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Traditional Catholic Faith => Catholic Living in the Modern World => Topic started by: Matthew on September 10, 2018, 08:04:17 PM

Title: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: Matthew on September 10, 2018, 08:04:17 PM

Imagine a drug that could enhance a child’s creativity, critical thinking and resilience. Imagine that this drug were simple to make, safe to take, and could be had for free.
The nation’s leading pediatricians say this miracle compound exists. In a new clinical report, they are urging doctors to prescribe it liberally to the children in their care.
What is this wonder drug? Play.
“This may seem old-fashioned, but there are skills to be learned when kids aren’t told what to do,” said Dr. Michael Yogman, a Harvard Medical School pediatrician who led the drafting of the call to arms. Whether it’s rough-and-tumble physical play, outdoor play or social or pretend play, kids derive important lessons from the chance to make things up as they go, he said.
The advice, issued Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics, may come as a shock to some parents. After spending years fretting over which toys to buy, which apps to download and which skill-building programs to send their kids to after school, letting them simply play — or better yet, playing with them — could seem like a step backward.

The pediatricians insist that it’s not. The academy’s guidance does not include specific recommendations for the dosing of play. Instead, it asks doctors to advise parents before their babies turn 2 that play is essential to healthy development. It also advocates for the restoration of play in schools.

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: Nadir on September 11, 2018, 01:01:39 AM

The very idea that children need to be encouraged/taught/allowed to play, that it should even be the subject of medical paediatrics, is preposterous!

I think that it must arise from the guilt which is a result of the stifling of procreation. 

Here are some beautiful pics of natural children in natural play. I wish I could post the photos.

 https://www.boredpanda.com/happy-children-playing/?utm_source=duckduckgo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=organic

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: Maria Regina on September 11, 2018, 03:12:53 AM

I remember when I was in school. Back in the 1950s, we had play time at school: unsupervised time to play with blocks and logs, and even tumble weed to build forts. We made things with clay made from ordinary kitchen flour. We went to the beach and spent hours building sand castles. At school, we played in the sand box, or on the gym set. It was not regulated as during a physical ed class. Older children would play tag or practice spinning balls or skip flat rocks over the river water. Parents serving as playground supervisors would volunteer to watch over us so that no one would get hurt while the teachers were busy setting up the next exercises in the classroom.

Play time in the snow was wonderful. We made the typical snowmen or rolled up and compacted snow to build warm forts with tall walls, which protected us from the cold wind. We would make complex tracks on a small hill in which to slide those circular sleds made from garbage can lids. On such track ended up in an irrigation ditch filled with ice with a six foot cushion of snow. Our parents cringed, but it was so much fun and free. No admission fees. It was the best playtime we had that year as a neighborhood. I doubt that could be done today as ditches in cities must be fenced and are regulated by the Building and Safety, by adults who do not have the time to watch children play.

Indoor rainy day play was the best time, as our teachers brought out boxes of simple toys: feathers to make Native American headdresses, trimmings to make clothes used in creative dramatics, paper to make boxes and birds, fabrics to make pirate cloths and ghost costumes, stuff that most adults would toss out as junk, but that children would beg them to keep.

At camp, they would give us a box filled with clothing and scarves. We were told to stage a play on any topic. It was called creative dramatics, but was not part of a course. I remember entertaining my folks and neighhors with staged plays. We would spend hours rehearsing. Then would come the dress rehearsals. We would critique ourselves. Boys would play celebrating Mass, while girls would take a doll and play mommy, or wear a scarf and be Sister Victoria teaching addition and subtraction.

Play was very important as it inspired us to become engineers, teachers, priests, nuns, mothers, fathers, doctors, lawyers, etc.

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: Matthew on September 11, 2018, 08:03:52 AM

I should also point out an article a few years ago, which taught us that the Who's Who of Silicon Valley (you know, the tech capital of the world) go out of their way to keep phones, tablets, and PCs out of the hands of their own children until a certain age.
They go to special schools that don't use much technology. We're talking about Steve Jobs here!

You would have expected Steve Jobs to have iPads and iPhones all over the house. But apparently it was the contrary.

It's like the elites KNOW the effect of too much technology too young. It affects proper brain development, creativity, ability to memorize, ability to focus, and other things.

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: B from A on September 11, 2018, 08:15:27 AM

Quote from: Matthew on September 11, 2018, 08:03:52 AM

I should also point out an article a few years ago, which taught us that the Who's Who of Silicon Valley (you know, the tech capital of the world) go out of their way to keep phones, tablets, and PCs out of the hands of their own children until a certain age.
They go to special schools that don't use much technology. We're talking about Steve Jobs here!

