Intense focus on one sport and adult-driven pressures to perform are taking their psychological toll on children, causing concentration problems, fatigue, and irritability. In fact, the trend toward starting kids in organized sports at younger ages isn’t necessarily setting the stage for an active lifestyle later on in life — 70 percent of kids give up sports entirely by age 13. When asked by Michigan State University researchers why they quit sports, kids almost universally said, “It’s not fun anymore.
There’s a new children’s book slated for release in September, and it’s aimed at children—presumably overweight girls—ages 6 to 12. According to the Barnes and Noble website, Maggie Goes on a Diet is about “a 14 year old girl who goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star.”
Really?
Young girls shouldn’t be worrying about diets any more than they should be worrying about mortgage payments. Girls and boys alike should be worrying about evading hot lava monsters and making it across the monkey bars. Then, cheeks flushed after a healthy dose of outdoor play, they should come inside to enjoy nutritious meals provided to them by their schools and families.
Instead, all too many children are lounging indoors fiddling with electronic gizmos and suffering from unhealthy eating options at their schools, in their homes, and in their communities. Then we tell them to go on diets.
As the childhood obesity epidemic grows, we seem to be turning to adult solutions. If it’s not dieting, it’s organized sports. While potentially a valuable experience for children, in our frenzy to give kids a “workout,” organized sports are only becoming more demanding and more extreme. According to the Pikes Peak Courier View , “As many as half of all youth sports injuries are the result of overuse due to an adult-driven regimen of sports play and training so intense that a child’s body rebels.”
Meanwhile, as Dr. John DiFiori, chief of sports medicine at UCLA, points out, “Children entertaining themselves at their own pace, in their own way, simply do not play sports until it hurts.”
What it comes down to is this: If you give kids the space and time, they want to run around and play. If you give kids healthy food, they will eat it, even if they grumble about the greens. Placing our adult concerns and expectations on the shoulders of kids won’t solve childhood obesity— and if anything, it will only groom our younger generations to turn into neurotic, overworked adults.
Good for Maggie that she lost those extra pounds, but let’s shelve the book and send our 6- to 12-year-old girls outside to play.
This post originally appeared on kaboom.org, on the Play Today blog.
Source: kaboom.org
Tiny video camera in a hula hoop!
Endlessly fascinated by this. I even posted it at work.
Source: everythinginthesky
Darell Hammond: Saving Outdoor Play: 10 New Year's Resolutions for Parents
Common sense solutions to problems facing kids and parents today.
- Limit your children’s screen time and set an example by limiting your own.
- Allow your children at least one hour of unstructured outdoor play per day, rain or shine.
- Explore nature with your children regularly, whether in an urban park, a national park, or your own backyard.
- Teach your children those classic outdoor games that you played when you were a kid.
- Step back now and then to allow your children to direct their own course of play and come up with games of their own.
- Let your children go sledding, climb trees, and jump off swings. Exercise common sense while allowing your children the freedom to take risks.
- Let your children build things, whether with tools, loose parts, or sand.
- Speak up when you see forces that are inhibiting free play, whether they are school administrators limiting recess time or city officials closing parks. Participate in discussions on legislation and policy at national and local levels.
- Map the state of play in your community and rally around your local playgrounds by using them, caring for them, improving them, and inspiring other parents to do the same.
- Encourage physical activity in your family by walking and biking whenever possible instead of taking the car.
Making space for creative risk and unstructured play.
Washington D.C. isn’t known for its snow, so when it happens, its kind of a big deal. When its in the 8” to 12” range, its a REALLY big deal.
Being from Michigan, the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was try to figure out if I had a decent pair of shoes to wear outside and keep my feet dry.
I was elated to see my neighbors using a nearby hill to sled down. People had sleds, inter-tubes, cardboard boxes, and even a few snowboards.
It took a few hours before some decent grooves were made in the powder and people could really have some fun. Once they did, you could hear the laughs, screams, and shouts of people having a good time blocks away.
Its treacherous, unsafe for driving, cancels flights, and ruins Christmas gift shipping times, but man is it fun.
Originaly posted at KaBOOM!
Source: connect.kaboom.org
I’ve been building with Legos.
My zapper was grey, I had two of that type of super soaker, and my brother and I each had our own Nerf bow and arrow.
If I had to title this picture, it would be ‘Summer’.
Source: crunchgear.com
Darell Hammond: Play Deprivation: 5 Solutions to a Weighty Problem
KaBOOM! CEO Darell Hammond blogs for the Huffington Post on the ways we can scale back the average of 6.5 hours a day children are spending with electronic media.
Source: The Huffington Post
Source: kari-shma
Take the KaBOOM! Pledge to celebrate the Worldwide Day of Play!
KaBOOM! is asking everyone to help us celebrate this Worldwide Day of Play by visiting their local playgrounds to power up their bodies, spark their imaginations, and help combat childhood obesity!
This Saturday, September 29th, marks the fourth annual Worldwide Day of Play, an event co-sponsored by Nickelodeon, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, and the American Heart Association. To celebrate this global initiative to return physical activity in children’s lives, cable television channel Nickelodeon will go dark from noon to 3pm to encourage families to get outside and, simply put, play.
Make a pledge to mark Saturday as the day you make play and all the physical, developmental, and social benefits that come with it a priority in your family. Promise to join this global campaign to fight child obesity by visiting your favorite place to play!
