Play Deficit Disorder?

I can remember feeling an incredible sense of relief the first time my now two-year-old son picked up a piece of plastic food from his kitchen set, held it to his ear like a telephone and said, "Hello?" (Admittedly I felt slightly bashful last week when during an action rhyme with scarves at our local library's story time, he held his balled up scarf to his ear to take a quick phone call--but in this day and age of cell phones as attached to our hip as our toddlers are, who can blame him for not silencing his scarf phone before Story Time and taking the call?)  I have worked in the field of early childhood education for about a decade in a variety of venues, and in that time one of the most significant shifts I have seen in children both in the home environment as well as the classroom is what I can only describe as "play deficit disorder." More and more, I see children who do not know how to "play." To clarify, I specifically see a difference in children's ability to engage in creative, abstract and imaginative play and additionally a lack of opportunity for this type of play in many classrooms and homes. Recently I discussed with a friend of mine how different raising children is now as opposed to even a decade ago. A decade ago, she explained, I never sat down and played with my children. Now she is the mother of an infant and exploring ways to play together.  My own parents, I recalled, didn't really "sit down and play" with me. I had ample opportunities to play throughout my day and access to a great deal of materials and toys and space to play in and with. My own mother is an early childhood educator, the daughter of an early childhood educator. My father is a psychologist and professor with an expertise in vocational psychology. To say that it was embraced that my "work" as a child was "play" is an understatement, and yet, no one showed me how to do it.  

Teaching play skills such as creative plot development, conflict resolution and concept expansion used to be something that was reserved for students who struggled with learning differences, social/emotional challenges, language and speech delays, communication barriers, etc. Now, more and more, I have seen it as a skill that "typical" learners require support with as well. While I have taught in a variety of models including Montessori, Play Based, Jewish curriculum as well as secular curricula, across the board I have seen a growing population of children for whom that scarf is always a scarf. More and more, I see students struggle in less structured activities and times with difficulty in navigating what they wish to do, difficulty maintaining attention to one activity for a length of time, boredom, hesitance to begin, rigidity and inability to adapt...so what has happened? What has changed in our environment that has changed our children's play?

• Lack of Opportunity: The early childhood classroom and elementary school structure used to automatically include some length of "free time," whether it was referred to as Center Time, Work Time, Play Time, Recess, etc. In more and more classrooms and schools, this is dwindling. This shift was supported by some educational models under the belief that home was where children played and school was where they came to learn and practice skills. Meanwhile, home life has come to include more and more extracurricular activities and structured events nearly every day of the week. Less structured "free time" is often spent in front of screens that merely didn't exist in most homes a decade or two ago. The pressure is on from a very young age to achieve academically, and even the nature of homework--a task that when developed was intended to bridge the gap between home and school, connect families and also facilitate learning, has now become a daunting task for students and parents alike. There is simply not an opportunity for play to happen in the way it once did.
• Toys are Different: So many children's toys come with batteries, making sounds, playing music, talking, ringing, beeping, moving--children don't need to do any of that anymore. Furthermore, many toys are so function and gender specific that there is little room to expand on those concepts. While I feel that "girls'" toys have made a progressive shift to include (albeit pink and sparkly versions) of science sets, big wheels cars, building materials and doctors' kits, it is the boys I often feel who suffer the most. Aisles of toy departments targeted at boys rarely seem to contain tea sets or baby dolls or much of anything outside cartoon characters, superheros, movie paraphernalia and a variety of weaponry.  There is no need and no room with many of the toys marketed today for children to use their imagination.
• The "Village" is Different: I grew up in suburbia playing outside. I was not allowed to play alone in the front yard, but I was allowed to play alone in the back while my parents were home. My parents were in many ways considered neurotic for only allowing us this freedom in the backyard, but my husband and I are now uncomfortable even with that scenario for our son even as he gets older. Our communities and neighborhoods are different. The idea of helicopter parenting is prevalent and at the same time, our sense of the Village has changed. On the one hand, being out there with our kids is an opportunity to connect and slow down our family life. On the other hand, lost are many of the opportunities for children to discover and explore the way I did. Instead of independently picking up the rock and discovering the creepy crawlies underneath it, we show them, "hey look, pick up this rock and you'll see all kinds of bugs and worms!" 
• And I have to mention screens... because I would be remiss not to. I did grow up in a house that had a computer. Video games were not something that was forbidden but they were not something we wanted to have either. Both my husband and I grew up watching a fair amount of television and movies. He played a lot of video games as well. We do not have a TV in our house, but we do watch a few shows on Netflix and allow our son to watch certain shows as well on occasion. Beyond that, I think there is a great deal of wonderful things that can come from many of the new educational apps that are out there for students of all ages. We have many friends who home-school their children in "online classrooms," and the ability to Skype and FaceTime have allowed our son to have familiarity with and recognition of family members who don't live close by. As a parent and educator I benefit continually from access to fellow parents' and educators' ideas and resources online. I definitely think there is a place for screens in our lives and our children's lives and I concurrently believe they play a role in the shift of children's play. 

