Boston College professor Peter Gray argues that the rise in anxiety and depression among kids is tied to a lack of a sense of control over their fate and a move toward emphasizing external goals over internal ones. A sense of control over one’s life and narrative, and internal rewards are things that play provides.
Posts Tagged ‘kids’
The rise in anxiety and depression and the decline in play
Friday, February 5th, 2010Learning and Play
Friday, February 5th, 2010Susan Engel makes a passionate case for the essential role of play in the learning process.
NY Times Magazine article: Can Play Teach Self Control?
Thursday, October 1st, 2009How play succeeds while other methods fail in giving kids better planning abilities and emotional modulation. Could work for adults, too.
Let the Children Play
Monday, June 15th, 2009
Helen Guldberg has a provacative blog entry about the decrease in unsupervised play among children.
Free-Range Kids
Monday, March 16th, 2009Posted by Chris
Most of us past the age of 30 grew up in a world that we mostly explored at will. We were asked (told!) to “go outside and play” with only the requirement that we be back before dark or back before dinner. We explored nearby fields and streams, built things, and learned about our own skill and proclivities. Kids now have much more structured lives, the result being that they miss chances to construct the narrative of their own lives.
Lenore Skenazy, a columnist who once unwittingly unleashed a scandal by letting her 9-year-old son ride on the New York Subway alone, talks about all this in the posted introduction to her book: “Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry.”