Psyche, Science, and Society

Commercialization of play and overconcern for safety bad for children’s development, NPR reports

NPR reports on the negative consequences of the commercialization of children’s play combined with parents’ increased emphasis on safety at the cost of children’s imaginative play. Another reason why the capitalist takeover of all areas of life is bad for us:

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

by Alix Spiegel

Morning Edition, February 21, 2008 · On October 3, 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television. As we all now know, the show quickly became a cultural icon, one of those phenomena that helped define an era.

What is less remembered but equally, if not more, important, is that another transformative cultural event happened that day: The Mattel toy company began advertising a gun called the “Thunder Burp.”

I know — who’s ever heard of the Thunder Burp?

Well, no one.

The reason the advertisement is significant is because it marked the first time that any toy company had attempted to peddle merchandise on television outside of the Christmas season. Until 1955, ad budgets at toy companies were minuscule, so the only time they could afford to hawk their wares on TV was during Christmas. But then came Mattel and the Thunder Burp, which, according to Howard Chudacoff, a cultural historian at Brown University, was a kind of historical watershed. Almost overnight, children’s play became focused, as never before, on things — the toys themselves.

“It’s interesting to me that when we talk about play today, the first thing that comes to mind are toys,” says Chudacoff. “Whereas when I would think of play in the 19th century, I would think of activity rather than an object.”

Chudacoff’s recently published history of child’s play argues that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, more or less unsupervised, and engage in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and action heroes. Basically, says Chudacoff, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.

“They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors… or whether it was on a street corner or somebody’s back yard,” Chudacoff says. “They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules.”

But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child’s play — a trend which begins to shrink the size of children’s imaginative space.

But commercialization isn’t the only reason imagination comes under siege. In the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, parents became increasingly concerned about safety, and were driven to create play environments that were secure and could not be penetrated by threats of the outside world. Karate classes, gymnastics, summer camps — these create safe environments for children, Chudacoff says. And they also do something more: for middle-class parents increasingly worried about achievement, they offer to enrich a child’s mind.

Change in Play, Change in Kids

Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here’s the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids’ cognitive and emotional development.

It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.

We know that children’s capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn’t stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at the National Institute for Early Education Research says, the results were very different.

“Today’s 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today’s 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago,” Bodrova explains. “So the results were very sad.”

Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child’s IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, “Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain.”

The Importance of Self-Regulation

According to Berk, one reason make-believe is such a powerful tool for building self-discipline is because during make-believe, children engage in what’s called private speech: They talk to themselves about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it.

“In fact, if we compare preschoolers’ activities and the amount of private speech that occurs across them, we find that this self-regulating language is highest during make-believe play,” Berk says. “And this type of self-regulating language… has been shown in many studies to be predictive of executive functions.”

And it’s not just children who use private speech to control themselves. If we look at adult use of private speech, Berk says, “we’re often using it to surmount obstacles, to master cognitive and social skills, and to manage our emotions.”

Unfortunately, the more structured the play, the more children’s private speech declines. Essentially, because children’s play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids’ toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren’t getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves.

“One index that researchers, including myself, have used… is the extent to which a child, for example, cleans up independently after a free-choice period in preschool,” Berk says. “We find that children who are most effective at complex make-believe play take on that responsibility with… greater willingness, and even will assist others in doing so without teacher prompting.”

Despite the evidence of the benefits of imaginative play, however, even in the context of preschool young children’s play is in decline. According to Yale psychological researcher Dorothy Singer, teachers and school administrators just don’t see the value.

“Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time,” Singer says. “I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills.”

It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all.

Add comment February 22nd, 2008

Ellen Goodman on Obama-Clinton and gender politics

Ellen Goodman in the Boston Globe has a thought-provoking perspective on the Democratic race:

The female style - modeled by a man

By Ellen Goodman

On Tuesday, I got a sarcastic e-mail from a Hillary supporter. She forwarded a crack made by Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s media man, about Obama. “Senator Clinton,” he scoffed, “is not running on the strength of her rhetoric.” To which my friend added: “Unfortunately.”

By evening, the Wisconsin blowout was serious enough that the posters in last-chance Ohio read: “We’ve Got Your Back Hillary.” Clinton’s speech sounded ominously shopworn: “One of us is ready to be commander in chief . . . One of us has faced serious Republican opposition in the past.”

These are disheartening days for Hillary supporters. Not just because of the string of losses but because of the kind of loss.

This was nothing if not a careful campaign. Neither the strategists nor the candidate had illusions about the hurdles that would face the first woman president in American history. They knew women have to prove and prove again their toughness. They knew women have to prove and prove again their experience.

They began as well by framing Clinton as the establishment candidate. But then the establishment became “the status quo” and the historic candidacy became “old politics.” She even got demerits for experience.

Something else happened along the way. If Hillary Clinton was the tough guy in the race, Barack Obama became the Oprah candidate. He was the quality circle man, the uniter-not-divider, the person who believes we can talk to anyone, even our enemies. He finely honed a language usually associated with women’s voices.

