A New Challenge to Childhood – the Adult Colonisation of Play

by Robyn Monro Miller

Childhood in Australia is being undermined by a new breed of play terrorism where educational outcomes and bureaucratic red tape take precedence over children’s leisure time.

This "adult colonisation of play" (Hughes, 2005) is resulting in a contamination of childhood experiences by political agendas and consumerism, where the marketing of educational products and services to families denigrates the power and importance of children’s free play to their optimal development.

Adrian Voce of the Children’s Play Council in the UK strongly advocates that the extent of play deprivation experienced by many children today is at least as damaging as the prevalence of junk food. Play is so important that the United Nations High Commission has recognised it as a right of every child for Human Rights. Yet with this in mind we have Governments, media and other agencies still focussed on the obesity epidemic, not the critical shortage of child friendly play spaces and access to quality out of school hours services.

Free spirited play and adventure is being downgraded whilst a new definition of play is being promoted. This new definition seeks to interpret mastery of academic outcomes and completion of components of school curriculum as aspects of play. Discussion on extended school days and extra curricular activities by well meaning politicians only serve to perpetrate the false belief that academic achievement is an essential indicator of biological fitness.

Chris Mercogliano in his book ‘In Defence of Childhood” argues that we are robbing our young people of "that precious, irreplaceable period in their lives that nature has set aside for exploration and innocent discovery," (Mercogliano, 2007) leaving them ill-equipped to face adulthood.

In our own practice as professionals working with children in their leisure time we need to be particularly vigilant that we are defenders of childhood, not catalysts for it’s ultimate destruction.

Leading play advocate Bob Hughes warns us that although children are now central to the participation processes in design and decision-making, their freedom to play in ways controlled by them and motivated by their needs, is frequently compromised. Adult agendas predominate (Hughes, 2007).

In Out of School Hours care provision the interpretation of accreditation by many individuals and service providers has resulted in the ‘adult agenda’ predominating with restrictions placed on children’s freedom to play.

Parents in response to the lack of information available about the importance of free play to their child’s development, often contribute to the demise of their own child’s time for play. Parents reflect with guilt on their own childhoods as a pleasure sadly not experienced by their own child. Themselves victims of consumerism, parents increasingly are pressured to book their children into new and improved educational programs and classes. This false expectation of ‘good parenting’ results in unrealistic expectations of children, parents and service providers. In such a situation conflict is inevitable. The rising rate of anecdotal reports of stressed parents, children’s behaviour issues and studies on childhood depression (Harvard University, 2002) coupled with high staff turnover in child related occupations are not a coincidence.

In a letter to London’s Daily Telegraph in September, 110 teachers, psychologists and children’s authors called on the British Government to prevent “the death of childhood”.

The letter alerted politicians to the need to appreciate and maintain opportunities for children to be exposed to first hand experiences of the world, regular interaction with significant adults , active play and time to just be.

The letter goes on to elaborate “ In a fast moving hyper competitive world culture, today’s children are expected to cope with an ever earlier start to formal schoolwork and an overly academic test driven primary curriculum. They are pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past”.

The earliest information, only recently published, makes a link between play deprivation and anti-social behaviour (Brown, 1998). A study of 26 young murderers identified that normal play behaviour was virtually absent throughout the lives of these men regardless of demography. The study concluding that play deprivation in children results in social and personal breakdown in adults.

We are facing a generation of children experiencing play deprivation. Increasing demand for technological literacy and the belief that a virtual world is safer to play in than the real world further removes play opportunities from the lives of our children. The "domestication of childhood" is upon us, increasingly removing adventure, risk and the capacity to develop life skills. Aptly described by Mercogliano (2007) as “threatening to smother the spark that animates each child with talents, dreams, and inclinations”.

Stuart Brown, president of the American Institute for Play and a practising Psychiatrist first recognized the importance of play by discovering its absence in the life stories of murderers and felony drunken drivers attending his clinical practice. Brown concluded that play seems necessary as an antidote to the development of violent tendencies as well as a partner to effective socialization. In addition he identified play as active in the shaping of an individuals sense of self and therefore directly related to mental health

Play is therefore a catalyst for the development and maintenance of successful communities.
In accepting this argument a successful community should then be measured on the ability for its children to actively engage in a 3 dimensional world of play, where play is respected, honored and recognized as an integral component of a child’s day not an add on if there is time. A successful community where children have the opportunity to create and explore using all five senses is a healthy community.

Thus the importance of creating successful communities for the future must rely heavily on fighting the institutionalisation of our children and provision of opportunities for every child to experience the benefits of pure, unadulterated play.

Out of School Hours Services have the potential to create incredible outcomes dependent on their engagement and advocacy for play.

A quality out of school hours service where free play is encouraged and supported, where children have opportunities to experiment, to make choices, where process is more important than product, will be an incubator for the successful community of the future.

Isn’t that worth fighting for?

References

Brown, S. L. 1998 "Play as an organising principle:clinical evidence and personal observations", in
Marc Bekoff and John A. Byers (Eds) Animal Play. Evolutionary, Comparative and Ethological
Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mercogliano, C. 2007 ”In Defence of Childhood; Protecting Kids inner wilderness” Boston: Beacon Press.

Harvard Mental Health Newsletter,February 2002

Hughes, B. 2007“Play Then and Now”

WHAT IS PLAY?

CHILDRENare the foundation of the world's future.
CHILDRENhave played at all times throughout history and in all cultures.
PLAY, along with the basic needs of nutrition, health, shelter and education, is vital to develop the potential of all children.
PLAYis communication and expression, combining thought and action; it gives satisfaction and a feeling of achievement.
PLAYis instinctive, voluntary, and spontaneous.
PLAYhelps children develop physically, mentally, emotionally and socially.
PLAYis a means of learning to live, not a mere passing of time.

International Play Association, definition of Play www.ipaworld.org