12 ms·

Decline of play and rise of sensory issues in preschoolers

192 points by nether 11y ago

bloberdoo 11y ago
the special snowflake parent wanted her special snowflake child to be a little genius and forgot that all animals need physical activity might as well run straight into the ocean
BrandonY 11y ago
A tangentially related story: Seattle's public school teachers are threatening to strike. One of their demands (in addition to pay and such) is that children get at least 30 minutes of recess per day for elementary school students.
- heynk 11y ago
  And it looks like they're getting the recess, but we'll see about the rest.
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  What a world where teachers have to not just demand something so basic but have to threaten to strike over it.
  - zo1 11y ago
    I wouldn't quite call it "basic". Just look at all the confusing/opposing anecdotes being exposed in the article and the comment section here. If anything, without more evidence, we might as well chalk-up the pre-school teachers' threats to strike as being self-motivated. I.e. Preschoolers getting more sleep = being calmer = 30mins break for teachers + easier time after nap time.
    - Retra 11y ago
      Still, a 30 minute break isn't something they should have to strike for.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  just 30 minutes? That's insane.
  - hugh4 11y ago
    I assume that's recess, in addition to lunch.
    - gohrt 11y ago
      So? Lunch is waiting in line and sitting at a table -- often sitting quietly, in schools where the adults are strict. Recess is physical activity.
      - hugh4 11y ago
        Really? I didn't go to school in the US. Do they really spend the whole lunch hour sitting around? We went outside, ate our sandwiches or bought lunch from the canteen, and then played for the rest of the hour. The whole "school lunch" thing in the US I find bizarre.
        Avshalom 11y ago
        Hour? We got 30 minutes. Technically 25 minutes with a 5 minutes passing period (to get to back to class). Even with the school taking staggered lunches that still meant 1000 kids on lunch. It could easily take 20 minutes to go t through the cafeteria line. Though that was highschool. I can't remember middle/elementary well enough, though even then I really don't think it was an hour.
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  What is the opposition arguing for instead? No recess at all? For elementary school students? Ridiculous.
  - VLM 11y ago
    I have grade school kids and the testing regime is brutal and the educational system produces about twice as many teachers as the economy needs so a teacher who's kids don't improve enough on multiple choice tests will have their career destroyed, which means a financial death penalty because the student loans can't be discharged, which means the destruction of their lives and families lives. So its kind high stakes for the teachers.
AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
Reading this made me sad, but for a different reason than I'd anticipated when I first started reading. The trigger for me was the realization that our children are not having the conversations that they ought to be having. Talking with/to children is important for their mental development, or so I have been told. I am no expert on this matter, but this is what I have come to understand. It's rooted on the understanding that social expertise is developed by means of continual practice; if kids do not play/socialize/work together at a young age, they risk not sufficiently developing this skill as they grow. If we are seeing anti-social behavior from children these days it would seem that trends in contemporary society have caused a decline in the opportunities kids have for conversing with others. The lacking development of our auditory sensory skills means a lacking development in the other sensory categories - speaking and hearing are the categories we master first as humans. I don't believe the cause of this is limited to the apparent advances in the stupidity of early childhood educators, as it is likely that the on-demand exposure to engaging media content at younger ages and other related trends are also to blame. After all, if a kid is staring at a screen, they are not developing their social functions, either. In general, I believe this damage can be sourced back to the general trends of the modern household, which has both parents working full-time just to get by economically. The humans with which the child is most willing to converse are not available and instead the child is left in a scenario that more resembles Lord of the Flies. This is all why I, personally, do not plan to bring children into this world until I can afford the time to raise them with the love and attention they deserve. So that the availability of finances has no bearing on their future. I owe any being I bring into this earth at least that courtesy.
- fr0styMatt2 11y ago
  I've always found a strange dichotomy in this. On the one hand, we're supposed be these extremely socially-driven creatures. Yet on the other hand, it seems like we very easily gravitate towards isolation. The gravitation towards on-demand media and 'looking at the screen' has to be appealing, more appealing en-masse than socializing, otherwise why would we collectively gravitate towards it as a large group? I think what I'm saying is that I think people gravitating towards TV and solitary activities is the symptom, not the cause. The real question is - what's making people more anxious about being social? Is this really a rise in social anxiety, causing a rise in people being isolated?
dmayle 11y ago
I'm an American parent of mixed French-American children, and I have a very hard time believing that schools are the cause of this. American preschools are way behind French preschools in terms of academic preparation, and yet French children aren't exhibiting the same kinds of problems. If it really is a play issue, it's more likely that American parents don't allow their children more freedom on the playground, instead helicoptering around (I'm guilty) and not allowing them to just handle things themselves.
- Ensorceled 11y ago
  On a vacation to France last year, my SO and remarked several times on how different the behaviours of children and adults in the playgrounds in cities and towns of France differed from their counterparts in Canada and the US. The interaction in France reminded me much more of my parents and I than the modern parents of North America. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what it was but there was a lot more letting the kids climb on stuff, do "dangerous" things, work out their own problems, fight their own battles and basically run around having fun.
  - smtddr 11y ago
    Today's America has a stronger phobia of getting hurt.... or maybe of getting sued. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/21/children-weaker-computers-replace-activity http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/21/children-weak... http://www.bustle.com/articles/41370-11-stupidly-dangerous-toys-of-the-90s-our-parents-probably-shouldnt-have-let-us-play-with http://www.bustle.com/articles/41370-11-stupidly-dangerous-t... --- I remember some of these toys and they were great fun.
