BY: KATHRYN KORCHOK
Dr. Ana Lara, naturopathic physician
and team member of White oaks’
Lifestyle Medicine & Sports
Injuries Clinic, believes our current
lifestyle has contributed to the
decline of play among children.
Today, we are ruled by electronics and
schedules. Television, computers, video
games, tablets, phones - we are never
without our devices. even toddlers who
are out for dinner with their parents
are given iPads to distract them.
It’s not that kids aren’t busy. They are
- with piano lessons, painting classes,
swimming lessons, soccer practices,
computer club, and karate. Kids are often
over-scheduled with activities, lessons
and clubs. They’re super-stimulated by
media, driven to and from school, and
squeezed into time slots that parents
juggle with their own work schedules
and meetings. helicopter parenting is
the norm, and parents’ competitiveness
for their children to be the best, do
the best, and achieve the best, may
be doing more harm than good.
But play is important. Free, physically
active, unsupervised play.
“That, to me, is key,” says Dr. Lara.
“It helps with kids’ development
emotionally, socially and intellectually.
They’re testing the waters and they’re
creating their own worlds when they
get to play. They run their own world
by their rules, on their time, with their
imagination and their creativity. And
when we place structure on that, I think
it thwarts what they’re capable of.”
Dr. Lara believes parents should not
impose their own agendas on children’s
playtime, that it should be “free range.”
“It’s key for parents to remember what
it’s like to be a child,” says Dr. Lara, who
has prescribed play in her practice. She
says parents are also worried about
safety, from street traffic to stranger
danger, from the fear of abduction
to physical injury. That excessive
worry, or “fear-based parenting,” is
doing more harm than good, and she
sees more children suffering from
apprehension, anxiety and depression.
WhITe oAKS
ADVISoRY BoARD
”Children are wise, and we have
to trust that they do come
equipped to develop their own
way of analyzing and integrating
into the world. Having to come
up with their own solutions is a
beautiful experience, because
that’s laying the foundations
for their own problem-solving
and independence.”
DR. ANA LARA
The physical and mental health
benefits of physically active play
are well-documented, according to
Dr. Lauren McNamara, Director of
Research and Development in the
Faculty of Child and Youth Studies
at Brock University, and founder of
the Recess Project (see sidebar).
She says play helps to reduce stress,
boosts circulation, enhances wellbeing, stimulates neurological activity,
increases energy, builds muscles and
bones, increases flexibility and ultimately
helps prevent disease and obesity. Play
helps lay the foundation for a healthy
lifestyle throughout all phases of life.
Playful interactions with peers
provide opportunities to develop and
maintain positive relationships and
friendships that shape and improve
social and emotional skills.
“The best kind of play, in my opinion,
is the kind where children feel
accepted and completely at ease
with each other so that it just flows,”
says Dr. McNamara. “To be silly,
imaginative, playful, active, joyful,
creative, and a bit risky – that’s play.”
But it’s that perceived risk that has
contributed to a decline in play. Parents,
teachers and school administrators have
become so risk-averse that playgrounds
have become battlegrounds, and the
losers are kids. Recess and physical
education have declined, while academic
pressure to succeed, competition to get
into good schools and the need for extracurriculars on resumes has increased.
Ironically, kids do better in school
and achieve more academic success
when they’re allowed to play and
experience a physical, active lifestyle.
Sadly, only five percent of kids meet the
Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines of
60 minutes of physical activity every day.
According to Participaction, 63 percent of
Canadian kids’ free time after school and
on weekends is spent being sedentary.
Its latest report card on physical
activity for children and youth notes
that 62 percent of Canadian parents
say their kids are always driven to and
from school (by car or bus). Canadian
kids aged three and four spend 5.8
hours a day being sedentary; ages
five through eleven spend 7.6 hours;
and ages 12-17 spend 9.3 hours.
spring 2016 | wo magazine | 33