Does this transmutation resonate with women who have tried to become CEOs of lesser enterprises than America Inc.? Women of Hillary’s generation were taught to don power suits and use their shoulder pads to push open corporate doors. In the 1970s, the lessons on making it in a man’s world were essentially primers on how to behave like men. As University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist Kathleen Dolan says, “They had to figure out a way to go undercover. They could only be taken seriously if they filled the male model with XX chromosomes.”

But the next generation of advice books urged women to do it their own way. The old stereotypes that defined women as more compassionate and collaborative were given a positive spin. They were framed and praised as women’s ways of leading.

Today’s shelves are still full of titles - from “Seducing the Boys Club” to “The Girl’s Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch)” to “Enlightened Power” - that tell us to act like a man or act like a woman. But in many ways, the transformative inspirational, collaborative, “female” style has become more attractive. Especially to a younger generation. And - here’s the rub - especially when it is modeled by a man.

Dolan sees Obama as “the embodiment of the gentle, collaborative style without threatening his masculine side.” But she adds, “He’s being more feminine than she can be. She is in a much tighter box.”

This too is a bit like what’s happened in business. Whatever advice they follow, women are still only 3 percent of the CEOs in Fortune 500 companies. Meanwhile, it’s become more acceptable for a man to take an afternoon off to watch his kids play ball than for a woman.

Ilene Lang heads Catalyst, which surveyed more than 1,200 senior executives in the United States and Europe. This research calculated the tenacity of double binds and double standards. It showed how hard it still is for a woman to be seen as both competent and likable. And it led her to the conclusion that “What defines leadership to most people is one thing. It’s male.”

As for the Obama style? “Both men and women are much more likely to accept a collaborative style of leadership from men than from women. From women it seems too soft,” she adds ruefully.

Hillary was quite right that she needed to be seen as the experienced, competent, commander in chief. Obama was quite right about the country’s desire to reach across boundaries and beyond divisiveness.

We have ended up in a lopsided era of change. After all, how many of us wanted to see male leaders transformed from cowboys to conciliators? Now we see a woman running as the fighter and a man modeling a ‘woman’s way’ of leading. We see a younger generation in particular inspired by ideas nurtured by women, as long as they are delivered in a baritone.

So, has the women’s movement made life easier? For another man?

Ellen Goodman’s e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.

Add comment February 22nd, 2008

Fort Hood soldiers protest the war

Those of us who lived through and participated in the 1960’s and early ’70’s antiwar movement know that one of the most important aspects of those movements was the growth of the antiwar movement among active duty GIs. Most demonstrations were led by active duty soldiers, every base had its antiwar coffee house and newspaper. “Fuck the Army!” was all over the place. And discipline fell to the point where the brass knew that it was get out or get out of the way.

A friend stationed in Nam aroung 1971 described being assigned to pick up litter on the base. As he’s walking around, he smokd and three down a cigarette butt. His ergeant yelled “Pick that up!” As he tells it, he just looked at the Srage and said “F***You!” the Sergeant glowered back in rage, but kept his mouth shut, knowing that to say anything, much less discipline the soldier for insubordination, was to risk danger. an army in that shape cannot be kept in an unpopular war indefinitely.

While nowhere to that degree, there are indications that a movement of active duty soldiers is growing. A TV station in Austin Texas reports on the growth of Iraq Veterans Against the War on the base. As it quotes soldiers on base:

“The honest truth is that if the American people knew what was going on over there everyday, they would be raising their voices too. They would be saying, ‘Hey, bring those guys home,” Sgt. Selena Coppa said.

Coppa blames lawmakers in Washington for filtering the facts on the war in Iraq. She said there’s no real end in sight.

“There is a cost to this war. This war is being paid in American blood, in my soldier’s blood. And that is not okay,” Coppa said.

“We lost really good friends, really good leaders who died in Iraq. From my perspective, it didn’t make any sense, we didn’t ccomplish anything, and I talked to a lot of other soldiers who feel the same way,” Fort Hood soldier Casey Porter said.

Ronn Cantu is between Iraq deployments. He feel a need to use the opportunity to speak out:

“I honestly thought I might not live through my second tour, so I
thought, you know if I’m going to die anyway, I need to say the
things I need to say,” Cantu said.

Watch the story:

IVAW Fort Hood posts a banner — “IVAW is pro-soldier, but antiwar.”:

IVAW can be reached at ivaw.org

Add comment February 22nd, 2008

Iraq to round up destituteas “antiterrorism” measure

The Associated Press (via the New York Times) reports that the Iraqi government intends to imprison the most helpless and destitute, supposedly to protect a few of them from being exploited as suicide bombers by terrorists. This article was sent to me by a friend whose accompanying comment says it all:

Quite remarkable from many points of view. Does anyone seriously think that Iraq has institutions capable of caring for the people being rounded up, as opposed to throwing them into rudimentary camps (basically prisons) of some kind? Or that the Iraqi and US governments care anything about these people? So, it’s now illegal to be homeless or mentally disabled? But the article makes it all sound so benign (except that some silly advocates for the mentally ill seem to have a little problem with it). Truly disgusting. Also, didn’t I just see an article in the paper about how some Iraqi official announced that al-Qaida in Iraq has already been driven out of Baghdad?