    - hvidgaard 11y ago
      Wow, the only dubious of those choices would be the rocket. The rest of them are great for learning your body, and act responsible. I really blows me mind that a trampoline is seen as a dangerous thing - I'd say a pool is worse. The trampoline is a endless source of fun for children, and I've yet to even hear of someone getting anything worse than a sprained angle from one.
coldcode 11y ago
Kids needs to play, trying to treat a 5 year old as an academic is nuts. Imagination and creativity don't come from studying, they come from playing. Thankfully when I was growing up recess was still important even into middle school. For that matter I think adults need recess too!
tsunamifury 11y ago
I've worked with high level machine intelligence, it has become very obvious to me that cognitive development goes hand in hand with physical movement and manipulation. Intelligence, real or artificial, do not fully develop without prolonged physical interaction with the subjects they proport to understand. We learn about space, objects, and people by doing regular physical activity. We learn about things by touching them, throwing them, kicking them into the woods or on the roof. Our brains develop by manipulating and getting feedback from our environment. I feel far less intelligent after a day spent in front of a computer or a book than I do after a day spent walking in the woods. I'm astonished by how brain-dead I become without physical activity, and how useless and un-creative it makes me. Kids don't need 30 min of recess -- they need an entire day of working and learning with their hands and feet along with their brains.
- jostylr 11y ago
  I work for a Sudbury School (Arts&Ideas in Baltimore) where this is our mantra. I've long take it as an article of faith that humans are wired this way. But I am astounded by the comment about artificial intelligence. Is there any kind of paper that explores this? Not even sure how to set it up or quantify such a thing, but that would be incredible to prove.
  - hellbanner 11y ago
    http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/barsalou/papers/Barsalou_BBS_1999_perceptual_symbol_systems.pdf http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/barsalou/papers/Ba... "Abstract: Prior to the twentieth century, theories of knowledge were inherently perceptual. Since then, developments in logic, statistics, and programming languages have inspired amodal theories that rest on principles fundamentally different from those underlying perception. In addition, perceptual approaches have become widely viewed as untenable because they are assumed to implement recording systems, not conceptual systems. A perceptual theory of knowledge is developed here in the context of current cognitive science and neuroscience. During perceptual experience, association areas in the brain capture bottom-up patterns of activation in sensory-motor areas. Later, in a top-down manner, association areas partially reactivate sensory-motor areas to implement perceptual symbols. The storage and reactivation of perceptual symbols operates at the level of perceptual components – not at the level of holistic perceptual experiences. Through the use of selective attention, schematic representations of perceptual components are extracted from experience and stored in memory (e.g., individual memories of green, purr, hot). As memories of the same component become organized around a common frame, they implement a simulator that produces limitless simulations of the component (e.g., simulations of purr). Not only do such simulators develop for aspects of sensory experience, they also develop for aspects of proprioception (e.g., lift, run) and introspection (e.g., compare, memory, happy, hungry). Once established, these simulators implement a basic conceptual system that represents types, supports categorization, and produces categorical inferences. These simulators further support productivity, propositions, and abstract concepts, thereby implementing a fully functional conceptual system. Productivity results from integrating simulators combinatorially and recursively to produce complex simulations. Propositions result from binding simulators to perceived individuals to represent type-token relations. Abstract concepts are grounded in complex simulations of combined physical and introspective events. Thus, a perceptual theory of knowledge can implement a fully functional conceptual system while avoiding problems associated with amodal symbol systems. Implications for cognition, neuroscience, evolution, development, and artificial intelligence are explored"
danharaj 11y ago
There are too many people who think it would be catastrophic if children had any autonomy. It seems like even the most easy-going person can turn into a despot when it comes to a child. I wish we would treat children with more respect. On the other hand, maybe most adults simply reflect onto children the strictly regimented structure of modern adult life. Better start young, yes? So they don't know any other way of being a human. It seems, though, no matter how early you start, a child simply knows when she is being a human being in the wrong way.
mikerichards 11y ago
My son is only 2, but we decided to get him into "school" last winter. When my wife was interviewing these places, the choice was between "learning" environments and "social" environments. We chose the social environment. There's plenty of time for him to learn numbers, letters (he's only 2), but it's more important now for him to to learn to take turns, run around with other kids, bang on the drums and sing when the weekly musician comes in, etc...
- beedogs 11y ago
  2 seems way, way too young for any sort of school environment.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    2 goes almost all the way to 3. There's a big difference between 2 and 3-epsilon.
  - ANH 11y ago
    Depends on what you mean by "school" (NB the quotes in the parent comment). There is a huge variance in options for working parents of a 2-3 year old. From cramped cinder block day care -- aka The Cacophonous Petri Dish; to private nanny; to "forest schools" where kids spend as much time as possible outside digging in the dirt, climbing tree stumps, and learning how to devise and engage in large projects together (yes, a group of 2.5 year olds is capable of this). I don't think the parent comment was talking about toddler MIT.
    - germinalphrase 11y ago
      Do you have experience with any particular 'forest schools'?
      - ANH 11y ago
        I do. The one I'm familiar with has large garden areas, trees for climbing/wandering around, uncultivated wilderness areas, etc. It's not a vast tract of land, but enough that it seems huge to a small person. Indoor time focuses on exploration of provocations set up by teachers, telling stories, singing, role-playing, etc.
ra1n85 11y ago
