Free play.

I was listening to a really interesting story today on NPR. It was an extension of a previous story that asserted that one of the reasons kids have so much trouble self regulating today may be because play is so much more structured. The idea is that unstructured play allows kids the opportunity to set and enforce their own rules, which largely mirror standard cultural rules and make it easier for them to control their impulses later. According to the story, you control your impulses (like the impulse to hit someone when you're mad or scream or just fidget) with executive function. The general idea of unstructured play makes sense to me - I think allowing room for imagination is important, plus, although I think some supervision is important with kids, I don't think "helicopter parenting" is the best idea.

Anyway, the gist of the story was that good executive function - or the control of impulse - was a better indicator of success later in life than IQ. Okay, so far it still makes sense. In fact, most of the story made sense until they started talking about a school that was supposed to encourage the development of executive function. I had thought that, since they were talking about free play, they would go into information on how this school provides pre-schoolers with opportunities for free play. Instead, they started talking about how this school has the kids planning out every second of their play.

In other words, these kids were to sit down, determine what they plan to do at recess and how they plan to do it, then during recess are expected to do what they've proposed, then report back on how they did what they said they'd do. Wait, what?!?

Normally I adore NPR, but the school they featured didn't at all support what it seemed they were trying to say, that unstructured play is important. If they were really trying to promote the idea of increased executive function, it might have been better to start with that first rather than have experts talk about how important unstructured play was.

Furthermore, even though I'm sure the kids were having a good time, the idea of practically having to write a business proposal prior to playing just stinks. I hate it when my personal time is taken over by paperwork of any kind (unless I'm writing, but then, when I'm writing, it's personal time) - I can't imagine what a pre-schooler might think. Yuck.