Play Time

Yesterday on Oprah (yes, I get to watch Oprah sometimes) the show featured an eight year old girl who had been so severely neglected that she was essentially functioning at the level of a 6 month old baby. The story caught my attention for several reasons. First, while studying Developmental Psychology at university, I learned that in order to understand what role our environment plays on who we become, we need to essentially remove the environment to see what effects its absence has on us. For example; the best way see what effect play has on a children is to take it away at a critical period and see what happens. Well, that's unethical (good thing), so it becomes really hard to study such a thing. Basically, we wait until we find a child who has been very badly neglected, isolated and hope that the caregivers of the rescued child will allow us to study him or her. There are many studies conducted on children who grew up in orphanages where babies received very little stimulation; where there were 40 or more cribs lined up in a nursery and only the perfunctory care was provided. From these children we have learned that play (among other things) is absolutely essential to the well being of a child and future person. The other reason I was interested is because anything to do with 6 month-olds catches my attention these days.
So, what was the point of showing the world this little girl's story? There has to be some relevance or it doesn't make very interesting tv. It really just serves to fulfill the voyeuristic need in us. For me, at least, it brings home the importance of stimulating a child from her very first day on this planet. And not with TV, video games and stand-ins for human on human attention. Okay, I know that for some of you reading this blog, this viewpoint may offend, and it certainly is not my intention to do so. We don't have enough evidence yet to show us what effect (if any) all this has on our children. We will find out soon enough. But in the mean time, I can, with what I learned about how children develop, infer (as others have) about what might potentially happen. Oprah's guest (child Psychologist Bruce Perry) suggests that one potential outcome may be a generation of apathetic people with the inability to show empathy towards other human beings. As a result of reduced one on one interaction, these kids may end up simply not being able to relate to one another as adults.
Ivan and I have long discussed these issues. We don't have the solutions to the world's problems, that's for certain. But we do share an important philosophy about parenting. And that is that we both want to engage fully in our childrens' lives. That for us means, watching TV with our children (when they do start watching it), reading to them, playing on the floor with them and eating together as a family around our table. It means activating their imagination through play, pretend and games. As I write this I realize how arrogant I might come across. We didn't invent these concepts. Anybody who has been in the field of caring for or teaching children knows all of this and so much more. But it's something we both feel very strongly about, and we are always seeking out information on the subject. It sort of makes Mathilde and Alexis a hobby of ours, albeit a very important and time consuming hobby! And speaking of....I can hear said children upstairs, awake from their morning nap, "talking" with one another. That's my cue to get them dressed and saddle up the stroller for a nice, long walk.
Thanks again for reading, and have a wonderful weekend. P.S. check out the webpage for updated pics of The Gullies!