Curious too on how this may relate to allergies. Indoor activities have become so much more engrossing over the last 10-15 years. All that time spent inside in front of a TV/computer/tablet screen isn't as valuable to a developing immune system as the occasional eating of dirt or mosquito bite.
- memonkey 11y ago
  Not only allergies but I also wonder about air quality in general.
- foobarge 11y ago
  I think it does. People raised on farms have less allergies than the rest of the general population [citation needed but I'm lazy] Kids need to play outside, in the dirt, interact with live animals and other kids and be exposed to a lot of different food when they're young and later on in life as well.
- brational 11y ago
  There's many studies that support that hypothesis though it tends to be in the 0-5 age range.
freework 11y ago
When I click the link it takes me to the page with the article, but then before I can scroll down, one of those god-forsaken "enter your email address to get updates!" popup came up which I couldn't close. Usually pressing 'esc' or clicking the 'x' takes those stupid things away, but this one wouldn't let me read on unless I give them my email. Thankfully readability to the rescue! mirror: https://www.readability.com/articles/zmba4zju https://www.readability.com/articles/zmba4zju
nether 11y ago
I hope this article is remembered when the next, "I taught my 5-year-old to code" blog post comes around.
- dchichkov 11y ago
  Probably the key is to provide rich enough environment and be very careful with repetitive scheduled activities... Teaching a five-year-old to code is probably Ok, as long as it is a very small part of life of that 5-year-old...
jostylr 11y ago
There is a focus in the article in playing outside which is good and fine. But another important aspect missing today is age mixing. This is crucial because it is an informal mentoring process, in effect. 4 year olds learn best from being around 6 year olds who learn best from 8 year olds, etc. up the chain. There is also reflection from being a mentor to the younger ones. All of this is absent increasingly today. It is not just lack of recess or whatever, but a lack of neighborhood, of community. The young ones learn how to share, how to regulate emotions, etc., in part by witnessing the older ones being that way.
- r0h1n 11y ago
  Some schools practice the concept of "mixed age groups" where each class is composed of 3 different ages in equal proportion. For instance my 5-yo son has 3-yo's and 4-yo's in his class. Thing is, it's a constant battle for the school with parents who always want their kids to with same-age kids or older-ones, never smaller ones. Everyone thinks their kid's development will be "held back" because of the younger children in the class. Telling them about how older kids also learn from playing or working with younger kids is a hard sell, when all parents think today is academic progress.
  - hobs 11y ago
    Unfortunately what they do not understand is that teaching someone else is one of the best learning opportunities you can get, even if you think its not. It both expands and cements your knowledge of a subject, and highlights the areas that you are unsure of. I spent years training various technical topics, and the reason I was so fluent in them is because I was expected to be able to teach anyone around me on a dime.
  - lotharbot 11y ago
    the mixed-age classroom phenomenon is very common in Montessori schools. My son has gone from being the classroom baby (he started just after his third birthday, mid-year, due to the way special ed services are handled) to being the big kid (5 years old, with an extra half-year of school experience compared to others his age) who knows everything. Montessori schools also really emphasize kids teaching each other. Since my son is kind of a math whiz [0] he gets to spend a lot of time showing other kids math concepts, while some of the more socially adept kids guide him through social situations. There are some kids who don't do well in that environment, but it's great for a lot of young kids. [0] he can coherently explain Graham's Number, knows pi to 206 places last I checked, and has started exploring limits
windlep 11y ago
Sleep deprivation. It explains all the symptoms mentioned in the article. Kids in kindergarten start early, and stay later than they have in the past with no nap period. Busy parents (both of whom are now working full-time) are lucky to get home by 7pm, so the kid(s) are generally kept up till 9/10pm so the parents can have some time with them. If parents are going to keep a 5/6-yr old up to 9:30pm or later, then wake them up at 7:15am to get ready for school at 8:15am.... which goes till 2pm with no nap time. Well yea, sleep deprivation hurts. Ask your parents, grandparents, etc when they went to sleep, when kindergarten began, how long it ran, whether it included a nap/rest-time. Most of us got a lot more sleep than the kids now. Edit: I agree kids need more free-play time, but that's separate from their sleep deprivation.
- Uroboric 11y ago
  I lived quite far from school in my middle and high school days. It meant an hour long bus ride both ways (plus a 1.5 mile walk from the bus stop), and having to wake at 5AM to get ready. The only way I had any free time was staying up late, which occurred every single school night. I got horrendous grades because focusing was impossible. I actually blame this single circumstance for a large share of my life problems. It forced me to work my way up from a crappy community college after high school, and everyone I encountered just sort of assumed I was mediocre.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  I think you're 100% correct here. My son is in bed by 8, no exceptions. Usually up around 8 the next day. My niece is in preschool from 7a-6p... Totally different experience which really sucks.
  - stan_rogers 11y ago
    When I was that age, 8:00 meant that either Topo Gigio or the Muppets were on Ed Sullivan (they were always, for some reason, scheduled for the second half-hour). I'm not sure I needed the extra half-hour that going to bed at 7:30 gave me, but I'm pretty sure that my parents needed the recovery time before their two hours of grown-up television.
curiousjorge 11y ago
it's all these fucking meds American pharmaceuticals love shoving down their own kids throats.
mikerichards 11y ago
How come that kid doesn't have any shoes on?
sytelus 11y ago
Articles like this are not too credible which tries to generalize personal anecdot and a comment from a friend. Where is the research and citations? I'm also not sure what is the take away here. Don't send kids to preschools? If that's the case then there is a fair amount of research that kids who attend full time preschool have much better chance of academic success and they are better at social skills[1]. Montessori crowd is even proud to put kids to school as early as 18 months, 3-6 hours a day and 5 days a week. Is Montessori method considered play based or more academic focused? [1] http://www.seattle.gov/council/issues/PreschoolforAll/docs/Attachment%20A%20-%20Key%20Sources%20of%20Info%20for%20Reso%20-%202013%2012%2005%20revised.pdf http://www.seattle.gov/council/issues/PreschoolforAll/docs/A...
