(No) Surprise: Kids Need Time for Free Play

What can parents and other caring adults do to promote social development in kids and ensure their future health and well-being? Those of us who work with kids spend hours considering this question. But the answer may be simple: quit trying, and let kids go play. As the saying goes, sometimes less is more.

Of course, it's not entirely as simple as that, but allowing kids to play freely is an important part of the equation. Sadly, it's also the element that's been crowded out as education reform and the uber-professionalization of youth sports have encroached on childhood. Free play - that is, activities that are freely chosen by kids and that have no time limits, no adult management, and whose starting and ending points depend solely on what a kid wants to do - stands in opposition to the way we've regimented kids' lives, all in the name of making things "better" for them by measuring and evaluating everything they do. This is progress?

The call for more free time for kids to play is not new. A Google search of "kids need free play" turned up articles from October 2006, January 2009, and October of 2010. And - get this - there's actually an organization called the "Alliance for Childhood", a major focus of which is advocating for kids' opportunity to have time to play. Really? There is actually a national organization whose mission is to see that your son or daughter be allowed to go outside and play tag? Yep - and the movement faces formidable opposition.

Not principled opposition, of course - what kind of Scrooge would actually come out and say that they were against kids getting to play together? The opposition instead rests in the very structure of kids' lives, and is rooted in the belief that compared to academics, music lessons, organized sports leagues, and club activities (and yes, even church activities can contribute), free time to simply play isn't that important.

The latest voice in the wilderness is a man named Peter Gray, a professor at Boston College, who's been studying the positive effects of play for years, but who recently garnered media attention for his paper linking the decline of free play with an increase in emotional and behavioral problems once kids grow up. Gray makes the case that when kids don't play, the skills of emotional regulation - how to get along, how to share, how to make decisions - don't get a workout. The eventual result is teenagers who have poor impulse control, underdeveloped social skills, and who suffer more anxiety and depression as a result. And Carlo Rotella, writing about Gray's research in the Boston Globe, points out that substituting adult-regulated activities doesn't cut it:

"The 'free' part matters. There's a deceptively big difference between being told by and adult to get in line to take your turn on the slide and learning from interaction with other kids, through trial and error and conflict and cooperation, that it's not OK to hog the slide."

I'll never forget when I substitute taught in a kindergarten classroom, and the lead teacher was guiding the kids through an art project. At one point, she demanded that all the kids fix their eyes on her, because "I'm going to show you how to make a spider." These were five year olds drawing. She no doubt thought she was helping. She wasn't. Little wonder that as I circulated through the room and suggested to a boy that he could draw a woman in a skirt, he looked at me and said, "I don't know how." What he was really saying was, "I don't want to get it wrong...so I'd rather not try."

Art projects aren't exactly free play (because they are solitary pursuits, not requiring the skills of interaction), but the point is that one thing preventing kids from doing their own thing is our fear that they might get it wrong. Put yourself in the shoes of an adult witnessing the dispute over the slide that Rotella describes above. If you saw one child budging the line, or stopping midway down the slide, or climbing up the wrong way so others couldn't take their turn, would you intervene, or let kids work it out? I'll admit it would be hard not to mediate, to think that they need my help in solving the problem, because what if they do it wrong? And what if there's a fight? And what if someone's feelings are hurt in the fight? To stay out of it is to risk that kids might not resolve things - at least not right away. Kid justice can be brutal.

Another factor keeping kids from interacting is that they have no place to play. Two of the greatest parental fears - that their child will be kidnapped or that they will be hit by a car - work against kids being able to be outside. Today's parenting generation grew up in the days of some high-profile abductions (like Adam Walsh and Polly Klaas) and were taught in schools (even in my midwestern hometown of 7,000) to fear strangers. Despite the fact that the probability of a child being kidnapped is quite low (about 1 in 347,000; there are between 100-150 stranger abductions in the U.S. each year, nowhere near a million a year, which was what we were told in the 1980s), that's no comfort to the family it does happen to. And with every missing child story now receiving national attention on cable news, it makes us all think: It could be us.

And there are other reasons kids don't play. Lack of time is certainly one. We're more mobile, which allows us to "spread out" our lives - but that also results in moms and dads spending hours each week toting kids from one scheduled activity to the next. Time spent consuming screen media also gobbles up time kids could be playing together. (I think it remains to be seen whether "social" media actually enhances kids' sociability or not. Part of me admires its ability to put people in touch with each other. And what are we doing online? We're communicating - which isn't all bad.) And schools have changed. Not only do they assign more homework, but things like recess and physical education have been pared back, and the teaching itself is different - more directed, more teacher-centered, and very outcomes-oriented.

