lawn mower in your front yard.
So, move out of state? That is hard too. We have family here we actually enjoy spending time with.
I'm thinking of putting up a good wood or block fence in my back yard. Right now we only have a chain link fence. It would be nice to let the kids play without the neighbors being nosy. I'm just cranky lately. But, sometimes people don;t want to make polite noises because the neighbor sees you in your back yard.
When I was an eight or nine year-old little girl I would explore the creek that bordered our city park. My favorite pasttime was to hang out with the "bums" who camped out in caves not far from the railroad tracks. Today, my mom would probably be locked up for child neglect
I did all sorts of things as a kid. Played in mud, went into the woods unsupervised, rode bikes for miles, etc. The end of innocence for kids is totally gone, and you can thank liberalism for this.
My kids are outside all the time. They play with each other most of the time because none of the other kids in the neighborhood are home or they don't want to go outside.
I've learned to keep a big pitcher of lemonade and a raft of plastic cups on hand, as well as a first-aid basket with band-aids, etc...it seems my house attracts children who have no supervision during the day!
Predators AND immgrants!
bump
::packs bags and boxes to move next door to MM::
>>>I would have to agree that this fear is overblown and sensationalized by the media.
I think it depends where you live to see if it is more OBVIOUS in certain areas.
I live in a blatant immigrant gateway.
For the record....... for the first time in about 20 years the kids in my neighborhood are out and about. They play guns and regularly hide in my garden. They have discovered a vast backyard field within my sight which was great the few days they played golf and great for riding bikes. Within my half block there are 8 boys under 11.
They have taken over the culdesac across the way and play basket ball or ride bikes or skateboard on the humps they place in the street. There are a few girls and they capture a portion of the street for hopskotch in chalk!
There are enough boys for a good game of football with 4 or 5 on a side.
They played with sling shots for a few days till a glancing rock hit one youngster in the face.
Most importantly, they go from yard to yard and do not restrict the play to one location.
It reminds me of my neighborhood where I grew up.
Shoot me a notifier if you see another one on your block.
For the record....... for the first time in about 20 years the kids in my neighborhood are out and about. They play guns and regularly hide in my garden. They have discovered a vast backyard field within my sight which was great the few days they played golf and great for riding bikes. Within my half block there are 8 boys under 11.
They have taken over the culdesac across the way and play basket ball or ride bikes or skateboard on the humps they place in the street. There are a few girls and they capture a portion of the street for hopskotch in chalk!
There are enough boys for a good game of football with 4 or 5 on a side.
They played with sling shots for a few days till a glancing rock hit one youngster in the face.
Most importantly, they go from yard to yard and do not restrict the play to one location.
It reminds me of my neighborhood where I grew up.
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