The Harmful Impact of Play Deprivation
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Author: Austin Stanfel
Playtime is one of the vital things in the life of a child in which he learns to socialize with other children, play building blocks, read, do creative tasks such as painting and craftwork, etc. With the group, he learns negotiation skills, communication, compromise as teamwork skills. They are seen to do it with full interest compared to any other work. With a little bit of stimulation, they can start playing and learn many things in the process.
But today we can find that the schedule of people remains so busy that the playtime of the children gets squeezed. There is a massive stress on the children related to their academic performance which reduces their focus on playing in a carefree manner. It is widely prevalent in America compared to other countries such as Japan which has a literacy rate of 99%. Because of this scenario, the children in America learn slowly and are much less successful in fields such as math and science. The US is at the 21st rank out of the 23 other industrial countries in terms of mathematics and literacy rates.
More academic pressure and less play not only negatively hamper their academic career but leads to numerous health issues such as stress, obesity, and anxiety symptoms. Thus there is an overall reduction in the child’s development. It is often seen that the schools consider playing as a trivial task from which the children are discouraged. Besides this, monitoring and supervising them at every instance doesn’t leave any scope for them to learn independently, direct themselves in achieving or exploring something new. All these significantly lead to adverse outcomes.
It is the inborn nature of all creatures on the earth to play during the infant as well as the adolescent phases of life. After a certain point, life gets preoccupied with all sorts of work and man doesn’t get back the time in which he should have played well. This negatively affects the socialization skills as well as their physical development because playing is the best exercise that keeps the mind fresh along with the body through proper blood circulation. It is mainly helpful when the children get engaged in playing outdoors instead of just sitting at home and playing video games or getting involved in the internet, social networking. It does no good to anyone at the adolescent stage when they replace outdoor playing with these devices.
A child who plays well in his childhood excels in all fields in his adulthood and is more adaptive to various situations compared to those who were deprived of playing. They also do not have enough creativity, optimism, and energy in life. When such individuals face certain emotional hurdles in life, they are not able to handle them properly at all, which makes them stressed and unhappy person. So, the children need to play various outdoor and creative games so that they get the best exposure for overall self-development.