Here’s the article:

Iraq Orders Police to Round Up Beggars

by The Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Iraqi Interior Ministry ordered police on Tuesday to begin rounding up beggars, homeless and mentally disabled people from the streets of Baghdad and other cities to prevent insurgents from using them as suicide bombers.

The decision, which elicited concern from advocates for the mentally disabled, came nearly three weeks after twin suicide bombings against pet markets. Officials said those blasts were carried out by mentally disabled women who may have been unwitting attackers.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi government have claimed that Sunni insurgents led by al-Qaida in Iraq are increasingly trying to use Iraq’s most vulnerable populations as suicide bombers to avoid raising suspicions or being searched at checkpoints that guard access to many markets, neighborhoods and bridges in the capital.

The people detained in the Baghdad sweep will be handed over to social welfare institutions and psychiatric hospitals that can provide shelter and care for them, Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

”This will be implemented nationwide starting today,” Khalaf told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

”Militant groups, like al-Qaida in Iraq, have started exploiting these people in the worst way to kill innocent victims because they do not raise suspicions,” Khalaf said. ”These groups are either luring those who are desperate for money to help them in their attacks or making use of their poor mental condition to use them as suicide bombers.”

However, it is not clear that such people would be safe in psychiatric hospitals. American and Iraqi troops recently detained the acting director of the al-Rashad psychiatric hospital in eastern Baghdad on suspicion of helping supply patient information to al-Qaida in Iraq.

The U.S. military has linked the insurgents’ willingness to use women or children as suicide bombers with their attempts to bounce back from losses in recent U.S.-led offensives.

The military said this week that attacks across Iraq have dropped more than 60 percent in the year since a joint campaign to cut down their influence began last February. But U.S. commanders have warned that al-Qaida in Iraq is a resilient foe and acknowledged they have been unable to stop the group’s signature suicide attacks.

While concrete barriers have reduced the effectiveness of car bombings in the capital, a series of suicide attacks by female bombers has deepened concern.

Women often aren’t searched at checkpoints because of a dearth of female guards. As a result, police said 1,000 female officers will be deployed among the pilgrims massing in the Shiite holy city of Karbala for a major pilgrimage next week.

The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the Feb. 1 pet market bombings was met initially with skepticism. Iraqi authorities said they based the assertion on photos of the bombers’ heads that purportedly showed the women had Down syndrome, and did not offer any other proof.

However, the director of the Ibn-Rushd psychiatric teaching hospital in central Baghdad, Dr. Shalan al-Abboudi, said that one of the pet market bombers, a 36-year-old married woman, had been treated there for schizophrenia and depression, according to her file. Refusing to identify her, he said she received electric shock therapy and was released into the custody of an aunt.

The U.S. military said it understood the Interior Ministry intends to transfer those taken into custody to the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry.

”We are aware of the Ministry of Interior’s efforts to try and protect homeless and mentally impaired citizens from becoming the unwitting victims of al-Qaida in Iraq,” Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a military spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

It was not clear how the plan could be implemented in a capital city of more than 5 million people who have grown used to maintaining a low profile and often hiding their identity during nearly five years of bloodshed.

The targets could include women shrouded in traditional Islamic black robes and headscarves who sit on the pavement of public squares or roam around the stalls of open-air markets to beg for money.

Laurie Ahern, the associate director of the Washington, D.C.-based Mental Disability Rights International, expressed concern that Iraqi authorities might be casting ”an awful wide net.”

She noted that insurgents were recruiting women and children in increasing numbers — but said no one should suggest detaining them.

”To round up a group of people based on a disability … I’m not sure that’s the best way to handle the situation,” Ahern said in a telephone interview.

Ahern added that given the traumas of the U.S.-led invasion and subsequent violence, many Iraqis could be considered mentally vulnerable.

Khalaf was not more specific about how police would choose their targets. He said beggars and homeless people 18 years or older would be placed in the custody of the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry, while people with mental problems would be taken to psychiatric hospitals.

He also said those determined to be professional beggars would be prosecuted.

Mohammad Hadi, a 28-year-old Finance Ministry employee, welcomed the idea of clamping down on the street people.

”If they were left free, the terrorists might exploit their condition for attacks,” he said. ”But while I am happy with the Interior Ministry’s campaign against such people, I do believe that police must respect their human rights and take them to a safe, comfortable place.”

——

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin and Saad Abdul-Kadir in Baghdad and Raphael G. Satter in London contributed to this report.

Add comment February 22nd, 2008