Free play for kids (and adults) in the digital age
I’m currently reading a book called Under Pressure, and as much as I wish it was the definitive volume on the vast differences between that one song by Vanilla Ice and that other song by Queen, it’s actually a terrific book on parenting by Carl Honoré, the bestselling author of In Praise of Slow. It’s full of great advice on “rescuing childhood from the culture of hyper-parenting,” and many of its best ideas can also be applied to the lives of adults.
In a chapter on high-tech toys, for example, Honoré argues that the simple toys that let children direct their own play are better for their imaginations and development than the expensive electronic toys that can only be used in certain ways, or to do specific things. For support, he turns to Bill Gates, “the high priest of high-tech” who nonetheless understands the disadvantages of toys that dictate play.
“If you’ve ever watched a child with a cardboard carton and a box of crayons create a spaceship with cool control panels,” Gates says, “or listened to their improvised rules, such as ‘Red cars can jump all others,’ then you know that this impulse to make a toy do more is at the heart of innovative childhood play. It is also the essence of creativity.”
It’s the last point in particular that highlights the fact that kids and adults aren’t so different from one another. The importance of learning and creating by doing more with your toys than you’re supposed to is hardly a new idea to digital rights activists like Lawrence Lessig or Cory Doctorow. When a little girl spends all afternoon playing with the box her new computer came in, isn’t she catering to the same creative impulse that’s at the heart of the latest Girl Talk record?
There are other examples in other chapters as well. I’ve read more than my share of books and articles about the dangers of television and technology for young children, each with their own opinions on how much is too much. Honoré’s book is among the few which argues that one of the most important ways parents can confront these issues is to “revisit our own addiction to multitasking,” in order to set a good example and to be more present in our own lives.
What do you think? Have any of you parents out there learned any lessons like these from your own children? Are there any aspects of your parenting style that you’ve found you can adopt to your own lives? Feel free to share in the comments. If you want to call me out for making fun of Vanilla Ice’s unlicensed sampling on the one hand while celebrating Girl Talk’s illegal body of work on the other, then that’s fine, too.
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