Lost Love of Free Play: Adverse Consequences and a Parent’s Call to Action
If you’re older than 30, you remember running through your neighborhood in the summer with your friends. Shrieks of laughter and play could be heard through the screen door while children chased fireflies and played tag until dusk. Today, it’s much quieter… where did the kids go?
You won’t ever hear me call myself old. However, I will recognize that I grew up in a much different time than my children. Unstructured free play and associated physical activity has drastically declined, while screen and sedentary time has increased. Thirty years ago, there were no iPads, iPhones, or touch screens. There were bikes to ride and trees to climb.
Don’t hear me saying that technology is the demise of our children and their health. It is certainly okay for children to have some screen time. However, as a result of our improved technology, in a very short period of time, our way of life and associated daily movement patterns have change substantially for adults and children alike.
Physical Activity Recommendations for Children
We live in a country where only about 25% of children ages 6-15 meet the recommended 60 minutes of daily moderate-vigorous activity. Furthermore, more than 65% of children exceed the two-hour recommended upper limit of daily screen time. Over 25% of children watch more than four hours of TV per day. By decreasing sedentary time and increasing physical activity, our children could stand to gain substantial benefits.
Benefits of Childhood Physical Activity
• Increased health-related fitness
• Improvements in cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk profiles
• Decreased risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood
• Decreased risk of type 2 diabetes and some cancers in childhood and adulthood
• Boosts in bone health and development
• Improvements in mental health and well-being
• Improvements in cognitive and academic performance
• Betterments in motor control and physical functioning
How Parents Can Increase Physical Activity Behavior in their Children
First, let’s recognize that we can make most things a reward or a punishment simply by the way we present that consequence. When we happily say with praise, “very good!! Now you get ‘X’!” ‘X’ is now seen as a reward because it was presented as such.
The inverse is also true. When we angrily say, “that was bad! Now you have to do ‘Y’!” ‘Y’ is now seen as a punishment, because it was enforced in a way that took away the child’s control and it was intended to inflict displeasure.
Do’s and Don’ts:
• DO use physical activity as a reward: “after you clean up your toys, then we can go outside and play on the swing-set.”
• DO NOT use physical activity as a punishment: “if you don’t listen, you’re going outside to play!!”
• DO NOT use screen time as a reward: “if you clean up your toys, then you can use the iPad.”
• DO NOT use screen time as a punishment: “if you don’t listen, you won’t get to play games on the laptop tonight.” This is technically negative reinforcement, but most parents think of it as a punishment because they are trying to communicate to their child—if you don’t behave well, you will get the most important thing taken away: SCREEN TIME!
• DO make physical activity a fun and enjoyable time. It could be a bike ride with your family, a trip to the pool to swim, or playing with friends at the park.
• DO create an environment where active play is encouraged. Consider the nature of the toys that you buy your children. Do they promote activity or sedentary time? Do not put a TV, gaming system, or electronic devises in your child’s room.
• DO model an active lifestyle. One way children learn how to live is by watching their parents. Children whose parents exercise are more likely to exercise themselves.
It’s Not Popular, It’s Science
The recommendations on this list are highly counter-cultural. Many homes in America use screen time to reward, punish, and even as a babysitter. Truly, it may work to use screen time for behavior modification. Children will likely clean up their toys, say please and thank you, and listen more quickly when watching an episode of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is on the line. But it comes at a cost.
When we use screen time as the ultimate reward and physical activity as the punishment we instill lasting associations in the child’s brain that are perpetuated into adolescents and later into adulthood. The message is that sitting is good- something to seek out, and physical activity is bad- something to avoid. Recommending avoidance of screen time as a reward and punishment may not be a popular message, but it’s based on science.
Thus, let’s consider the long-term effects of the rewards and punishments we use and the environment we design. Let’s set our children up to enjoy physical activity and help them take steps toward a more healthy, active lifestyle.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
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References:
Featured photo. Robert Collins. Retrieved from: Unsplash.com.
Gustafson, S.L., Rhodes, R.E. (2006). Parental correlates of physical activity in children and early adolescents. Sports Med. 36, 79-97.
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2008). 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Summary. Retrieved from: https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/summary.aspx
Pearson, N., Timperio, A., Salmon, J., Crawford, D., Biddle, S.J.H. (2009). Family influences on children’s physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption. Int. J. Behav. Nutr. Phys. Act., 6.
The 2016 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth. Retrieved from: http://www.physicalactivityplan.org/reportcard/2016FINAL_PAReportCard_Summary.pdf
The 2014 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth. Retrieved from: http://www.physicalactivityplan.org/reportcard/NationalReportCard_longform_final%20for%20web.pdf
Wright, M.S., Wilson, D.K., Griffin, S., Evans, A. (2010). A qualitative study of parental modeling and social support for physical activity in underserved adolescents. Health Educ. Res., 25, 224–232.
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