You could make the argument, of course, that it's outcomes that matter most, and therefore there's nothing wrong with teaching kids how to hit a baseball (by enrolling them in a league), or how to do math (by hiring a private tutor), or how to play the guitar (at $50 a lesson). And there is nothing wrong with those things. Except to remember that the outcomes kids care about often relate to things adults find trivial. When I was 10, we spent a lot of time dreaming up improvements to my friend's fort in the loft of his garage, or pursuing ever-better "jumps" on our dirtbikes, or figuring out really clever places to hide when we played kick the can. Today those things matter nothing to me - I've got bigger fish to fry - but maybe there was something in the process of doing those things that mattered far more than the final product.

In the end, granting kids more freedom to play isn't an easy matter. We didn't get here because of some stated ideology that kids shouldn't play. We got here by building a society that believes in outcomes and status more than we do the intrinsic value of being a kid. Can you imagine getting out of bed and spending an entire day playing? I can't. But they can. And the adult priorities and responsibilities that keep us from living in that world will soon enough creep into their lives, pulling them away from a time in life they'll never recapture. Part of our job is to help them enjoy and embrace these years, which are some of the best of their life - they just don't know it. And, unbelievably, it appears one of the best things we can do is to leave them alone, to play.

Can Kids Outgrow God?

During the last six years of overseeing 4th-6th grade ministry at NCCC, I’ve had the parallel experience of watching my nieces and nephews grow up from babies to preschool and elementary school-aged children. Through holiday visits, Skype, Facebook, and home videos I have been able to glimpse pieces of their faith development, and it’s been fascinating. I’ve observed prayers, Sunday school programs and songs, heard some Bible stories retold, and picked up some nuggets that reflect their young understanding of God’s big world and their place in it.

At the same time, I've witnessed each developmental stage and phase, and laughed with the rest of my family as the kids move from one obsession to the next. Blue, Dora, The Wiggles, Elmo, Spiderman, cowboys, and the Disney princesses have all had their day. But soon, each is eclipsed by the next favorite thing, and the old hero gets passed down to the next-youngest sibling. At their houses, Santa Claus is still alive and well at Christmas time. But this won’t last forever.

My hope, of course, is that their curiosity, interest, and affinity for God as they grow up will never go the way of Elmo. And that is my hope for your kid as well. It’s worth asking the question: Can kids outgrow God? Can he lose his currency, becoming yesterday’s news, just at the time when kids begin facing questions like, “Who am I?” and “What was I created for?” and “What am I worth?” Too many adults attempt to answer those questions with the very author of life shunted to the sidelines.

We dare not let that happen.

Does God live in storybooks?
I am a fan of Bible storybooks for young kids. Our family had one, and I still can recall “what Adam and Eve looked like,” and the fierceness of God’s wrath represented by a red sky, and the wily Jacob fooling his father into thinking he was Esau. Of course, those weren’t true pictures, but some artist’s rendering. But to me, they were “real." Young kids, being concrete thinkers, receive and store those early impressions and images for a long, long time. (When I was four, I thought our pastor and God were one and the same - probably the reason I still, without thinking, picture God having a red beard and not a gray one.) The downside to cartoonish representations, though, is that they can lead kids to believe that “Bible stories” and
“Bible characters” were fictional. This is a symptom of a larger phenomenon that kids face as they grow. Bible storybooks are not the problem (not even a problem).

The issue is this: are kids’ conceptions of God allowed and encouraged to grow as they do?

We – the churches that serve them and the families that raise them – hold the key to the answer. To the extent that we “create” their understanding of God by the stories we tell, the symbols we use, the holidays we celebrate, and the way we worship (and countless other ways), kids’ knowledge of God is largely dependent on us. I do not deny that young children think thoughts about God completely on their own, nor that they can enjoy an unmediated relationship with him without any help from us. But that relationship does not exist in a vacuum. It is always culturally conditioned by the expressed thoughts and attitudes of the adults (that is, the authority figures) who run their world.

And so, we are responsible, not only for creating a picture of God that is true in their minds as young children, but also for continuing to refine and update kids’ views of God as they grow. If we are diligent about giving them Jesus when they are young, but then back off as they grow older, we run the risk that as kids grow up, they’ll consider God “kiddie stuff”, a relic from early childhood.