You would have expected Steve Jobs to have iPads and iPhones all over the house. But apparently it was the contrary.

It's like the elites KNOW the effect of too much technology too young. It affects proper brain development, creativity, ability to memorize, ability to focus, and other things.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs raised their kids tech-free — and it should've been a red flag (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bill-gates-and-steve-jobs-raised-their-kids-techfree-and-it-shouldve-been-a-red-flag-a8017136.html)

Quote

Tuesday 24 October 2017 13:30

Psychologists are quickly learning how dangerous smartphones can be for teenage brains.
Research has found that an eighth-grader's risk for depression jumps 27% (http://www.businessinsider.com/teen-ѕυιcιdєs-outnumber-homicides-smartphones-2017-8) when he or she frequently uses social media. Kids who use their phones for at least three hours a day are much more likely to be suicidal. And recent research has found the teen ѕυιcιdє rate in the US now eclipses (http://www.businessinsider.com/teen-ѕυιcιdєs-outnumber-homicides-smartphones-2017-8) the homicide rate, with smartphones as the driving force.
But the writing about smartphone risk may have been on the wall for roughly a decade, according to educators Joe Clement and Matt Miles, coauthors of the recent book "Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse is Making Our Kids Dumber." (http://buy.geni.us/Proxy.ashx?tsid=3658&GR_URL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FScreen-Schooled-Veteran-Teachers-Technology%2Fdp%2F1613739516%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1508437554%26sr%3D8-1%26keywords%3Dscreen%2Bschooled%26tag%3Dbisafetynet2-20)
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2017/08/29/22/gettyimages-825760450-0.jpg) (http://safari-reader://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/smartphone-get-rid-social-media-change-life-online-capitalism-internet-detox-control-a7910066.html)[/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)] (http://safari-reader://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/smartphone-get-rid-social-media-change-life-online-capitalism-internet-detox-control-a7910066.html)[/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)]How getting rid of my smartphone revolutionised my life[/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)] (http://safari-reader://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/smartphone-get-rid-social-media-change-life-online-capitalism-internet-detox-control-a7910066.html)[/color]
It should be telling, Clement and Miles argue, that the two biggest tech figures in recent history — Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — seldom let their kids play with the very products they helped create.
"What is it these wealthy tech executives know about their own products that their consumers don't?" the authors wrote. The answer, according to a growing body of evidence, is the addictive power of digital technology.
'We limit how much technology our kids use at home'
In 2007, Gates, the former CEO of Microsoft, implemented a cap on screen time when his daughter started developing an unhealthy attachment to a video game. He also didn't let his kids get cell phones until they turned 14. (Today, the average age (https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/19/the-average-age-for-a-child-getting-their-first-smartphone-is-now-10-3-years/) for a child getting their first phone is 10.)

Jobs, who was the CEO of Apple until his death in 2012, revealed in a 2011 New York Times interview (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html?_r=0) that he prohibited his kids from using the newly-released iPad. "We limit how much technology our kids use at home," Jobs told reporter Nick Bilton.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2017/10/24/13/bg.jpg)[/color]
In "Screen Schooled," Clement and Miles make the case that wealthy Silicon Valley parents seem to grasp the addictive powers of smartphones, tablets, and computers more than the general public does — despite the fact that these parents often make a living by creating and investing in that technology.
"It's interesting to think that in a modern public school, where kids are being required to use electronic devices like iPads," the authors wrote, "Steve Jobs's kids would be some of the only kids opted out."

Jobs' children have finished school, so it's impossible to know how the late Apple cofounder would have responded to education technology, or "edtech." But Clement and Miles suggest that if Jobs' kids had attended the average US school today, they'd have used tech in the classroom far more than they did at home while growing up.

That's at the average school at least, according to the coauthors. A number of specialty Silicon Valley schools, such as the Waldorf School, are noticeably low-tech. They use chalkboards and No. 2 pencils. Instead of learning how to code, kids are taught the soft skills of cooperation and respect. At Brightworks School, kids learn creativity (https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-02-10-technology-and-its-implementation-in-schools-is-widening-the-opportunity-gap) by building things and attending classes in treehouses.

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: B from A on September 11, 2018, 08:16:56 AM

Screen time v play time: what tech leaders won't let their own kids do (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/23/screen-time-v-play-time-what-tech-leaders-wont-let-their-own-kids-do)

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: Maria Regina on September 11, 2018, 12:52:51 PM

Rainy Day Play

I remember my mom would get some old clean blankets, bring them into the living/dining room, and say, "Make a fort".

We would situate the dining room chairs to make our fort, get pillows from our bedroom to line the floor of the fort, and then drape blankets over them. Then we would go inside the fort where it was warm, and in the darkness soon fall asleep. It was like camping. Smart mom!

