Dear Lower School Parents,
The older I get, the more comfortable I am using a phrase I thought I would never use-- namely, “things were much different when I was a kid.”
Lately, I have spent some time reflecting on this widely used phrase and my conclusion, in short, is that it says more about those of us that use it than children today. This is not to say, of course, that the world of today does not differ in some very significant ways from the world we adults navigated as children. For one thing, I remember watching more television than my own children do today. I grew up in Ireland watching much of the same shows American children watched, raised by Sesame Street, Little House on the Prairie, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, The Dukes of Hazard and a lot of shows I was far too young for, like Starsky and Hutch and Kojak. James Bond movies were a family event in my house from as young as I can remember, even though there are parts of them that make me cringe today as the father of two girls. My father watched the news religiously every day at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and I cannot remember him ever shielding us from what we might hear the way I have with my own children since 9/11.
While we had greater access to unfettered television when we were young, our own children are members of the "eye generation." As such, because of their access to self-directed or selective online viewing, (as distinct from the “you watch whatever is on TV or go out and play” option we had) children today have an acutely developed visual literacy. Their attuned visual biases help them evaluate, critique, and respond to the torrent of visual images they are ceaselessly presented with. They also have access to information and each other in ways we could not even imagine when we were young. This reality brings with it plenty of challenges for the adults who care for children, challenges that become ever more ubiquitous around the holidays as we consider the latest technology devices as toys for our children. But this access and exposure can be managed. There are great resources such as Common Sense Media to help children use technology in a healthy way, and Lower School students regularly recount the ways in which their parents monitor and manage their access to technology. These children expect and welcome their parents to keep them safe, and this is what they understand the word “no” to mean when their parents say it.
Despite the differences, when I really think about it, there is one fundamental way in which children today are fundamentally similar to children of probably every generation, including our own, and this is in their capacity and need for unstructured play. I am convinced of the necessity of play in childhood development. Giving adequate time for unstructured play allows children time to process their daily interactions and gives them an opportunity to use their imagination. Children use play just the way we did, as their primary means of creative expression, as their stage-- as their laboratory-- of social interaction as they explore and forge their identity. Recess is always my favorite part of the day, and I often feel like a modern day version of the sociobiologist Desmond Morris, learning more about children during twenty minutes of play than I ever could from pages of tests, essays, or math problems.
For some further reading on the benefits of recess and play for children click here and here.
I do hope that you have plenty of time for play, structured or unstructured, with your daughter over winter break.
Patrick Bane Lower School Director