Frolicking in Fun
Have Tweens Forgotten How to Play?
by Margaret Sagarese
PARENTGUIDE News April 2005
“I can’t get my boys, ages 10
and 13, to turn off that game boy!”
exasperates a father. Fingering handheld video
games and joy sticking Play Station, vintage
Nintendo, Xbox and other gaming devices seem
to be the only game in town for too many young
adolescent boys.
“My daughter is obsessed with IM-ing
her friends, and it’s always about who’s
going out with whom,” laments the mother
of a 12 year old. Indeed, the longing and
lingo of romance seems to be the only game
in town for too many tweenage girls.
Whatever happened to kids going outside to
play kickball, tag or hide-and-go-seek with
others on the block? To a street-wise, sophisticated
new breed of youth, such physical and simple
pastimes are nearly extinct. So why can’t
we just let childhood hopscotch, rough-housing
or corner pick-up basketball go the way of
dinosaurs and hoola hoops?
As it turns out, play is essential to the
physical, emotional and mental well-being
of children, especially young adolescents.
Our tweens need adults to guide them back
to the joys and benefits of old-time physical
and free-wheeling fun.
How did tweens get so sedentary, so passive?
Headlines scream that our children have morphed
into unhealthy couch potatoes. Apparently,
there’s a cornucopia of entertainment
to keep them occupied on that couch. Consider
that the average American child lives in a
home with 2.9 television sets, 1.8 VCRs, 3.1
CD players, 1.4 video game players and one
computer. Add to that pay-per-view movies
and concerts, hundreds of TV channels to choose
from, DVDs hitting the market weekly bringing
back every successful sitcom or backstage
movie experience in their lifetime.
TV watching peaks at age 12. And young adolescents
discover listening to music during these years
which leads to downloading their favorite
songs and loading up iPods.
Unfortunately, all this variety in the media
adds up to a huge liability for the young.
Obesity is epidemic, ranking nearly twice
what it was 20 years ago, says the American
Academy of Pediatrics. The aftershock of this
statistic is that overweight boys and girls
are at risk for heart disease, high blood
pressure and diabetes.
According to a 2001 report, The Surgeon General’s
Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight
and Obesity, physical inactivity contributes
significantly. Therefore, the prescription
for extra poundage lies in activity, and not
in dieting. Riding a bicycle or skateboard,
rollerblading or walking around the neighborhood
fit the bill.
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
Tweenagers themselves are not totally responsible
for their inactive ways.
When we were young, everyone went “out
to play.” Our parents thought nothing
of opening the back or front door and saying,
“Be back for dinner or before dusk.”
That was before missing children became poster
kids on milk cartons, before Internet wolves
bamboozled and seduced girls to cross the
country in order to rendezvous at a distant
mall. In a world populated by pedophiles and
child-snatchers, “out” has gotten
too dangerous.
Another change in society is the rise of latchkey
kids. In households with two full-time working
parents, many young adolescents leave school
and return home to empty houses, not the milk
and cookies of Ozzie and Harriet. Office-locked
mothers and fathers want kids inside after
school. There, they can be monitored by cell
phones, telephones or computers.
Schools, too, have culpability. After school
programs are down statistically, especially
in low income neighborhoods. Daily physical
action known as recess, physical education
and students congregating in playgrounds before
and after school— these have been eliminated.
According to a recent article in Psychology
Today, over 40,000 U.S. schools no longer
have recess. During fiscal crunches plaguing
many school districts across America, the
first cuts hit sports and afterschool programs.
Today’s idea of play serves as a synonym
for stress.
Speaking of sports, what about all those soccer,
field hockey, ice hockey and softball teams
in schools and communities? Isn’t that
physical? Doesn’t that count as play?
Not really.
In the sports climate in which tweenagers
compete, sports have become serious business.
Athletic achievement serves as another possible
feather in the cap of success-driven kids
and their success-focused parents. Starting
in middle school, athletics often constitutes
a contest to see who can snare a college scholarship
at best, or a plus on a college-geared portfolio
at the least. Skill becomes the defining measure.
Furthermore, sports in schools and communities
are adult supervised, coach run and closely
monitored by parents. Seems everyone critiques
from the sidelines. Getting reamed out by
a coach and then later by a frustrated father
or soccer Mom hardly translates into play.
As teams recruit and drop players, countless
10 to 15 year olds feel the sting. In self-defense,
many avoid all teams and sports altogether
rather than risk being seen as a substandard.
So at the time in their lives when playing
ball should be free-wheeling and fun, turns
out it is just the opposite.
Play leads to many valuable perks and experiences
for young adolescents. First of all, physical
free-flying activity makes kids happy. Don’t
forget that early adolescence is an era when
all boys and girls struggle with appearance
anxiety, feelings of worry, angst over belonging
and dark moods. A study of nearly 4,600 middle
schoolers revealed that 7th graders who were
active for a mere 20 minutes three time a
week had fewer symptoms of depression than
less active peers. Play defuses the stress
so many of our young adolescents are under.
Aside from letting off steam and letting out
pent-up aggression or distress, making up
games stimulates the imagination and jumpstarts
the brain. A 2002 study by the California
Department of Education underlined that physically
fit kids perform better academically. Last
but not least, casual pick-up ball games or
neighborhood activities allow kids to socialize
with one another on their own and to develop
social skills and tolerance.
Childhood— and that extends to the tweenage
years— should be about having fun. Not
just about achieving. Play may seem retro,
but once your tween gets the hang of it, he
will laugh more, stress out less, slim down
and enjoy being young.
Margaret Sagarese is the coauthor of Good
Parents, Tough Times (Loyola Press) and the
forthcoming Boy Crazy: Steering Your Daughter
Through Crushes and Creeps Toward Healthy
Relationships (Broadway Books). She can be
reached at msagarese@aol.com.
Tips
• Make leisure with a physical component
a priority in your family. Shoe your children
outside after school to get some fresh air.
If they don’t know what to do, ask them
to wash the car, rake the leaves, turn over
the garden or shovel the driveway. Hike on
the weekend. Walk after dinner. Get out and
play catch with your child. Roller blade or
ride bicycles together. Get out and go sleigh-riding
or ice-skating during the cold seasons. In
the summer, stroll the shoreline and collect
shells. Plant a garden. Dig a pond. Just get
physical.
• Participate in community events such
as walk-a-thons. Sign onto Habitat for Humanity
or volunteer to work on a community vegetable
garden.
• Plan a family reunion complete with
a kite-flying contest and a volleyball game
pitting children against adults.
• Lobby at your middle school if no
physical activity is on the schedule. According
to a 2004 report from the National Academy
of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine,
school children should have the opportunity
for at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous
activity daily.