So what is the answer? Is there an answer? I'm not entirely sure what it is for the big picture, but for me personally, for my son and for my family, the answer has been to get down and play. I live in an era of toys that could do it for me and screens that do captivate enough attention to allow me to pop dinner in the oven without the toddler underfoot. There's a comfortable couch in my living room and if that doesn't float my boat, I could sit in any number of chairs. Have I mentioned my horribly achy knees?  But I get down and play and so does my husband. In fact, so do all of my son's grandparents. And it's not always convenient or easy. I went back to teaching when my son was five week's old. My husband works full time with an hour and a half commute each way--and this schedule begins for him before the crack of dawn so he can be home with us by 5:30P.M. Admittedly, in that first year, many of my play times with my son were what I'd call "horizontal mommy time," and thankfully he enjoyed the snuggles and cuddles. Additionally, we live on a tight budget and we really didn't buy him any toys until his first birthday. Everything we played with was a household object (i.e. pots, pans, measuring spoons and cups), homemade (sensory bottles, laminated magazine photos, coffee canister drums) or purchased secondhand or from the dollar store (don't tell my mother it may have been made in China and contain lead). As my son became more mobile and active, my world had to move with him. I felt like I got my life back when he could sit in the kitchen on a quilt and bang away at the Tupperware containers. Then he figured out how to move off the mat...and climb...and...oy vey!

And so it takes an amount of effort and planning on my part. It requires that I weigh options and organize my schedule. And then re-weigh those options and re-organize. Because I could put his favorite show on the laptop and let him watch it while I get the dishes done (and sometimes I do) or I could throw the towels I need to wash down on the floor that needs to be mopped, give him a small basin of soapy water and some plastic dishes and sponges and let him have at it while I get the dishes done. The floor is now soapy and wet, I dry it with the towels that needed to be washed anyway, toss those in the washing machine, toss the soggy toddler in some dry pajamas and call it good. And hey, I got the dishes done. And this year as I transition from teaching in a classroom to teaching my son in my own home, I feel just as challenged and eager to explore the work of my own child's play as I do in nurturing my students' play. Furthermore, as a "play at home mom," I see the need my fellow parents have for support and ideas in this area. My hope is to capture a variety of play ideas here that span and can be adapted to a variety of ages. Some activities may require little to no preparation, and others a bit more. Some may be messy and complex while others will be simple and serene. 

Playing with my son and playing with my students is something I have seen as an investment plan. Kind of a teach a man to fish sort of idea. Even at just two, I can see some of the fruits of my labor developing as my son begins to engage in play on his own without needing or wanting my input or suggestions. Many times, he even takes the lead and tells me what to do! I beam with pride when he invites me with a command of "Mommy, sit!" to hop in his car (a climbing structure at a playground) and go on a trip. We've all heard the popular adage about all work and no play. I have loved my work over the years and, G-d willing, will continue to develop that love. I hope my son will find work that feeds his soul just as much. I also feel that his most important work at two years old is play and through our experience of fostering and facilitating this skill, my hope for my husband and myself is that we also reconnect with that joy and wonder. After all, play is important for grown ups, too!