Free Time for Kids!
By E. Noel Preston, M.D.
whuffodat@aol.com  

Why is it that everybody seems to agree more play time for children is good (which it is) but we still have so much organized time for children? Organized sports, with uniforms and carpools and scheduled practice and game times. Organized schedules for children every day, like baseball, basketball, football, soccer, cheerleading, swim team, lacrosse, etc., all with their required uniforms to try to make everyone look like everyone else?

Where is there time for creativity and imagination? Where is there time for exploration and discovery?

We are concerned, of course, about our children’s safety. We don’t want them molested, kidnapped, or murdered. We don’t want them to hurt themselves and have to go to an emergency room. We want them them to be able to play, but to be safe, which is part of the reason organized team sports are so popular with young families.

Furthermore, most of today's families need incomes from both the mother and the father, and so there are not that many neighborhoods where there are adults around to keep a watchful eye over their own (and everybody else's) children. But, these sports themselves are expensive -- uniforms, travel, shoes, helmets, equipment, team dues, and refreshments add up in a hurry, 

And so now we have ”the hurried child.” Hurry to the Boy Scouts. Hurry to choir practice. Hurry home for dinner. Hurry to get homework done before bedtime. I have friends whose grandchildren take part in organized sports events every weekday and also on Saturdays. I have another friend whose adult daughter will allow her child only one organized sports activity per week. 

Who is to say which approach is better? My grandmother used to say "idle hands are the Devil's mischief," but as a child I don't remember being in anything more organized than the Boy Scouts. I do remember my mother telling me to be home in time for dinner at 6 o'clock, and that's about it.

Pediatricians have known for a long time any television viewing (even Barney the Dinosaur) can induce violent behavior in children (and me, too!), but some parents use television as a babysitter to keep their children quiet. And while the children are becoming juvenile couch potatoes, in addition to not being physically active, they are snacking on potato chips or candy.

One of the recommendations pediatricians advise parents of obese children is to limit television AND all kinds of video devices to a combined total of less than one hour per day, and to make their children stay out of the house at least two hours a day.

For budgetary reasons, many schools have dropped Physical Education classes, and in schools that still do have P.E., many teachers have the children choose sides and play some sort of team game. But what happened to plain old "Recess," where kids could jump rope or play tag or hide-and-seek, or hop-scotch, or blind-man's bluff, or just plain wrestle with each other?

Our children need more free time. Everyone seems to agree on that. But why can’t we give it to them?

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a retired pediatrician.

091609

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