I have been a childcare provider for a very long time and it has been my observation that children are becoming more and more reliant on toys and games that "tell" them or "direct" them in what to play or do while playing.
Looking back over my own childhood, my most vivid and wonderful memories of play with my siblings was when we "made up" games out of everyday items around our house. We used upside down bicycles with a sheet thrown over them as a covered wagon (dating myself, but this was in the Little House on the Prairie days!) and grass and pine cones in a dog water dish stirred with a stick. WOW! We were surviving the harsh prairie wilderness! Or when we used an old bookshelf for a Barbie apartment house. We spent all day finding things for that house. We used my mothers bible for the doll bed with a wash cloth for the bed spread. It was rudimentary but man, we had a fantastic time making those games up. Funny thing was, the Barbies were too tall to fit in it anyway! But what imagination....
Of course, I was older than the children I care for now when I was surviving the prairie, but it is a sad fact that children's time is spent with many things dictating their play. So many toys have buttons and beeping sounds with some mysterious person talking "inside" telling a kid what to do constantly. As a provider, its hard to find toys nowadays that spark curiosity and creative inspiration.
Screens are a big culprit. I have observed that children who consistently play with iPads or games on smart phones, are regularly having to be reminded that they need to "play with their friends" or "play with toys". Sometimes they will sit and stare at the other kids but not really engage in games they used to play happily, or I will see them always using other toys as iPad or phones while their tiny fingers move across the toy over and over. They will even try to encourage the others to play with the "game" they have in their hand trying to draw the other children into regular conversations about what they play and see in the game they have at home on their iPad or their parents smart phone.
IPads and smart phones are a fact of life, but it can be very hard to get them to play anything else until I finally say "No games with phones or pretend IPads". Having a lot of toys and games doesn't seem to ignite the imagination of these children in the same way as other children who do not get screen time at all. Television is not the problem in my opinion. TV is very detrimental in large blocks of time if it takes away children's free play. However, electronic games that only direct a child's fingers and dictate to the growing brain that it can only derive pleasure and satisfaction when it is engaged with images and games on the screen, has to be very detrimental.
It is my experience that this disturbing modern trend is stealing away something very valuable and leaving an emptiness in its place. Children have a God given natural ability to create something out of nothing when they play. In fact, you used to be able to give children an empty box or a paper sack and their imagination would just run wild with ideas of what to make and do. But spending many hours being told what to do (as if they were a machine themselves) by a small rectangular device that fits into your hand, may eventually collapse the creative abilities of our future generation. It's a sad thing to observe at the very front line of early childhood development
And let's get real, these phones and electronic pads are really useless, because "playing" with an IPad in the dog water is a big No No!
Looking back over my own childhood, my most vivid and wonderful memories of play with my siblings was when we "made up" games out of everyday items around our house. We used upside down bicycles with a sheet thrown over them as a covered wagon (dating myself, but this was in the Little House on the Prairie days!) and grass and pine cones in a dog water dish stirred with a stick. WOW! We were surviving the harsh prairie wilderness! Or when we used an old bookshelf for a Barbie apartment house. We spent all day finding things for that house. We used my mothers bible for the doll bed with a wash cloth for the bed spread. It was rudimentary but man, we had a fantastic time making those games up. Funny thing was, the Barbies were too tall to fit in it anyway! But what imagination....
Of course, I was older than the children I care for now when I was surviving the prairie, but it is a sad fact that children's time is spent with many things dictating their play. So many toys have buttons and beeping sounds with some mysterious person talking "inside" telling a kid what to do constantly. As a provider, its hard to find toys nowadays that spark curiosity and creative inspiration.
Screens are a big culprit. I have observed that children who consistently play with iPads or games on smart phones, are regularly having to be reminded that they need to "play with their friends" or "play with toys". Sometimes they will sit and stare at the other kids but not really engage in games they used to play happily, or I will see them always using other toys as iPad or phones while their tiny fingers move across the toy over and over. They will even try to encourage the others to play with the "game" they have in their hand trying to draw the other children into regular conversations about what they play and see in the game they have at home on their iPad or their parents smart phone.
IPads and smart phones are a fact of life, but it can be very hard to get them to play anything else until I finally say "No games with phones or pretend IPads". Having a lot of toys and games doesn't seem to ignite the imagination of these children in the same way as other children who do not get screen time at all. Television is not the problem in my opinion. TV is very detrimental in large blocks of time if it takes away children's free play. However, electronic games that only direct a child's fingers and dictate to the growing brain that it can only derive pleasure and satisfaction when it is engaged with images and games on the screen, has to be very detrimental.
It is my experience that this disturbing modern trend is stealing away something very valuable and leaving an emptiness in its place. Children have a God given natural ability to create something out of nothing when they play. In fact, you used to be able to give children an empty box or a paper sack and their imagination would just run wild with ideas of what to make and do. But spending many hours being told what to do (as if they were a machine themselves) by a small rectangular device that fits into your hand, may eventually collapse the creative abilities of our future generation. It's a sad thing to observe at the very front line of early childhood development
And let's get real, these phones and electronic pads are really useless, because "playing" with an IPad in the dog water is a big No No!
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