April 2018 - Parks & Recreation - 28
FUTURE LEADERS
Ensuring Today's Children Experience Free Play
By Brian VanDongen, CPRP
D
igging in the sand. Pumping your legs on the swing set. Climbing
across monkey bars. Playing stickball in the park, street hockey in
the cul-de-sac or manhunt in the woods. Many young professionals, like me, have fond memories of these playful activities from
our childhood. Those times spent exploring the playground taught us about the
neighborhood around us and how our bodies moved, balanced, jumped and ran.
Playing pick-up sports with neighbors and friends taught us conflict resolution
when an all-but-expected ruling disagreement arose. We also learned about our
emotions, how to meet new people and how to interact with a group. The time
we spent playing taught our generation a lot of things that can't necessarily be
learned in a classroom.
Today's young professionals are
unique, in that we were fortunate enough
to experience play - and more importantly, free play. However, we also were
among the first to be highly scrutinized
with standardized testing, to experience
an increase in the competitive nature
of recreational sports and to have easy
access to video games. We lived a childhood that was like the " old days " when
it came to play - the only rule was to
26
Parks & Recreation
come home before the street lights came
on - but we were also exposed to the
changing social and societal norms that
children are accustomed to today.
Perfect Advocates for Play
Instead of being free to play, today's
children are immersed in a competitive
world from a very early age. Between
highly structured and overly competitive
youth sports and constant high-stakes
| A P R I L 2 0 1 8 | W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G
standardized testing at schools, children
have little time to be kids.
Play built our imaginations and our
creativity, helped us make friends and
resolve conflicts and disagreements,
gave us exercise and helped our bodies grow. Play made us happy, and we
should want today's children to have
playful childhood memories like the
one we experienced. Every child has
a right to play. In today's stressed-out
world where childhood anxiety is on
the rise, children need downtime to engage in free play.
That's where we, as young professionals, need to step in. We need to promote
the value of play to our communities.
Children look up to young adults and
people of our generation, so when we
organize and implement programs, we
need to be role models for play.
Fortunately, park and recreation professionals, and especially young profes-
April 2018 - Parks & Recreation
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