The wages of helicopter parenting (games, parents, activities, play)

[Avondalist]

https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/the-play-deficit

Research, proving what should be obvious, shows that play is a direct source of children’s happiness. When children are asked to depict or describe activities that make them happy, they depict or describe scenes of play. There is also research showing that when children are allowed a little more play—such as when schools offer a little more recess—the kids become happier. Research also reveals that children consider play to be activity that they themselves initiate and control. If an adult is directing it, it’s not play. The joy of play is the joy of freedom from adult control.

If you want your child to be safe outside the house, teach them how to safely cross a road with traffic. You're 90% of the way there after that.

[Katnan]

There is something to be said for free time to play, create and imagine.

Children don’t always need to be in sports or structured activities directed by parents.

[Okey Dokie]

Originally Posted by Katnan

Children don’t always need to be in sports or structured activities directed by parents.

Mr. Dokie is a child of the 50s. He grew up a couple blocks from his elementary school. During the summer, the neighborhood kids would congregate there and play pick-up baseball all day. He also played in organized baseball leagues. He certainly talks about the schoolyard games more than the more formal games.

[wac_432]

I don’t agree with the author’s premise, and I find the posted summary suspect. They state that free time and free play declined from 1950 to 2020, but don’t cite any evidence or numbers. They then indicate that suicide increased by 350% from 1950 to 2005, and then 250% again from 2005 to 2020. Those are suspicious time frames to arbitrarily choose. The first is a 50-year time span, the second is a 15-year time span. Normalizing the YOY increase indicates a 7% YOY increase during the first time frame, and a whopping 17% YOY increase in the second time frame.
While I might agree that from 1950-2005 there was a major decrease in children’s free time and unstructured play, I don’t agree that there was an even greater decrease from 2005 (well after the advent of the term “helicopter parenting”) to 2020. Therefore, the author’s whole premise: that the primary driver of poor mental health in children is a lack of free play, is negated.

While a lack of unstructured play time could certainly be a contributing factor to poor mental health outcomes, I don’t think it is the primary driver. Without normalizing for factors like education, income level, social media usage, etc, I find the whole article to be worthless.

Anecdotally, I know plenty of other parents who give their children large amounts of unstructured play time, and plenty that schedule their child’s nearly every waking moment. I see no trend in happiness in any of these kids that could be explained by lack or excess of free play.

Since becoming a parent, I have discovered that opinions on child-rearing, dressed up as fact, are like as--excuse me--bellybuttons. Everybody’s got one, and they are pretty much all full of sh--excuse me, lint.

[Threerun]

I grew up as a latch key kid in the 70's and 80's. I was feral and I loved every minute of it. Learned to take care of myself, cook, clean, do my homework- I was free.

I showed my kids the same freedoms. They both are excelling as adults.

Long live freedom!