buyx 11y ago
As much as the rise in "sensory issues" may be real, it could also be occupational therapists trying to generate more business for themselves. It's happened in South Africa's[1] for-profit private healthcare sector, where wealthy areas with high concentrations of occupational therapists just happen to have enormous rates of diagnosed sensory issues in normal children, to the extent that medical schemes (insurers) have had to ration these treatments (with the tacit approval of parents, who know it's often a scam, but are forced by schools to undertake OT treatments). Especially as formerly good South African schools have been forced to cut back, and the overall quality of education has deteriorated, OTs have become the "real" teachers in affluent areas, teaching handwriting and other motor skills, often to every child in some schools. And, anecdotally, bright young women who want to work with children aspire to become OTs, rather than teachers nowadays, exacerbating the problem. Wikipedia has the citations on this issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_therapy#Children_and_youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_therapy#Children_... If I was an parent of a young child in the U.S., my spidey sense would be very tingley when I read articles like this. [1] yes South Africa is a third-world country, but there are aspects that are very "First World"
- fallat 11y ago
  I just wanted to say good on you for bringing this up from another perspective. I would've never thought about this. My opinion on this whole ordeal: ask the kids. I wonder what a video montage of an interview of every single kid would do to the viewing population. Get a few to cry and I can imagine people getting all riled up...
- gohrt 11y ago
  Pediatric Occupational Therapists are basically "professionally trained parents", people who spent a few years studying child develpoment. You can quibble with the price and the necessity, and in some regions the practitioners might not be qualified, but in general an hour or whatever per week with an Occupational Therapist is going to yield insights into a child's development, and training for parents to be better in their roles. Modern developed countries have a "no child left behind" attitude. 30 years ago, a kid who couldn't keep up and fit in would be left to waste away in the corner (if they were nonviolent) or pent up in an asylum environment (if they acted out)
zelos 11y ago
I remember looking round a local pre-school and being horrified that they had the kids all sat down quietly on the carpet while the 'teacher' stood up front holding up flash cards with shapes on them reading out the names.
peteretep 11y ago
My wife teaches children in the age of 4-6 at an expensive, well-known, and high-achieving school, following a British curriculum but not in the UK. The whole damn syllabus is play-focussed. Teachers aren't allowed to plan lessons more than a day or two in advance as they're required to follow the children's interests. Play activities are set up to help the children develop certain skills, and their development in those is monitored, but again, it's _all_ play. This was a difficult adjustment for her coming from a deprived inner-city school in the UK, but she's now on top of it, and the whole child-led development thing appears to be pretty well established in academic circles.
netcan 11y ago
I got an interesting perspective from a young teacher a few years back, I'm not sure to what extent this is backed by research and science, but she did quote various studies. Interesting in any case, even as a hypothesis. Anyway… she thought kids were grossly over-schooled at younger ages. Here argument was basically: (1) Kids are hitting diminishing returns on formal schooling at 2-3 hours per day. Their attention can't stretch much farther and their progress is ultimately determined by biological limits. A 4th grade reading/math level is determined more by average cognitive ability at that age than by the hours of classroom time they have put in. (2) The second point was a more intuitive one: classroom sizes, particularly in linear subjects (mostly ready, writing, math in primary school) are way to big to be effective. Putting these two together, she wanted 2-3 hours of school with smaller classes. IE, a teacher teaches 2-3 classes per day with 1/3 the students. She thought it would be more effective and leave more time for play and other things. Fleshing it out in my head, I think it would be something like 4 * 30 minute classes with short breaks between classes, which makes intuitive sense if you've interacted with kids 6-11. The elephant in that room is child care. We live in a monetary world. Education and child are services that cost money. Taking child care away has immediate opportunity costs. But, for people that can afford to lose 5 hours a day of child care, it would be interesting to experiment with this sort of thing for 6-9 year olds. There are costs to achieving 2 hours of learning in 6 hours too. Boredom, frustration, less time for play or sport or whatnot.
facepalm 11y ago
Perhaps sitting still in general is not good, especially not for children. My son will go to school next year and I almost feel a physical pain myself when imagine him having to sit still for hours on end. I think I suffered because of that a lot in school, too. I also credit not having too many back issues (fingers crossed) to sitting sloppily in my chair most of the time, rather than in an upright (90°) position. Tilting backwards with the chair might be more relaxing for the spine. I don't have a good solution, though. Perhaps it helps to design the classroom differently, let kids walk to learn stations and communicate with other kids and so on.
graycat 11y ago
All that time and effort wasted and even doing harm. Extracting defeat from the jaws of victory. Pre-school "academic" what? I can't think of anything very significant and non-trivial in academics before, say, the ninth grade. Academics can start to get severe for some majors by, say, the junior year of college, e.g., a physics major may want to know differential geometry and exterior algebra. The real challenge in academics is research, if want to take such a career direction. Learn "the days of the week"? Can't remember when I didn't know those. Maybe Mom or Dad went over them say, several times over a period of two weeks. The alphabet? There is a little song for that. Reading? Somehow by the second grade or so, I basically knew how to read. Arithmetic? Learn to add and subtract single digit numbers and memorize the multiplication table, and then apply those to the rest of arithmetic. I have a friend who went to a terrible school, and somewhere in the early grades got sick and was at home for some days. There his mother was shocked to discover that he couldn't read. So, in two weeks, she taught him. He was PBK at Suny and got his Ph.D. in mathematics at Courant. Here's one: Since we are awash in computers, early on teach touch typing -- that is, let the kids learn where the a-z keys are. K-12? Let be mostly play.

