October 2007
Unplugged Play -
710 Alternatives to Popping In a Video
You’re chopping vegetables for dinner and checking that the marinara sauce doesn’t boil over and repeatedly picking up your baby’s dropped tippy cup, and then the phone rings, and you put the person on hold for a minute, and your preschooler tugs at your leg, and she’s bored, bored, bored!
You pop in a video.
You know that’s not the best thing for your child. You’ve heard over and over that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than one or two hours of screen time a day for children older than 2, and no screen time for those younger than 2. All those child development experts – who probably had their kids during the Pleistocene era and have forgotten what it’s like – say that children need free, natural, unstructured, hands-on playtime to develop their social, emotional, mental and physical skills.
But how are you supposed to stop everything and set up an arts and crafts project or game in the midst of chaos?
The key is a little advance preparation and having props
and supplies on hand, says Bobbi Conner, author of Unplugged Play:
No Batteries. No Plugs. Pure Fun (Workman Publishing, August 2007).
“I know parents are busy,” Conner says. “I wrote my
book to be like a cookbook, so that parents could pick and choose activities
at a moment’s notice. My assignment to myself was to find play ideas
that would appeal to different kinds of kids, so that you can find the
ones that match your kids’ personalities.”
The book contains 710 ideas for solo, parent-child and group play, divided into sections for toddlers (ages 1-2), preschoolers (ages 3-5) and grade school children (ages 6-10). Half of them are tried-and-true classics that anyone could think of – from drawing on the sidewalk with chalk or playing pat-a-cake to stringing a noodle necklace or designing a backyard obstacle course. The other half are games or crafts Conner made up or gleaned from preschool teachers. All were tested on dozens of neighborhood kids, who often came up with their own variations.
None require expensive supplies or parental expertise. All share the characteristic of being powered by kids and their imaginations, rather than by a machine.
As host of the public radio show The Parent’s Journal (www.parentsjournal.com), Conner has talked to dozens of parenting experts, from David Elkind and Penelope Leach to Fred Rogers and Benjamin Spock, and their passion for play has become her passion.
“What’s so important about hands-on play?” Conner asks rhetorically. “The child can say, ‘Look what I made happen,’” she answers. “Hands-on play means the child is in charge. He doesn’t own that if the feedback comes from a machine.”
“Most parents feel pressured by kids to buy electronic games and computers,” she adds. “Parents want to do the best for their kids, and they’re afraid they’ll get behind if they don’t get their kids into technology right away.” Conner quotes a dozen experts with the opposite view, including educational psychologist Jane Healy, Ph.D., author of Your Child’s Growing Mind and Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds. Healy concludes that children will not be disadvantaged if they are introduced to computers at age 7 or 8.
Conner knows that electronic and battery-operated play will be a part of children’s lives, but advocates a strategy she calls “DIBS”:
• Delay introducing your child to high-tech toys, computers and electronic games during the infant, toddler, preschool and kindergarten years when your child’s brain is growing rapidly;
• Introduce your child to the habit of having fun without plug-ins.
• Be selective and deliberate about how much time you allow for electronic play in your older child’s week and which games are OK.
The beauty of Unplugged Play is that it makes the second step of DIBS easy. Hundreds of ideas are all in one place, and each comes with lists of supplies – some use one or two items available around the house or from school supply stores; others are more elaborate craft options that take advance planning. The book is also peppered with quotes from parenting experts, great ideas from parents, familiar rhymes, safety reminders, birthday party plans, recipes for homemade play dough and finger paints, and ideas to help parents teach kids to take turns, say they’re sorry and play cooperatively. An index of the games would have been a great addition.
“You set the stage and provide a few things to jump start play, and then relax and have confidence – your children are wired to learn and to create their own fun,” Conner says. “The best learning environment is their everyday routine and their home.”
Wenda Reed is managing editor of Seattle’s Child and shares a passion for promoting child-directed, hands-on play.
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