Katie Dickison

LBST 392

Nancy van Groll

June 5, 2020

                                              Reading Reflection 3

Dr. Mariana Brussoni begins her podcast by asking her audience to close their eyes and imagine what they loved doing during their free time as a child. Then after about 30 seconds, she asks them to share what came to mind. Many people responded by saying they were outdoors in nature, unsupervised, and taking risks. Now think about childhood today, and what type of activities children partake in. When Brussoni asked this question to her audience, many people responded in saying they’re indoors using technological devices. Why is that? Why is it that as the years go by, children spend a decreasing amount of time outdoors involved in risky play? When you think about previous generations, they always seem to mention how much time they spent outdoors as a child and how far they were able to explore and wander on their own, but today some children aren’t even allowed to go to the end of their street. If parents were allowed to have those experiences in nature as a child, why aren’t their children? Why are they restricting their child’s play? Shouldn’t it be up to the child to decide what they believe is too risky for them? When parents step in and begin judging perceived risk on behalf of their child, they are taking away those learning opportunities presented during risky play that are crucial for development. If parents are so worried about their child’s safety, this is one of the worst things that they can do because when they grow up, they won’t have the ability to perceive potential risks or hazards on their own.

A perfect example of this appears in the documentary The Nature of Things: The Power of Play. During a particular segment, we’re introduced to a study at the University of Tennessee that looks into the connection between play and our ability to deal with life’s hard knocks. This study involves observing a particular species of hamsters that were either introduced to rough and tumble play or deprived of rough and tumble play. What they found was that the hamsters who had experience in rough and tumble play were more resilient in the case of defeat or failure when they were playing compared to the hamsters who were deprived of play. Both hamsters were put in the same situation, but because the deprived hamsters had no experience in rough and tumble play, they had no idea how to react when it was presented to them. Therefore, the hamsters were very submissive and anxiety-ridden, which meant they lost every encounter of play they experienced. Now, even though hamsters and humans are very different in many ways, that doesn’t mean we don’t react to play the same way. If this documentary has taught me one thing, it’s just how similar humans are to animals in our desire and need for play, as well as the effect it has on our development. Without risky play, we’re not only depriving our children of the ability to perceive risk and hazard, but we are also hindering their psychological health. Without risky play, we take away the opportunity to develop a sense of optimism, fulfillment, competency, and feelings of an authentic self. This information is precisely what more parents should be made aware of, and makes me wonder whether there have been initiatives implemented to do so.