Miami Herald: The Changing Nature of Play

Miami Herald – May 31, 2008
By Ana Veciana-Suarez

Growing up in New Jersey, Maryland and Oklahoma, Luann Myers played outside almost every day. She roller-skated, played cowboys and Indians and practiced hopscotch and jump-rope with her girlfriends. Summer was much of the same, only better, because of the delightful absence of homework.
''Your parents didn't worry about you being outside,'' she recalls. ``That's what kids were expected to do, stay out until dark.''

But now her son, Zak, 9, spends most of his time inside their Hollywood home or on the patio where she can keep an eye on him. Once a week she arranges a play date. This summer the third grader will go to camp and a city-sponsored program. When he recently asked permission to ride his bike around the block, ``I said no because I just didn't feel comfortable letting him do that.''

Like many parents, Myers is worried about traffic, about child abductions, about dangers she can't always name.

For many children, those halcyon days of hide-and-seek and kickball on the street, of playing until hunger or exhaustion or a mother's cry called you in, are long gone. More and more kids are spending time with computers and video games, in organized sports and after-school care, doing reams of homework or simply staying away from the perceived dangers of the street.

Play, an activity recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as the birthright of every child, has gone indoors. It has been challenged -- and some would say, decimated -- by electronics, academic pressures, misplaced fears, a high-stress, hurried lifestyle and, in some cases, real danger.

''These days there are a lot more incentives to be entertained in a passive way,'' says child psychiatrist Eugenio Rothe, a father of two. ``The spontaneity of play has been lost. Kids are becoming used to a more structured environment.''

LOST CHILDHOODS

Reports confirm this assessment. Three- to 5-year-olds have lost an average of 501 minutes of unstructured play each week, according to a University of Michigan study tracking time use from 1981 to 1997. Their older siblings, 6- to 8-year-olds, lost an average of 228 minutes.

When this happens, the very nature of childhood -- or what Rothe terms ''the way we learn to become adults'' -- is changed, and not necessarily for the better. Free-form play, the kind children engage in without the direction of adults, allows kids to create and explore their world, to conquer their fears, to learn how to share, negotiate and resolve conflict. It forces them to exercise their bodies as well as their brains.

But the forces limiting free-range play are not going away. In fact, some believe the opposite may be happening. As parents work longer hours, more children are enrolled in organized after-school activities and academic enrichment programs.

LuWanna Riles, a single mother in North Miami, has both her girls enrolled in an after-school program. In the summer, they will attend camp with the same program. Because she works full-time at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, she doesn't pick them up until 6 p.m. -- leaving little time for the girls to hang out with friends.

''I think they're missing out on the freedom to be a child, to do just what they want,'' she says. ``They don't have the luxury of going outside and bonding with the neighborhood kids.''

The family moved into a condo development about a year ago. Security is tight, yet Riles is afraid to let them go out alone. Like Myers, she worries about crime and child molesters.

''Society has gotten so crazy that you just worry all the time,'' she adds. ``You take more precautions. You don't want to let them out of your sight.''

It is a far cry from how she grew up in San Diego and in Liberty City, when her stay-at-home mother allowed her to play alone for hours. Now ''if we're going to do something outside, it's me taking them to the park or to the pool,'' she said.

It's not just fear that keeps kids inside. The lure of electronics is ever present. Just ask Diana Ramos, a lawyer who lives with her husband and two teenage sons in West Kendall in a neighborhood where everyone knows each other. When a new video game debuts, ``it's the hot thing and they'll play that for hours.''

NO ONE'S HOME

Mathew, 14, and Max, 16, do play outside, of course -- when hot new items like scooters or skateboards become the rage. But it's not always as much fun because many neighbor kids aren't home.

''Before, your mother or grandmother was home. But now all the mothers work and the kids are in child-care,'' Ramos explains.

And if not in child-care, they're in some enrichment program. Suzanne Arroyo of Hollywood takes Katie, 9, and Kristopher, 4, to karate three nights a week. This summer, they will attend Sea Camp and Akido Camp. Play with a friend?

''It has to be organized and scheduled and it involves picking up and delivering,'' she says. ``It's not like it used to be. I remember my sister riding her bike to ballet lessons. But I absolutely would never allow them to do something like that.''

Play is considered such a vital part of child development that the American Academy of Pediatric issued a paper in 2006 to strongly encourage what it calls ``a simple joy that is a cherished part of childhood.''

Concerned experts have launched a national movement called Leave No Child Inside, which seeks to remedy the disconnect between children and the natural world. Some communities have marked Take a Child Outside Week, the U.S. Forest Service has launched a ''More Kids in the Woods'' program, the National Wildlife Federation rolled out ''The Green Hour'' and California has issued a proclamation called the Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights -- all efforts to remedy what some call nature deficit disorder.

MAKE AN EFFORT

Richard Louv, whose 2005 book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder launched the movement, says he doesn't want to turn back the hands of time, but he believes parents must make ''an intentional effort'' to get the kids outdoors. ''We're in danger of raising kids in virtual house arrest,'' he adds.

While many blame the plugged-in world, Louv maintains that the factors pulling children indoors are more varied. Parents are often motivated by worries of ''stranger danger'' and of having their children fall behind in the race for success if their schedules aren't packed with lessons -- concerns that usually have no basis in fact.

In fact, there is no proof that child abductions have increased over the years. About 797,500 children were reported missing nationwide in a one-year period of time studied in 1999. Of those, only 115 children were the victims of stereotypical kidnapping, a crime perpetrated by a stranger or a slight acquaintance. Comparable statistics dating back a generation or two are not available, and the 1999 figures have not been updated.

Yet, even without these numbers, experts believe stranger abduction is probably not increasing because crime overall has either held steady or decreased. ''I would be very surprised if they had gone up,'' says David Finkelhor, co-director of Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Yet, many parents' perception is of a world that is more dangerous than ever because, as Finkelhor says, ``it reflects a general anxiety about the nature of society and the future that parents have.''

The result: ''We're being conditioned to live in a state of fear,'' Louv laments.

Of course, not every child is confined to the great indoors. Kelsey Brehm, 13, plays outside with neighborhood kids all the time. This summer, aside from Girl Scout Camp, she will live the unscheduled bliss of a slow-paced vacation -- riding her bike and hanging out with friends in much the same way her mother Leann Brehm did growing up in Hialeah. The Brehms live in ''the perfect block'' in Kendall. The neighbors know each other well enough to spend holidays together -- and keep an eye on all the children.

''She does scheduled activities only as much as she wants and then she entertains herself,'' says Brehm, who is the director of risk management for the city of Miami. ``I think it's the way childhood should be.''

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