192 points by nether 11y ago

the special snowflake parent wanted her special snowflake child to be a little genius and forgot that all animals need physical activity might as well run straight into the ocean

BrandonY 11y ago

A tangentially related story: Seattle's public school teachers are threatening to strike. One of their demands (in addition to pay and such) is that children get at least 30 minutes of recess per day for elementary school students.

heynk 11y ago
And it looks like they're getting the recess, but we'll see about the rest.
brazzledazzle 11y ago
What a world where teachers have to not just demand something so basic but have to threaten to strike over it.
- zo1 11y ago
  I wouldn't quite call it "basic". Just look at all the confusing/opposing anecdotes being exposed in the article and the comment section here. If anything, without more evidence, we might as well chalk-up the pre-school teachers' threats to strike as being self-motivated. I.e. Preschoolers getting more sleep = being calmer = 30mins break for teachers + easier time after nap time.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Still, a 30 minute break isn't something they should have to strike for.
eevilspock 11y ago
just 30 minutes? That's insane.
- hugh4 11y ago
  I assume that's recess, in addition to lunch.
  - gohrt 11y ago
    So? Lunch is waiting in line and sitting at a table -- often sitting quietly, in schools where the adults are strict. Recess is physical activity.
    - hugh4 11y ago
      Really? I didn't go to school in the US. Do they really spend the whole lunch hour sitting around? We went outside, ate our sandwiches or bought lunch from the canteen, and then played for the rest of the hour. The whole "school lunch" thing in the US I find bizarre.
      - Avshalom 11y ago
        Hour? We got 30 minutes. Technically 25 minutes with a 5 minutes passing period (to get to back to class). Even with the school taking staggered lunches that still meant 1000 kids on lunch. It could easily take 20 minutes to go t through the cafeteria line. Though that was highschool. I can't remember middle/elementary well enough, though even then I really don't think it was an hour.
Pyxl101 11y ago
What is the opposition arguing for instead? No recess at all? For elementary school students? Ridiculous.
- VLM 11y ago
  I have grade school kids and the testing regime is brutal and the educational system produces about twice as many teachers as the economy needs so a teacher who's kids don't improve enough on multiple choice tests will have their career destroyed, which means a financial death penalty because the student loans can't be discharged, which means the destruction of their lives and families lives. So its kind high stakes for the teachers.

AndrewUnmuted 11y ago

Reading this made me sad, but for a different reason than I'd anticipated when I first started reading. The trigger for me was the realization that our children are not having the conversations that they ought to be having. Talking with/to children is important for their mental development, or so I have been told. I am no expert on this matter, but this is what I have come to understand. It's rooted on the understanding that social expertise is developed by means of continual practice; if kids do not play/socialize/work together at a young age, they risk not sufficiently developing this skill as they grow. If we are seeing anti-social behavior from children these days it would seem that trends in contemporary society have caused a decline in the opportunities kids have for conversing with others. The lacking development of our auditory sensory skills means a lacking development in the other sensory categories - speaking and hearing are the categories we master first as humans. I don't believe the cause of this is limited to the apparent advances in the stupidity of early childhood educators, as it is likely that the on-demand exposure to engaging media content at younger ages and other related trends are also to blame. After all, if a kid is staring at a screen, they are not developing their social functions, either. In general, I believe this damage can be sourced back to the general trends of the modern household, which has both parents working full-time just to get by economically. The humans with which the child is most willing to converse are not available and instead the child is left in a scenario that more resembles Lord of the Flies. This is all why I, personally, do not plan to bring children into this world until I can afford the time to raise them with the love and attention they deserve. So that the availability of finances has no bearing on their future. I owe any being I bring into this earth at least that courtesy.

fr0styMatt2 11y ago
I've always found a strange dichotomy in this. On the one hand, we're supposed be these extremely socially-driven creatures. Yet on the other hand, it seems like we very easily gravitate towards isolation. The gravitation towards on-demand media and 'looking at the screen' has to be appealing, more appealing en-masse than socializing, otherwise why would we collectively gravitate towards it as a large group? I think what I'm saying is that I think people gravitating towards TV and solitary activities is the symptom, not the cause. The real question is - what's making people more anxious about being social? Is this really a rise in social anxiety, causing a rise in people being isolated?

dmayle 11y ago

I'm an American parent of mixed French-American children, and I have a very hard time believing that schools are the cause of this. American preschools are way behind French preschools in terms of academic preparation, and yet French children aren't exhibiting the same kinds of problems. If it really is a play issue, it's more likely that American parents don't allow their children more freedom on the playground, instead helicoptering around (I'm guilty) and not allowing them to just handle things themselves.

Ensorceled 11y ago
On a vacation to France last year, my SO and remarked several times on how different the behaviours of children and adults in the playgrounds in cities and towns of France differed from their counterparts in Canada and the US. The interaction in France reminded me much more of my parents and I than the modern parents of North America. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what it was but there was a lot more letting the kids climb on stuff, do "dangerous" things, work out their own problems, fight their own battles and basically run around having fun.
- smtddr 11y ago
  Today's America has a stronger phobia of getting hurt.... or maybe of getting sued. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/21/children-weaker-computers-replace-activity http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/21/children-weak... http://www.bustle.com/articles/41370-11-stupidly-dangerous-toys-of-the-90s-our-parents-probably-shouldnt-have-let-us-play-with http://www.bustle.com/articles/41370-11-stupidly-dangerous-t... --- I remember some of these toys and they were great fun.
  - hvidgaard 11y ago
    Wow, the only dubious of those choices would be the rocket. The rest of them are great for learning your body, and act responsible. I really blows me mind that a trampoline is seen as a dangerous thing - I'd say a pool is worse. The trampoline is a endless source of fun for children, and I've yet to even hear of someone getting anything worse than a sprained angle from one.

