Are the schedules of children becoming overloaded? According to William Doherty, a professor and director at the University of Minnesota, children have lost twelve hours of free time per week (“See How They Run: When Did Childhood Turn Into a Rat Race?”). Doherty also says that organized activities are more intense now than they have ever been. Overscheduling can also have positive outcomes-- “kids are given more advantages” when involved in many activities (Disney). Overscheduling can cause a variety of positive and negative effects on children. Because parents have overscheduled their children’s activities, home life has decreased and declined, children have learned time management and life skills, and children have felt exhaustion and other effects of stress.
Busy families are spending less time at home between activities. “Time spent on structured sports has doubled” (Doherty). Because double the time is being spent in sports, the amount of time spent at home is decreasing significantly and so is the amount of time doing unstructured activities that are a big part of childhood. According to Purvaja Sawant, a writer for The Times of India, children’s time spent playing is lost (“The hurried child syndrome!”). This is dangerous because playtime is essential to a child’s development. For instance, Lisa Porterfield, a writer from CNN, says that with lost playtime children cannot nourish their imaginative and creative abilities (“Experts: Despite their energy, kids still at risk of burnout”). She also notes that they will not become innovative thinkers to help benefit society. Therefore, children do not have as much time to experiment and think creatively as they used to and our society could pay the price with a lack...
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In the essay, “The Boredom Effect,1952, writer Ellen Ruppel Shell acknowledges the child’s mind and how creative their mind are. The purpose of this essay is to persuade the readers that a child should never be bored and that they should always have something to do with their spare time. She felt that children should taste their freedom by exploring the world. Also, she said guardians should not try to create activities or put them in sports to keep them occupied. Ellen writes “Back then, parents pretty much stayed out of children’s business.” In her thesis, she mentions that parents should let children be bored. I agree with Ellen, parents should let their children be children and let them be creative. However, parents shouldn’t control their
Let’s pause for a second, let’s take a look what nature has for us. It is beautiful and yet harmless. Kids’ don’t spend the sufficient time to intake the benefits of nature. Louv says, “Playtime, especially unstructured imaginative, exploratory play is increasingly recognized as an essential component of wholesome child development” (48). He is saying to let our kids free and explore on their own. It is what brings fun to their lives. Knowing what comes next it’s pretty boring. Imagination brings excitement and knowledge to the human kind.
Everyone knows that recess is good for children, but most people do not know why, thus leaving room for schools to cut down or altogether cut out recess. This can damage children and inhibit learning. In 2005, an estimated 40% of schools had cut back or eliminated recess from the average elementary student’s school day (Bland). Teachers may need more instructional time to meet the new demand from standardized testing, but extended unstructured play is essential. It increases children’s cognitive abilities by promoting healthy chemical exchanges within the brain during physical activity, giving more room for creativity, and improving social skills.
The term “hurried child syndrome” is defined by the Urban Dictionary as “a condition in which parents overschedule their children's lives, push them hard for academic success, and expect them to behave and react as miniature adults.” This fairly new issue was first proposed by child psychologist David Elkind in 2007. Elkind’s book “The Hurried Child” clearly shows his concern for the next generation and what the word “childhood” has become for them. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “childhood” is defined as “the state or period of being a child.” And “child” is defined as “an unborn or recently born person.” Noticeably, the dictionary definition is completely objective. There is no implication of how childhood is, or what it involves. In the major advanced cultures around the world, childhood has always been mentioned with a positive connotation of innocence and joy. But the hurrying of children seems to be defying this way of thinking.
Khristina Janer, a mother from Illinois, says, “I don’t feel like a parent. I feel like a drill sergeant!” when making her kids finish their homework after an extended period of time (Wallace). Many studies show the effectiveness of homework and all of the benefits it can do for us; the problem is: teachers are making kids do too much homework when they get home from school. The teachers don’t take in the environmental factors that could be harming any student 's ability to get a task done. Teachers automatically believe that kids are irresponsible or unmotivated when they don’t succeed in finishing their homework. When kids are given this much, or this difficult of, homework, sleep is being sacrificed. Even when they are doing all of their
“Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass, or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky” (Quindlen 82). Anna Quindlen is an author of children’s books and is well known for her comments on contemporary life. In her work “Doing Nothing is Something”, Quindlen makes an observation about the lack of free time that children have in their lives. She begins with a comparison to her life as a child, explaining the boredom that she used to have during the summer. However, she continues with how children now are as overscheduled as their parents, which reduces the amount of time they have for creativity. Furthermore, she explains that this is because of the parents’ expectations for what their child will do in the future and what they could do if left alone. As a final point, she illustrates her belief that children can still have free time, despite the immense number of activities that can take place. Despite Quindlen’s point, she has missed the importance of children being able to find creativity in such a busy schedule.
