No Outside Play?
The importance of outside play has been a topic of interest recently by education and child development leaders. Where schools are focusing more and more on testing and academia, the importance of play falls on the wayside. For the younger children outdoor play seems to be even more crucial for developing social and personal life skills. Self-regulation, sharing, team building and interactions with different people are all skills that children learn while playing in a playground. I wrote about news articles that highlight this topic in an earlier blog post, The Decline of Serious Play.
A report in the New York Times speaks about day cares not going outside to play with the children, in an article called The Flip-Flop Factor. Citing reasons such as children wearing flip-flops, no coat or playgrounds having mulch which can be thrown by kids and some caregivers just thinking it is too much trouble.
Where academia is very important and parents do urge their children's caregivers to teach them as much as they can, it is also important for children to play. We hope that developmental play becomes a focus of parents as well as educational learning. The Museum works to provide such play with our varied exhibitions and community programs which not only has strengths in early child development but fosters a stronger family unit as well.
