Children Need To Play

Sometimes, I act like a child. I guess it’s my way of remaining young. Growing up, we played many games. I guess that’s why I was always so skinny. Between, hopscotch, basketball, and tag, we always remained active. Today, children don’t even know how to play.

I still remember an interaction between myself and one of my students sometime last year. Generally, when we went out for recess, the students would ask if they could bring out a basketball, dodgeball, or football. I banned football because of the rough nature and fights that broke out because of the game. Then, I banned dodgeball because of the number of incident reports I had to write. Basketball was almost banned, but I decided to just referee it so that the students would have at least one game that wasn’t banned.  But one day I brought the kids outside with no balls. As soon as we got outside, a boy ran up to me and asked if he could go inside and get a ball. I let him know that the students would have to find a way to entertain themselves without a ball. The sad thing is that they had no clue what to do.

It just reminded me about how different our society is today. While we grew up playing outside as well as playing videogames, children today basically play videogames indoors.  They don’t know the first thing about just running around outside and playing. So, I taught them how to play steal the bacon and a few other games that I learned as a child.

Parents and adults in general, need to take the time to make sure that kids get back to playing. Part of this obesity issue comes from an obvious lack of movement. Children’s inability to “just play” helps to further explain children’s consistent cries of boredom.

If you have a child, work on bringing back the days when children just played. Bring back the days when the imagination ruled the lives of children. When that happens, I think we’ll finally begin to move in the direction of children who are more apt to think independently and dream vividly.

Comments

[jaycsc15]

I make an effort to have my children play outside everyday. When its raining we just carry our games to the basement. Physical activity is so important and it enforces a way of life that would be good for the children to hold on to as they get older.