Regina Harrell, 9, was removed from her home after her "negligent" mother let her play in a park unsupervised.
Last Sunday, the New York Times published a gut-wrenching article, The Families That Can't Afford Summer. The piece raised some important issues about the affordability of childcare and summer camps for low-income families, and the total major burden summer vacation imposes on them.
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We all want our kids to have happy, magical childhoods (I hope).
And, due to changes in our society -- technology addiction, over-scheduled childhoods, and decreased participation in community activities, to name a few -- many adults feel like they don't have many friends in their neighborhood. In fact, one in four of us say we have "no close friends to talk to." There's a simple way to address both of these issues.
Are you really expressing yourself -- or are you just dressing a certain way? Are you really showing the world your true self -- or are you just putting on a performance for an audience?
At this point in time, it's pretty widely known that social media is horrible for us. It makes us sad. It makes us lonely. It makes us jealous. It makes us boring.
Oh, and it gives us obesity, diabetes, and back and neck problems Yet many of us spend more time than we wish to admit -- or even realize -- on social media. Why?
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "It is a happy talent to know how to play."
Intuitively, it makes sense. But was he actually, empirically right? The answer is yes. I know, because I checked. The whole point of my master's thesis was to answer this (and a few other) questions. But here's the thing: because playfulness is a talent, that means it's something we have to learn -- not something we're born with. And it appears as though many millennials missed the memo.
Basketball was my first love. I started playing around third grade, and have always loved being physical; getting aggressive; sprinting as fast as I can and jumping as high as possible. I played in elementary school. I played in middle school. I played in high school.
And then... I got to college. Unable to find a women's league within thirty minutes of campus -- and unable to find five women who would commit to a weekly intramural game -- I began playing pickup. Night after night, the courts were packed with me and 29 dudes. I couldn't help but wonder, Where are all the amazingly fierce female athletes I've been playing with my whole life?
Do kids in your neighborhood play outside every day? Or do they, like the average American child, spend up to eight hours per day in front of a screen? (In other words... they sleep, eat, go to school, and not much else.) Using some technology is great -- it can be fun, relaxing and even educational. But, when used excessively, it kills creativity and curiosity. It prevents kids from developing crucial social and emotional intelligence. It makes them bored... and it makes them boring.
Moreover, unsupervised outdoor play is one of the most important ways in which kids develop social and emotional skills, like resilience (something most kids with helicopter don't learn these days, which is one of the reasons that something like 15% of kids are being medicated for depression, and some 33% have reported feeling "too depressed to function"), self-regulation (a skill that is highly correlated with good grades, higher test scores, higher lifetime earning potential, lower incarceration rates, etc. etc. etc.), emotional intelligence, charisma, negotiation and leadership skills, autonomy and independence, and more.
One of the most shocking things you learn in psychology is just how mindless and complacent humans can be.
Scientists estimate that about 90% of what we do is automated. It happens without conscious or deliberate thought -- even when we seem to be actively involved in a situation. ABC's Would You Fall For That illustrates this beautifully through a concept called change blindness:
Indeed, our actions and expectations are often guided by mental scripts. In her famous study, "The Mindlessness of Ostensibly Thoughtful Action: The Role of 'Placebic' Information in Interpersonal Interaction," Ellen Langer had an experimenter ask people if he could cut them in line at the Xerox machine. The experimenter would say one of three things while asking to cut:
In the first condition, 60% of the people in line acquiesced. Seem high? It's not. 94% said yes in the second condition. And in the third, nonsensical condition? A few months ago, I was asked to answer this question on Quora:
"If you were a 17-year-old out of high school, what would you do with your life? I tested out of high school two years early, and lately I've just become so stuck and cynical of life. I don't know what I'm missing and why I'm stuck. I don't know where to move on to. I've been going to talk therapy once a week (which barely helps)." *** I'm not a licensed clinical psychologist or anything, but I do have a bachelor's and master's in psychology from Stanford. So here's my take on your situation, which is based on many assumptions that may or may not be true. You are a high-achieving individual. You are talented and gifted, and you worked hard enough to test out of high school two years early. That's really great. Congratulations on your achievements. BUT. There is a cost associated with your achievements. I recently published Boring People Lead Boring Lives, which discussed how passive entertainment stunts leisure skill development. I also wrote about the dangers of boredom: Boredom proneness is dangerous. It's associated with increased feelings of aggression (Rupp & Vodanovich, 1997; Dahen, 20004), anger, substance abuse (Rupp & Vodanovich, 1997), procrastination (Vodanovich & Rupp, 1999), shyness (Maroldo, 1986), coronary-prone and Type-A behavior (Kass & Vodanovich, 1990), depression, anxiety (Ahmed, 1990; Vodanovich, Verner & Gilbride, 1991) and low self-actualization (Vodanovich & Rupp, 1999).
I thought I'd follow up with a story about how iPads destroy creativity, curiosity... and even language and other cognitive skills.
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About the Author
Eva is a content specialist with a passion for play, travel... and a little bit of girl power. Read more >
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