coldcode 11y ago

Kids needs to play, trying to treat a 5 year old as an academic is nuts. Imagination and creativity don't come from studying, they come from playing. Thankfully when I was growing up recess was still important even into middle school. For that matter I think adults need recess too!

tsunamifury 11y ago

I've worked with high level machine intelligence, it has become very obvious to me that cognitive development goes hand in hand with physical movement and manipulation. Intelligence, real or artificial, do not fully develop without prolonged physical interaction with the subjects they proport to understand. We learn about space, objects, and people by doing regular physical activity. We learn about things by touching them, throwing them, kicking them into the woods or on the roof. Our brains develop by manipulating and getting feedback from our environment. I feel far less intelligent after a day spent in front of a computer or a book than I do after a day spent walking in the woods. I'm astonished by how brain-dead I become without physical activity, and how useless and un-creative it makes me. Kids don't need 30 min of recess -- they need an entire day of working and learning with their hands and feet along with their brains.

jostylr 11y ago
I work for a Sudbury School (Arts&Ideas in Baltimore) where this is our mantra. I've long take it as an article of faith that humans are wired this way. But I am astounded by the comment about artificial intelligence. Is there any kind of paper that explores this? Not even sure how to set it up or quantify such a thing, but that would be incredible to prove.
- hellbanner 11y ago
  http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/barsalou/papers/Barsalou_BBS_1999_perceptual_symbol_systems.pdf http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/barsalou/papers/Ba... "Abstract: Prior to the twentieth century, theories of knowledge were inherently perceptual. Since then, developments in logic, statistics, and programming languages have inspired amodal theories that rest on principles fundamentally different from those underlying perception. In addition, perceptual approaches have become widely viewed as untenable because they are assumed to implement recording systems, not conceptual systems. A perceptual theory of knowledge is developed here in the context of current cognitive science and neuroscience. During perceptual experience, association areas in the brain capture bottom-up patterns of activation in sensory-motor areas. Later, in a top-down manner, association areas partially reactivate sensory-motor areas to implement perceptual symbols. The storage and reactivation of perceptual symbols operates at the level of perceptual components – not at the level of holistic perceptual experiences. Through the use of selective attention, schematic representations of perceptual components are extracted from experience and stored in memory (e.g., individual memories of green, purr, hot). As memories of the same component become organized around a common frame, they implement a simulator that produces limitless simulations of the component (e.g., simulations of purr). Not only do such simulators develop for aspects of sensory experience, they also develop for aspects of proprioception (e.g., lift, run) and introspection (e.g., compare, memory, happy, hungry). Once established, these simulators implement a basic conceptual system that represents types, supports categorization, and produces categorical inferences. These simulators further support productivity, propositions, and abstract concepts, thereby implementing a fully functional conceptual system. Productivity results from integrating simulators combinatorially and recursively to produce complex simulations. Propositions result from binding simulators to perceived individuals to represent type-token relations. Abstract concepts are grounded in complex simulations of combined physical and introspective events. Thus, a perceptual theory of knowledge can implement a fully functional conceptual system while avoiding problems associated with amodal symbol systems. Implications for cognition, neuroscience, evolution, development, and artificial intelligence are explored"

danharaj 11y ago

There are too many people who think it would be catastrophic if children had any autonomy. It seems like even the most easy-going person can turn into a despot when it comes to a child. I wish we would treat children with more respect. On the other hand, maybe most adults simply reflect onto children the strictly regimented structure of modern adult life. Better start young, yes? So they don't know any other way of being a human. It seems, though, no matter how early you start, a child simply knows when she is being a human being in the wrong way.

mikerichards 11y ago

My son is only 2, but we decided to get him into "school" last winter. When my wife was interviewing these places, the choice was between "learning" environments and "social" environments. We chose the social environment. There's plenty of time for him to learn numbers, letters (he's only 2), but it's more important now for him to to learn to take turns, run around with other kids, bang on the drums and sing when the weekly musician comes in, etc...

beedogs 11y ago
2 seems way, way too young for any sort of school environment.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  2 goes almost all the way to 3. There's a big difference between 2 and 3-epsilon.
- ANH 11y ago
  Depends on what you mean by "school" (NB the quotes in the parent comment). There is a huge variance in options for working parents of a 2-3 year old. From cramped cinder block day care -- aka The Cacophonous Petri Dish; to private nanny; to "forest schools" where kids spend as much time as possible outside digging in the dirt, climbing tree stumps, and learning how to devise and engage in large projects together (yes, a group of 2.5 year olds is capable of this). I don't think the parent comment was talking about toddler MIT.
  - germinalphrase 11y ago
    Do you have experience with any particular 'forest schools'?
    - ANH 11y ago
      I do. The one I'm familiar with has large garden areas, trees for climbing/wandering around, uncultivated wilderness areas, etc. It's not a vast tract of land, but enough that it seems huge to a small person. Indoor time focuses on exploration of provocations set up by teachers, telling stories, singing, role-playing, etc.

ra1n85 11y ago

Curious too on how this may relate to allergies. Indoor activities have become so much more engrossing over the last 10-15 years. All that time spent inside in front of a TV/computer/tablet screen isn't as valuable to a developing immune system as the occasional eating of dirt or mosquito bite.