We dare not let that happen.

A different approach
As a kid becomes a preteen (and there’s no defining criteria for that), their ability to think and reason abstractly will blossom. As it does, they reach a junction in the development of personal faith. The question usually takes a form like, “Is God really real?” but what they’re actually asking is “Is God relevant?” As the serpent tempted Eve – “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree?” – kids also want to know whether God belongs only to the simple world they’re growing out of, or if he has a place in the more complicated world of the future? And if so, what is it?

About this same time, kids come to realize that parents and other adults aren’t perfect, that grown-ups break promises, aren’t superhuman, and actually get away with doing a fair number of the things they tell their kids not to do. What does this knowledge do to a kid’s faith, when up until that time, the adults in their lives have been the embodiment of qualities like power and might and authority and love and right – all of the same attributes that are ascribed to God? It’s common and almost unavoidable for a young child to perceive of God as a human. The concept of God being beyond human – that he is spiritual and eternal and holy? That’s a new one for older kids to make sense of.

And here’s another change: older kids exercise more leadership over their own lives. Young children make very few meaningful decisions for themselves. But older elementary kids get much greater latitude to decide who they’ll be and how they’ll act and how they’ll spend their time. And this is good – it is the birth of autonomy, which will someday lead them into life as an adult, no longer dependent on parental oversight. (Some preteen ministry colleagues of mine refer to this necessary stage as “Letting Go of the Bike.”) But, one of the skills needed to handle autonomy is the ability to discern good leaders from bad leaders. “Who should I follow?” is a key developmental step – it is the art of self-leadership. Older kids and adolescents are bombarded with cues about “how to be”: social cues, academic cues, family cues, cultural cues, internal emotional cues. It’s bewildering. Obeying God is suddenly no longer as simple as just obeying Mom and Dad.

I believe that to minister (literally, to serve or to meet the needs of) this age group, we ought to encourage and allow kids to bring God out of the box, out from the packaging he resided in when they were young children, and to meet, experience, relate, and walk with him in a new way. I don’t dismiss childhood faith; but neither do I rest on it. Young kids, for instance, say some pretty cute things about God. But what 10-year-old wants to be known for the cute things he used to say when he was five?

So, can kids outgrow God? In an actual sense, no. Of course God is big enough for all of our lives, and is always several steps ahead of us. But in a practical sense, yes. If we’re not diligent to push kids to grow in their faith – just as we would encourage them at this age to grow in athletic potential or grow in knowledge or grow in new experiences – then their faith will be immature as they grow right past it. I can’t help but think of a 9th grade boy I once led in a high school small group. We had just met, but it was evident he was attending youth group in body only. As he explained, “I figure I pretty much know everything there is to know about God.” How wrong he was, and how sadly his life unfolded in the years that followed, when he reached the point of his greatest need, yet God wasn’t even on the radar screen.

I don’t know what exactly brought him to the point where he thought he “pretty much knew everything there was to know about God,” but I suspect the culprit may have been one of the following:

• Church programs for kids that were boring
• Church programs that too closely resembled school
• Programming that mistook fervor (“Scream for Jesus!”) for spiritual depth
• Adults who talked too much and listened too little
• Music intended to glorify God but that was too childish to work
• Too-simple, pat answers to his questions

We will not let that happen! Growth is God’s intention for us. And growth implies change. An acorn is destined to become a shoot. A shoot is destined to become a baby oak. A young oak, while pleasing to the eye, is not meant to stop there, but to become a mighty, tall tree. In the same way, the Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” All kids want to grow up. (Yes, I know: if only we could convince them how great it is to be a kid!) We owe it to them to introduce and re-introduce them to the God who’s big enough for the future.

A Royal Myth

Quick question: If a couple lives together before they get married, does this increase or decrease the chance of later divorcing? If you said “increase”, you’re right: studies show that cohabitation does not ensure marital success, particularly if the reason for living together is to “test the waters” before marriage. Now, someone needs to tell Piers Morgan.

The CNN host, who took over Larry King’s timeslot, was interviewing actress Jane Seymour on the royal wedding of Wiliam and Kate last week when he made the observation that William’s parents were 13 years apart in age, and that because of Diana’s inexperience (read between the lines here), this doomed the relationship. Whereas, he continued, Kate and William faced a much brighter future because they’d lived together already. Times have changed, he observed, and this is for the better: William and Kate are protected from the buyer’s remorse that afflicted Williams’ dad.