Mom could then do her household chores without interruption. Often she would go into the kitchen and bake a couple of apple pies.

We would awake to the delightful odor of cinnamon and baked apple pie, and have our afternoon snack.

Title: from «How to Get Ideas»
Post by: Geremia on September 11, 2018, 01:17:40 PM

    "If you want to be more creative," wrote the [child] psychologist Jean Piaget, "stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society."
    J. Robert Oppenheimer agreed: "There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago." [This corroborates Nihil est in intellectu quod prius in sensu (http://www.catholicapologetics.info/catholicteaching/philosophy/axiomata.htm)!]
    Thomas Edison agreed too: "The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child."     So did Will Durant: "…the child knows as much of cosmic truth as Einstein did in the ecstasy of his final formula."
    Which is curiously close to what Albert Einstein himself said: "I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of time and space. These are things that he has thought of as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up."

[...]

    "Kids are natural-born scientists," said Carl Sagan. "First of all, they ask the deep scientific questions: Why is the moon round? Why is the sky blue? What's a dream? Why do we have toes? What's the birthday of the world? By the time they get into high school, they hardly ever ask questions like that."
     "Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods," agreed Neil Postman.
     Become a question mark again.

—How to Get Ideas (http://books.google.com/books?id=HQYP_L-uXIkC&lpg=PA28&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q&f=false) (p. 27-30) by Foster & Corby

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: songbird on September 11, 2018, 05:26:56 PM

yes, Maria, I can remember those days.  I am a 1952 baby.  We made the forts inside and outside on the clothes line.  My mom and dad decided to leave the city and go to the country.  Our home was a old brick school house.  Woods behind it.  We were allowed to go into the woods and we did play.  Sometimes poison ivy, some times we ran from snakes.  We picked wild flowers, wild strawberries and blackberries.  We skipped the creeks and the fun in the snow.

We had someone on our side, who spoke for us, Captain Kangaroo.  He would end his show, "Give the children what they want most, Give them your time."

So, I did that with our kids.  Let the work go sometimes and go to the park with a picnic lunch.

Or, to say to the kids, If you wish to do... do your work and I promise you to do it.

My mom believed to let a child be a child, for if you don't, when they get older, they may want to be a child. Ha!

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: Maria Regina on September 12, 2018, 12:20:37 AM

I honestly believe that the 1953 Peter Pan movie did a lot to destroy the USA, especially the song, "I won't grow up."

https://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/p/peterpanlyrics/iwontgrowuplyrics.html

Quote

Peter Pan Soundtrack Lyrics

I WON'T GROW UP Lyrics

PETER PAN:
Are you ready for today's lesson?

ALL:
Yes, Peter!

PETER PAN:
Listen to your teacher. Repeat after me:
I won't grow up,
(I won't grow up)
I don't want to go to school.
(I don't want to go to school)
Just to learn to be a parrot,
(Just to learn to be a parrot)
And recite a silly rule.
(And recite a silly rule)
If growing up means
It would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
Not I,
Not me!
Not me!
I won't grow up,
(I won't grow up)
I don't want to wear a tie.
(I don't want to wear a tie)
And a serious expression
(And a serious expression)
In the middle of July.
(In the middle of July)
And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,

I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me,
Not I,
Not me!
So there!
Never gonna be a man,
I won't!
Like to see somebody try
And make me.
Anyone who wants to try
And make me turn into a man,
Catch me if you can.
I won't grow up.
Not a penny will I pinch.
I will never grow a mustache,
Or a fraction of an inch.
'Cause growing up is awfuller
Than all the awful things that ever were.
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up,
No sir,
Not I,
Not me,
So there!

 source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/p/peterpanlyrics/iwontgrowuplyrics.html (https://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/p/peterpanlyrics/iwontgrowuplyrics.html)

(https://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/p/peterpanlyrics/iwontgrowuplyrics.html)

Today's children love to be entertained.
They demand movies, cartoons, smart phones, and games. 
Play takes too much effort, time, and creativity.
With movies, a child can sit on a couch and eat junk food all day long.
No wonder childhood diabetes and obesity is increasing.
Children neither have the time nor the incentive to run outside and play.

Title: Re: Doctors say let kids play
Post by: songbird on September 12, 2018, 05:38:29 PM

When we have our granddaughter over, all she wants is outside.  So be it.  She loves to swing.  She swings till her hands almost have blisters.  

I made up a song for her mothers when she was age 3.  She cried when she would swing.  

Song:  Fly like a bird, without any word, Fly so high up in the sky, by and by and don't you cry.