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Throw the Kids in the Backyard Growing up in Wisconsin, I remember getting together with the neighborhood kids to play backyard games like “treasure hunt” or “kick the can.” I cherish those images of summer evenings, but now, as a mother of two young children, it has become clear that scheduled activities, electronic games and organized sports have taken over my children’s lives. As my son entered second grade, we spent an entire evening reviewing a list of after-school activities he could join. There was soccer, football, golf, basketball, and swim programs along with Cub Scouts, and so much more. By the end, I was exhausted. When you look back at your own childhood, do you remember your parents managing a schedule like this? I wonder how I would have felt going to bed each night knowing I had to conquer this kind of schedule of activities. As parents, we want what’s best for our kids. We are driven to give them opportunities that perhaps, we never had. Because we want them to keep up with their peers, we don’t hesitate to start filling up their time after school, or signing them up for the local baseball league. But perhaps we all need to stop and ask the question: what happened to just “playing?” When kids play backyard games like “ghosts in the graveyard” or “pitchers hand out” baseball, they learn important lessons. These games force children to take the initiative to create their own fun and negotiate their own set of rules. It is this initiative—this readiness to use their imaginations and creativity—that’s lacking in the opportunities we give our children today. They are part of a generation in which parents, teachers, and coaches tell them how, where, and when to do everything. Add electronic games to the list and you’ve got children who play by the rules and use repetition to achieve the next level. As a parent, I worry that if my kids never have to create their own fun, they will find it more difficult to negotiate through life on their own. And while it’s okay to value achievement and competition, do we really believe that the more extra-curricular activities our children have, the better off they are? Ask any parent how their child is doing and they won’t say, “He’s great—he plays at home five times a week.” Things are different today. The opportunity of playing with a large group of neighborhood kids may not be practical. And today, many parents are afraid of sending their children to the park by themselves, but if we continue to over-schedule our children, we’re not only eliminating unstructured play, we’re setting them up for stress, anxiety, and perhaps disappointment. Creativity and the art of negotiation are skills learned over time and ones which eventually spill over into adulthood. It is important for us as parents to hand down our favorite childhood games and to make unstructured, backyard play a priority. A pediatrician I talked to said it best, “It’s not the kids with skinned knees that I worry about, it’s the ones without a scratch.” Byrne is the founder and author of Project Play, a series of lively children’s books that inspire young readers to get out and play the way the characters do—by modifying the rules, coming up with new playing strategies, and supporting one another in backyard play. Each book features a different backyard game, and the series has received notable reviews by BusinessWeek, Chicago Parent, South Florida Parenting Magazine, Time Out Chicago, and many more. For more information, visit www.projectplaybooks.com. |
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