Like the latter, an essay by Gray, P. (2016) also showed researches on play deficit. He found out that most professionals who succeeded and happy are those who were not deprived in playing. He then concluded that, play deprivation is not good for children and other things. It promotes anxiety, depression, narcissism, loss of creativity and
Todays students are busier than they have ever been in American history. Homework is a large contributor to this. The average student in America has approximately four hours of homework each night. If students start homework right when they get home from school, that gives them free time starting at 7:00 PM. The majority of students also have jobs. So. between school, work, homework, and practice, that leaves them virtually no time to be able to hang out with friends or to participate in family activities.
In a culture saturated in high tech toys that explode with dynamite sounds and whirling lights, children spend countless hours watching television and playing video games and less time engaging in creative and imaginative play. In Claudia Kalb’s article “The End of Make Believe,” she introduces the Knott family from Cleveland, Ohio. Kris Knott and her husband, parents of three active children, are striving to get back to the basics of play by increasing family time and decreasing their children’s television and video game usage. During the summer months, it would not be uncommon to find the entire family outside enjoying a pleasant evening together. Mrs. Knott states that “entertainment is not play” and children need carefree, less structured time to use their imaginations (Kalb, par.1). While the Knott’s children have plenty of organized activities such as after school sports, their parents recognize the importance of using imagination and creativity as a source of play (Kalb, par.1). In the same manner, parents must limit children’s time engaging in technology by creating quality family time and encouraging more creative and imaginative play for intellectual, emotional, and social skills to develop.
Children have a natural inclination to play, alongside a natural instinct to learn and to be curious and inventive, which are characteristics of the human race in general. This quote taken from Janet Moyles is a good starting point for this essay. It is well known that children love to play. If a child were to be left to his/her own devices they would happily play and create new worlds anywhere they were left. It has been well documented and researched that children learn excellently through play. However they are not always given the opportunity to do so, instead being told to, ‘finish your work and then you can go play’. Obviously this is not always the case, but the fact that it is a common practice shows that we do not all fully appreciate the importance of play to children’s learning. This essay will attempt to show how children learn through play, making reference to current theory and practice. I will also give examples from my own first-hand experience of how children learn and develop as people through play.
Lucksom, Lizabeth. “Impact of Technology on Free Natural Play.” n.p. Healthy Life. 11 April 2011. Web. November 2011.
Children growing up in today’s modern technological society are not as active as the children were before the invention of all the new new devices we have todaygadgets . Children growing up under the Amish and/or Mennonite cultures and beliefs are also more active than the children growing up in the modern society are. The bedroom used to be primarily the place to sleep. Today the bedroom has replaced the outdoors as the children’s play area. The bedrooms of today’s modern children are equipped with televisions, game consoles, computers, and miscellaneous electronic toys that entertain them for hours. Children are missing the experiences and values that the outdoors has to offer. “The digital bedroom culture is growing all the time at the expense of the outdoors,” the University of Kent’s Frank Furedi said. “Doing physically challenging outdoor activities teaches children how to deal with risk - and they learn about their own strengths and weaknesses.”(Par. 6 Clarke)
Children, on the other hand, have so much free time. Think about it, all they have to do is go to school. When I was a child I would go to school from seven in the morning to two o'clock in the afternoon. At three I had swim practice to five and from there I would go home, finish up some homework, and usually nap before dinner. After dinner, I would sometimes watch some TV with my dad and then be in bed at 9 PM precisely. As an adult now, I can't even fit all the things I have to do in one day. I am a full-time college student. I go to class in the morning, I do homework and study, then go to work, and by the time I’m home from working it's already 9 PM whereas a child at that time I would already be in bed ready for my next day. As an adult, we have a lot more things to worry about of and responsibilities that need to be taken care of. Children have free time, no stress, and usually get a full 9-10 hours of sleep. I don’t even remember when was the last time I got a full 7 hours of sleep! However even as children or adults, time is always priceless, so I never let time go by for no
Pappas, Stephanie. "Busy Kids: Overscheduling Worries Overstated." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 10 Apr. 2011. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Playing games on hand-held can be beneficial as it can be enjoyable but self-motivated way for children to learn and play “play is intrinsic to children’s quality of life, it is how they enjoy themselves. It is also a key component of a healthy lifestyle”. Children’s games on hand held devices such as iPad, iPhone and tablets give children access to a vast wealth of information which can develop children mind and knowledge surrounding a broad spectrum of subjects. Educational video games that are age appropriate have an inventive way of simulating a young child mind and sustaining a young child’s attention, while they are engaging in the practice of learning and problem-solving; for example a literacy letter game expands a young child’s language and literacy skill in a visual character and audio sounds as way of simulating the mind help the child retain the information in certain part of their brain. Then if games ask questions to challenge the child understanding further such as find the right letter?