A picture speaks a thousand words and this is one of my favourites. A shame it wasn’t around in 1999 when my 4 year old son was being constantly scolded, chastised and persecuted by his teachers. I’ve felt for a long time that children in the UK start school far too early and when this is compounded by being an August born child – the odds for a smooth ride in the early years, dwindle to virtually zero.
In recent years there has been somewhat of a debate over the rising incidence, diagnosis or occurrence of Learning Difficulties in children.
So what’s changed?
Is it that we’re more informed and aware of these difficulties and so are quicker to label our children as learning impaired, where before they would simply have been called lazy, careless or stupid? Or is it down to a profound change in lifestyles brought about by the advent of television and other electronic diversions?
Television, Nintendo, Play Station, Wii and the Computer are all sedentary activities. Whilst they all have their place in learning and development, the fundamental loss has been that in movement and play based activities.
Other baby boomers like me would have come home from school and within minutes of eating a (relatively healthy) snack of milk and biscuits, would have been out again to play on the street, in the park, on their roller skates, bikes and scooters. As parents we are prone to spending hundreds of pounds sending our kids to private tutors to help with handwriting, maths, reading and concentration. Yet playing can have the same positive benefits on academic learning as well as physical development. For instance:
• Football – Two opposing teams kicking a ball between players with the ultimate aim of scoring a goal. The key skills learned and practised are motor skills such as hand-eye coordination (needed for handwriting) visual-tracking of the ball (transferred to reading and writing) balance and bi-lateral coordination (needed for brain and brain-body bi-lateral hemispheric integration), focus and concentration (needed to learn efficiently) and peer support (needed for teamwork and social skills).
• Tennis – a person hitting a ball with a racquet with the aim of placing it over the net in such a position that the opposing player cannot return the shot. Similarly, the key skills gained from this activity are balance, hand-eye coordination, foot-eye coordination (for strategic positioning), speed of visual processing (transferred to sensory processing for academic learning), focus, concentration, stamina, strategy and tactics. Not a bad bunch of skills to have in an examination situation for example!
You may argue that what does balance have to do with academic learning? Research in the last 30 years (Frank Belgau) has shown that a weakness in balance can impact severely on those key brain processing areas that are critically involved in attention, memory, vision, auditory processing, speech, sequencing of information and reading.
Agreed that formal learning is an essential part of life that children need to embrace in order to maximise their opportunities and experience within that environment. It is however equally important to recognize that there are other, different ways to learn. Particularly in the early years, sending your child out to play in the garden will help their development far more than sending him/her to a tutor to learn literacy or numeracy.
It’s summer (supposedly!). So next time you begrudge them 30 minutes in the garden, letting off some steam and playing, take a moment to think about what it is actually that they are doing and how they’re going to benefit. Then make the comparison with them sitting down at a table for 30 minutes poe-faced and resentful being forced to do maths and English. Seriously no comparison !
Brilliant piece Roshni! My son was born at the end of August and i can totally relate to this! The fact that playing is great for learning is so true! Boys especially need a lot of exercise and outdoor playing…. You know what i mean!
Thank you ! I’m really drawing on personal experience here with my August born son.
On the long run i think August born children will have a competitive advantage because they will be younger in their professional career but at the start it’s all just a bit harder. They probably develop greater flexibility and adaptability!
Honest, inspiring and exceptional article – thank you. It is so important to remember the importance of play and how freedom and creativity are closely related to play. Part of the problem is that as adults, we stop playing and expect the same from our children. Even in our work, we are often frozen from thinking or playing. Keep writing Roshni!
Totally agree with you Atul! This is why I started fencing as a sport at the age of 40! that brings up all the playful elements of my personality!
Great article Roshni. I can relate to everything in it. I can also vouch for the importance of play opposed to academic learning that we expose all our children to and forget the importance of those ‘play skills’.
Such a lovely article and one that I totally agree with. The way that play, and especially unstructured, free imaginative play is being squeezed out really worries me. There are many articles by psychologists about the importance of play and how vital it is to development and health and about the problems developing as a result of reliance on electronic games.
Childhood is such a lovely time and it is beautiful to see a child playing in their imagination or interacting with other children. Priceless.
Thank you everyone. I can see its struct a chord with a number of you.
Fantastic article – I so agree! And it’s not just for August born kids. My son was born in November and he learns so much more when he’s free to play. He is doing well at school, but I put that down to our family being very much into play – particularly outdoors – from a very early age. I’m a big believer in delaying ‘formal’ learning until they are at least 7 years old. And even then there should be a lot of play involved!
Thank you Annie. It’s interesting that we can all relate to this article in terms of our ‘sons’. All too often its the boys that experience the most difficulty settling at school, regardless of their age within the year group. The male gender is pre-disposed to hunter-gatherer type activity which translated into modern day child psychology is being allowed to roam outside, learn from their sensory experiences (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic) and develop/adapt accordingly.
If any of you are on Twitter please do re-tweet this article and share with your fans. Many thanks !