Would you rather be on the internet or playing with your kids?
Posted
August 3, 2007 at
2:45 pm by
Jessica
Alas, another debate about parenting styles. Thank goodness. I was just thinking the other day that there wasn’t enough conflict between parenting styles — a real lack of honest debate between parents and the influence of their wise ways upon their children.
So, the new drama pits the parents who love to get down on all fours and play farm animals with their children for hours at a time, making sure that every dull moment is met with a stimulating craft making session, exploring of trains and planes and cooking meals becomes a lesson in chemistry vs. the parent who constantly rebuffs little whines with, “If you’re bored, I have a dirty room that needs cleaning.”
Now the Experts are weighing in. First, the play hating expert:
“Adults think it is silly to play with children” in most cultures, says Lancy, who teaches at Utah State University. Play is a cultural universal, he concedes, “but adults aren’t part of the picture.” Yet middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans — abetted, he says, by psychologists — are increasingly proclaiming the parents-on-all-fours style the One True Way to raise a smart, well-adjusted child.
Lancy is concerned that specialists behind the movement — psychologists, social workers, preschool teachers — are too aggressively promoting this intense, interventionist parenting style to low-income parents, and that they are are too quick to claim that adult-child play is crucial for human development. He doesn’t quite rule out that some interventions may improve literacy — though the data are murkier than the psychologists admit, he insists. But the programs, with their premise (as he sees it) that a whole class of people is simply parenting badly, leave their advocates “open to charges of racism or cultural imperialism.”
The play promoting expert says:
“I’m not clear what’s bothering this guy,” he says, referring to Lancy. “We are not talking about the parents playing all day long with the children. We’re just saying that children need to play, and particular kinds of play — imaginative play that has a storytelling element to it — are very useful” in our culture.
I think I fall into this camp:
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman and the economist Alan Krueger, both at Princeton, have found that parents routinely claim that playing with their kids is among their favorite activities, but when you ask them to record their state of mind, hour by hour, they rate time spent with their children as being about as much fun as housework.
Which type of play parent are you?
Tags: Alan-Krueger, child-rearing, Daniel-Kahneman, Lancy, Parenting |
10 Responses to “Would you rather be on the internet or playing with your kids?”
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1. Petulant Pixie said:
August 3, 2007 @ 5:01 pm
In the middle. I think there is something to be said for on-the-floor play since for babies and toddlers it’s about the only interaction that can happen on their terms. But, it doesn’t need to be (and shouldn’t be) huge amounts of time doing it.
Playing with babies and toddlers isn’t a huge amount of fun for adults in itself. The fun I have playing with them is seeing them have fun, because at that age it is all about them. I do love watching my 2 year-old laugh and squeal when I chase her around and catch her and that sort of thing. So, I do it, for about 10 minutes, because then it gets real old for me. But I do it a bunch of times every day because she gets a kick out of it and that’s how we interact.
Now, interacting with my 12 year-old IS fun for me, because we can read the same books and see the same movies and have real life conversations. When I’m doing things with groups of kids that age, I have fun. 12 year-olds are interesting people. Often more interesting than some of the adults I’m forced to interact with on a regular basis.
Interacting with my 8 year-old is transitioning from the “it’s all about her” phase to the being equally fun for both of us. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s getting there.
2. Jessica said:
August 3, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
I like doing physical things with my kids and going places, like going swimming, going to Great America, the Zoo, movies, out to restaurants, the beach etc., but playing games or Thomas the Train — no thanks. That bores me to tears.
I think some parents are better at that stuff than others. I admit, I am not.
3. Tess said:
August 3, 2007 @ 9:18 pm
I’m the ‘lazy’ mum, I prefer to read to them instead or joke around. I get so bored playing cars or ‘farm animals’ with them, I suppose I’m just not a ‘natural’ mother. Sue me
4. Petulant Pixie said:
August 4, 2007 @ 8:58 am
Well, the thing is, we’re supposed to be BORED playing cars or farm animals. We’re adults. Playing two-year-old activities is NOT mentally stimulating, it is NOT an age appropriate recreational activity. But, it needs to be done by someone, for the development of the kid. So, in a way, that sort of interaction IS like housework. Things need to be done that aren’t necessarily fun, but you do them anyway (for a reasonable amount of time) to benefit someone else.
I don’t mind playing some tumble games with my little one. But, I refuse to play in the snow. Just won’t do it. Luckily for me, dh and I have a balance. He’s more into the snow play, the bike rides, playing tag and that sort of stuff. I read to the kids and have more verbal interaction–but even still, the stuff I read to my younger two isn’t necessarily mentally stimulating to me, but I do enjoy it. So, it balances out. If I were alone, I would have to either suck it up and do ALL the play, or hire someone.
The chick who wrote that other article way back about how her kids BORE her didn’t mention ANYTHING in the article she enjoyed doing with her children. Nothing. The kids’ books bored her. Games bored her. Playing imaginative games bored her. Her children were just totally beneath her and it bored her to tears to do anything with them. Now THAT is shitty, IMO.
5. anthromomma said:
August 4, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Are you talking about Ayelet Waldman, PP? Ms. I’d throw my kids in front of a bullet to save my husband’s life? Yeah, I agree. Shitty.
I would rather gouge out my left eye than play ‘cars’ or ‘ponies,’ and my kids don’t let me play blocks with them anymore because I turn into the crazed block dictator. But that’s ok, because I really and truly believe that children need a lot more unstructured free time than they are generally allowed in our society. And since that philosophy meshes with my life goal of being as lazy as possible, I’m golden.
6. DrBookgrrl said:
August 4, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
There’s a happy medium, isn’t there? I mean, sure, I’ll play games or farm or whatever with the little one for a while, or shake the rattle and bounce the baby on my knee - and I love to do that, because I love to watch her grin, and then giggle, and then laugh - but I’m not going to do it all day. I’m going to do my thing, and you do your thing, little person (as long as it’s not watch tv), and that’s how you learn that the world is not all about you - a lesson, I might add, that is being lost by a large swath of today’s kids, thanks to helicopter parents.
7. julymom said:
August 4, 2007 @ 9:50 pm
I’ve played approximately 8,473,527 rounds of Candy Land recently and sweet Jeebus is it boring (though trying to figure out how to lose without making it obvious can on occassion be a challenge). I’m not much of a crawl around on the floor kind of mom either. I do read to him and sometimes come up with fun stuff to do, like cut out clip art that I’ve printed, glue it popsicle sticks and have a little puppet show, but I am so not a I-have-the-entire-day-planned-down-to-the-last-second-and-everything-will-be-fun-and-perfect kind of mom. Also, I like to watch TV, and fortunately he’s cool watching TV in his room (bad Mommy!) while I veg in the living room and catch up on all the zany USA shows (Characters Welcome!).
8. Petulant Pixie said:
August 5, 2007 @ 10:33 am
Antrho–I did read that Ayelet Waldman article and it was very weird, too. But, the specific one I was remembering was written by a British mom, we debated on IP, too. She just went on and on about how everything her kids do is boring and how they’ve just learned not to expect her to do anything with them anymore.
9. anthromomma said:
August 6, 2007 @ 10:33 am
Ok, I just looked for the article to which you were referring, PP– I must have missed that the first time around. (for anyone else who cares, it can be found here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=397672&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source= ). Wow. There is a huge difference between being “brave” enough to admit that maybe you don’t love every minute with your kids, and being so unbelievably self-centered that you can’t ever spend an hour doing something that’s important to your child just because you find it boring.
10. Petulant Pixie said:
August 6, 2007 @ 11:32 am
Yup, that was the article.