free play

Coronavirus could be a reset button for youth anxiety

There are of course not many upsides to a global pandemic, but one of them may be that the single biggest threat to youth wellbeing is lessened. Founders of free-play advocacy organisation Let Grow, Lenore Skenazy and Peter Gray, point out that anxiety is an already huge problem for young people that has also been [...]

By |2021-03-03T16:20:35+11:00April 6th, 2020|Categories: Anxiety|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Let them play! Kids need freedom from play restrictions to develop

You may have heard of play. It’s that thing children do – the diverse range of unstructured, spontaneous activities and behaviours. Children play in many ways, including by exploring movements, constructing with equipment, creating games, using imagination and chasing others around a playground. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises play as [...]

Let Kids Play

The most famous painting of children at play is “Children’s Games,” the 1560 work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder of a town square in which children from toddlers to adolescents (scholars have counted 246) are playing a range of timeless games. There are dolls and marbles and tiddlywinks, ball games and climbing games and riding [...]

Playtime May Bolster Kids’ Mental Health

“Play has become a four-letter word.” So says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a psychologist at Temple University and one of the authors of a new paper about the importance of play in children’s lives. The clinical report, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommends that pediatricians write a “prescription for play” at doctor visits in the [...]

Research finds health benefits from free play

Cheap items like crates and buckets encourage children to be more active and creative than expensive play equipment, researchers have found. The findings are the result of a long-term study by RMIT University researchers in Melbourne, Australia, into the play differences of primary school children with access to different playgrounds. Introducing simple, everyday objects during [...]

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