When we put pressure on ourselves as parents to be sure our kids are properly scheduled and productive citizens, we may be depriving them a key component to academic success. We live in a culture of success here in the Bay Area. Our kids get messages from an early age that playing on a soccer team is nice, but making the elite traveling team is great. Going to college is an expectation, but landing at an elite UC or better is the goal. We are surrounded by excellence in our sports teams (Go Dubs!), local businesses with international clout and endless opportunities to distinguish ourselves in any pursuit imaginable. Good grades are often celebrated over effort. All of this permeates our culture and can be much louder than the gentler messages we might be trying to send in our homes.
Get good grades - everything else is easy. This was quality advice handed down in my family and it isn’t wrong. But when our kids are growing up in a pressure cooker of performance, how do we help them to succeed without creating prematurely strained mini adults? Here is some excellent news from the National Institute of Health.
Much has been made of the benefits of play. We can see with our own eyes what kids are gaining when structure and supervision are removed. Who doesn’t remember fondly when your parent’s friends would come over and you and your siblings would be gloriously ignored for several hours? Experiencing play actually changes the neurons in animal brains. It is in the act of play that certain connections are made in the prefrontal cortex that, without play, do not occur. Reasoning, problem solving, regulating emotions and planning are all essential life skills that are cemented in the brain’s executive control center during play. Benefits of unsupervised play are well documented and indisputable.
Brains capable of navigating difficult social interactions by cooperating, helping, sharing, consoling are known as prosocial. In this study, conducted by the NIH, “Prosocialness had a strong positive impact on later academic achievement.” In fact, “the best predictor of academic performance in eighth grade was a child's social skills in third grade.” If academic success and achievement are goals for the future, we cannot sell short the importance of play now. Unsupervised, wholly organic play. In our lives, we have seen the trend pendulum swing in many areas of parenting and child development. Letting kids play seems like common sense. It also could spell some down time for us as parents.
When I was little and my brother and sister and I got too loud or wild, my mom would send us outside, regardless of the climate. If it was 30 degrees or less - we were sent to the garage. Wherever the exile, we were left to create our own play. It was here that I choreographed brilliant dances, understood which face on my brother meant I was in imminent danger and laughed so hard I fell down more than once. All of those experiences served me. While my mom was inside probably serving herself a nice slice of silence.
As summer draws to a close, try to retain some of the hands off attitude that seems easier to embrace when school is out. Allow for play. Extract yourself. Let the kids be kids. It may pay off in more ways than we know.