memonkey 11y ago
Not only allergies but I also wonder about air quality in general.
foobarge 11y ago
I think it does. People raised on farms have less allergies than the rest of the general population [citation needed but I'm lazy] Kids need to play outside, in the dirt, interact with live animals and other kids and be exposed to a lot of different food when they're young and later on in life as well.
brational 11y ago
There's many studies that support that hypothesis though it tends to be in the 0-5 age range.

freework 11y ago

When I click the link it takes me to the page with the article, but then before I can scroll down, one of those god-forsaken "enter your email address to get updates!" popup came up which I couldn't close. Usually pressing 'esc' or clicking the 'x' takes those stupid things away, but this one wouldn't let me read on unless I give them my email. Thankfully readability to the rescue! mirror: https://www.readability.com/articles/zmba4zju https://www.readability.com/articles/zmba4zju

nether 11y ago

I hope this article is remembered when the next, "I taught my 5-year-old to code" blog post comes around.

dchichkov 11y ago
Probably the key is to provide rich enough environment and be very careful with repetitive scheduled activities... Teaching a five-year-old to code is probably Ok, as long as it is a very small part of life of that 5-year-old...

jostylr 11y ago

There is a focus in the article in playing outside which is good and fine. But another important aspect missing today is age mixing. This is crucial because it is an informal mentoring process, in effect. 4 year olds learn best from being around 6 year olds who learn best from 8 year olds, etc. up the chain. There is also reflection from being a mentor to the younger ones. All of this is absent increasingly today. It is not just lack of recess or whatever, but a lack of neighborhood, of community. The young ones learn how to share, how to regulate emotions, etc., in part by witnessing the older ones being that way.

r0h1n 11y ago
Some schools practice the concept of "mixed age groups" where each class is composed of 3 different ages in equal proportion. For instance my 5-yo son has 3-yo's and 4-yo's in his class. Thing is, it's a constant battle for the school with parents who always want their kids to with same-age kids or older-ones, never smaller ones. Everyone thinks their kid's development will be "held back" because of the younger children in the class. Telling them about how older kids also learn from playing or working with younger kids is a hard sell, when all parents think today is academic progress.
- hobs 11y ago
  Unfortunately what they do not understand is that teaching someone else is one of the best learning opportunities you can get, even if you think its not. It both expands and cements your knowledge of a subject, and highlights the areas that you are unsure of. I spent years training various technical topics, and the reason I was so fluent in them is because I was expected to be able to teach anyone around me on a dime.
- lotharbot 11y ago
  the mixed-age classroom phenomenon is very common in Montessori schools. My son has gone from being the classroom baby (he started just after his third birthday, mid-year, due to the way special ed services are handled) to being the big kid (5 years old, with an extra half-year of school experience compared to others his age) who knows everything. Montessori schools also really emphasize kids teaching each other. Since my son is kind of a math whiz [0] he gets to spend a lot of time showing other kids math concepts, while some of the more socially adept kids guide him through social situations. There are some kids who don't do well in that environment, but it's great for a lot of young kids. [0] he can coherently explain Graham's Number, knows pi to 206 places last I checked, and has started exploring limits

windlep 11y ago

Sleep deprivation. It explains all the symptoms mentioned in the article. Kids in kindergarten start early, and stay later than they have in the past with no nap period. Busy parents (both of whom are now working full-time) are lucky to get home by 7pm, so the kid(s) are generally kept up till 9/10pm so the parents can have some time with them. If parents are going to keep a 5/6-yr old up to 9:30pm or later, then wake them up at 7:15am to get ready for school at 8:15am.... which goes till 2pm with no nap time. Well yea, sleep deprivation hurts. Ask your parents, grandparents, etc when they went to sleep, when kindergarten began, how long it ran, whether it included a nap/rest-time. Most of us got a lot more sleep than the kids now. Edit: I agree kids need more free-play time, but that's separate from their sleep deprivation.

Uroboric 11y ago
I lived quite far from school in my middle and high school days. It meant an hour long bus ride both ways (plus a 1.5 mile walk from the bus stop), and having to wake at 5AM to get ready. The only way I had any free time was staying up late, which occurred every single school night. I got horrendous grades because focusing was impossible. I actually blame this single circumstance for a large share of my life problems. It forced me to work my way up from a crappy community college after high school, and everyone I encountered just sort of assumed I was mediocre.
Spooky23 11y ago
I think you're 100% correct here. My son is in bed by 8, no exceptions. Usually up around 8 the next day. My niece is in preschool from 7a-6p... Totally different experience which really sucks.
- stan_rogers 11y ago
  When I was that age, 8:00 meant that either Topo Gigio or the Muppets were on Ed Sullivan (they were always, for some reason, scheduled for the second half-hour). I'm not sure I needed the extra half-hour that going to bed at 7:30 gave me, but I'm pretty sure that my parents needed the recovery time before their two hours of grown-up television.

curiousjorge 11y ago

it's all these fucking meds American pharmaceuticals love shoving down their own kids throats.

mikerichards 11y ago

How come that kid doesn't have any shoes on?

sytelus 11y ago

Articles like this are not too credible which tries to generalize personal anecdot and a comment from a friend. Where is the research and citations? I'm also not sure what is the take away here. Don't send kids to preschools? If that's the case then there is a fair amount of research that kids who attend full time preschool have much better chance of academic success and they are better at social skills[1]. Montessori crowd is even proud to put kids to school as early as 18 months, 3-6 hours a day and 5 days a week. Is Montessori method considered play based or more academic focused? [1] http://www.seattle.gov/council/issues/PreschoolforAll/docs/Attachment%20A%20-%20Key%20Sources%20of%20Info%20for%20Reso%20-%202013%2012%2005%20revised.pdf http://www.seattle.gov/council/issues/PreschoolforAll/docs/A...

buyx 11y ago

As much as the rise in "sensory issues" may be real, it could also be occupational therapists trying to generate more business for themselves. It's happened in South Africa's[1] for-profit private healthcare sector, where wealthy areas with high concentrations of occupational therapists just happen to have enormous rates of diagnosed sensory issues in normal children, to the extent that medical schemes (insurers) have had to ration these treatments (with the tacit approval of parents, who know it's often a scam, but are forced by schools to undertake OT treatments). Especially as formerly good South African schools have been forced to cut back, and the overall quality of education has deteriorated, OTs have become the "real" teachers in affluent areas, teaching handwriting and other motor skills, often to every child in some schools. And, anecdotally, bright young women who want to work with children aspire to become OTs, rather than teachers nowadays, exacerbating the problem. Wikipedia has the citations on this issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_therapy#Children_and_youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_therapy#Children_... If I was an parent of a young child in the U.S., my spidey sense would be very tingley when I read articles like this. [1] yes South Africa is a third-world country, but there are aspects that are very "First World"

fallat 11y ago
I just wanted to say good on you for bringing this up from another perspective. I would've never thought about this. My opinion on this whole ordeal: ask the kids. I wonder what a video montage of an interview of every single kid would do to the viewing population. Get a few to cry and I can imagine people getting all riled up...
gohrt 11y ago
Pediatric Occupational Therapists are basically "professionally trained parents", people who spent a few years studying child develpoment. You can quibble with the price and the necessity, and in some regions the practitioners might not be qualified, but in general an hour or whatever per week with an Occupational Therapist is going to yield insights into a child's development, and training for parents to be better in their roles. Modern developed countries have a "no child left behind" attitude. 30 years ago, a kid who couldn't keep up and fit in would be left to waste away in the corner (if they were nonviolent) or pent up in an asylum environment (if they acted out)

zelos 11y ago

I remember looking round a local pre-school and being horrified that they had the kids all sat down quietly on the carpet while the 'teacher' stood up front holding up flash cards with shapes on them reading out the names.

peteretep 11y ago

My wife teaches children in the age of 4-6 at an expensive, well-known, and high-achieving school, following a British curriculum but not in the UK. The whole damn syllabus is play-focussed. Teachers aren't allowed to plan lessons more than a day or two in advance as they're required to follow the children's interests. Play activities are set up to help the children develop certain skills, and their development in those is monitored, but again, it's _all_ play. This was a difficult adjustment for her coming from a deprived inner-city school in the UK, but she's now on top of it, and the whole child-led development thing appears to be pretty well established in academic circles.

netcan 11y ago

I got an interesting perspective from a young teacher a few years back, I'm not sure to what extent this is backed by research and science, but she did quote various studies. Interesting in any case, even as a hypothesis. Anyway… she thought kids were grossly over-schooled at younger ages. Here argument was basically: (1) Kids are hitting diminishing returns on formal schooling at 2-3 hours per day. Their attention can't stretch much farther and their progress is ultimately determined by biological limits. A 4th grade reading/math level is determined more by average cognitive ability at that age than by the hours of classroom time they have put in. (2) The second point was a more intuitive one: classroom sizes, particularly in linear subjects (mostly ready, writing, math in primary school) are way to big to be effective. Putting these two together, she wanted 2-3 hours of school with smaller classes. IE, a teacher teaches 2-3 classes per day with 1/3 the students. She thought it would be more effective and leave more time for play and other things. Fleshing it out in my head, I think it would be something like 4 * 30 minute classes with short breaks between classes, which makes intuitive sense if you've interacted with kids 6-11. The elephant in that room is child care. We live in a monetary world. Education and child are services that cost money. Taking child care away has immediate opportunity costs. But, for people that can afford to lose 5 hours a day of child care, it would be interesting to experiment with this sort of thing for 6-9 year olds. There are costs to achieving 2 hours of learning in 6 hours too. Boredom, frustration, less time for play or sport or whatnot.

facepalm 11y ago

Perhaps sitting still in general is not good, especially not for children. My son will go to school next year and I almost feel a physical pain myself when imagine him having to sit still for hours on end. I think I suffered because of that a lot in school, too. I also credit not having too many back issues (fingers crossed) to sitting sloppily in my chair most of the time, rather than in an upright (90°) position. Tilting backwards with the chair might be more relaxing for the spine. I don't have a good solution, though. Perhaps it helps to design the classroom differently, let kids walk to learn stations and communicate with other kids and so on.

graycat 11y ago

All that time and effort wasted and even doing harm. Extracting defeat from the jaws of victory. Pre-school "academic" what? I can't think of anything very significant and non-trivial in academics before, say, the ninth grade. Academics can start to get severe for some majors by, say, the junior year of college, e.g., a physics major may want to know differential geometry and exterior algebra. The real challenge in academics is research, if want to take such a career direction. Learn "the days of the week"? Can't remember when I didn't know those. Maybe Mom or Dad went over them say, several times over a period of two weeks. The alphabet? There is a little song for that. Reading? Somehow by the second grade or so, I basically knew how to read. Arithmetic? Learn to add and subtract single digit numbers and memorize the multiplication table, and then apply those to the rest of arithmetic. I have a friend who went to a terrible school, and somewhere in the early grades got sick and was at home for some days. There his mother was shocked to discover that he couldn't read. So, in two weeks, she taught him. He was PBK at Suny and got his Ph.D. in mathematics at Courant. Here's one: Since we are awash in computers, early on teach touch typing -- that is, let the kids learn where the a-z keys are. K-12? Let be mostly play.