It’s a nice theory for why Charles and Di didn’t work out, and it’s utterly false. That is, apart from that royal match that turned into a royal mess (and who will ever know precisely what went wrong?), cohabitation simply does not immunize couples against later difficulties in their marriage. The idea that “test driving” a relationship ensures a better marriage is a myth.

But it’s a persistent myth, in part because it’s easier to acquiesce to the culture than to be counter-cultural, and because beliefs help us organize our world. If we are determined to believe that humans are getting smarter and modernity is trending us toward greater happiness and peace, even in our relationships, then believing the myth of premarital cohabitation fits. As the thinking goes, of course it’s better for couples to live together before they get married – and that happens to be the way things are going anyhow.

We don’t believe them because they’re myths; we believe them because they work for us. And that’s unfortunate, because they cause us to buy into what will in fact make us less happy in our relationships.

Here are three other persistent myths that I think oppress families in their effort to raise mature, emotionally-socially-spiritually well adjusted kids:

“Parents and teenage kids are bound to be at odds.” This is another way of saying, “Parenting a teenager is war.” I wholeheartedly disagree, and the more families I meet where that isn’t the case, the more harmful I believe this myth is. Parents who buy it adopt a warlike stance, dreading their kids growing up (when they should be welcoming it and celebrating it) and expecting the worst from their kid because, after all, “teenagers are just a pain.” This line of reasoning has got to go. Kids – of all ages – need their parents. It’s just that as they get older, they need them in different ways. We intuitively grasp that preschoolers need not be parented as infants are, and that grade-schoolers can do more for themselves than when they were younger; why must burgeoning autonomy in the last part of childhood – adolescence – feared?

“Everyone is bound to rebel/Everyone will have a Prodigal Son experience.” Is this true? It certainly wouldn’t seem so from reading the New Testament, including the passage where that story appears. Luke 15 makes more of a statement about the Father – that his love will never be exhausted, that he rejoices when a sinner repents – than it does about us. And why would Paul and the other NT letter writers bother to exhort their recipients to grow, to persevere, to avoid sinful behavior, if straying from the Lord was the norm, even expected? That doesn’t wash, but this myth causes us to shrug when kids begin to make poor choices or surround themselves with bad influences. We can promote better alternatives for them, and we should believe the best in them. To do otherwise is a bad gamble.

“It’s really no big deal if kids leave the church after graduating high school – someday they’ll come back.” This one’s related to the previous one, but it’s demonstrably untrue. Those who walk away from their faith while in college – either because the seed was never planted while they were in our care or the plant never took root or because the world lured them away – are by and large not coming back to churches. Those who are usually do so after they’ve gotten married and had children. In the meantime, the critical formative years of late adolescence and early adulthood are shaped by the priorities and values of the secular world. Think of it: how many life-shaping decisions did you make between the ages of 18 and 28? And how many of those decisions would you have made differently if God had been in the picture? It won’t do for us to mortgage kids’ futures by adopting an “Eh,” stance when it comes to their spiritual growth. Being firmly rooted in the faith is an imperative for kids before they leave high school. No, we can’t force it and shouldn’t try. But if we’re not giving our best efforts to come alongside kids while we have the chance, we’re missing the golden opportunity.

The Apostle Paul didn’t shrug off the responsibility or urgency of nurturing those he’d led to Christ. To the church at Corinth, he wrote, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some,” to the Ephesians and the Colossians he urged, “Make the most of every opportunity.” You do not see him saying, “Now that you have Christ, I fully expect that you will abandon everything I’ve taught you, return to your former lives, and then maybe possibly come back to him in the end – so I’m not worried.” No – Paul believed that redemption was an all-consuming work and that growth and maturity should be expected.

What is our expectation when God is infused in the life of the family? The Bible teaches us to be realistic about humans’ potential – we are fallen and incomplete, after all – but not pessimistic. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” When parents believe rebellion and abandoning faith is a sure stop on their kid’s life journey, and when churches ratify these myths, we are aiming too low – a royal whiff.

A Royal Myth

Quick question: If a couple lives together before they get married, does this increase or decrease the chance of later divorcing? If you said “increase”, you’re right: studies show that cohabitation does not ensure marital success, particularly if the reason for living together is to “test the waters” before marriage. Now, someone needs to tell Piers Morgan.

The CNN host, who took over Larry King’s timeslot, was interviewing actress Jane Seymour on the royal wedding of Wiliam and Kate last week when he made the observation that William’s parents were 13 years apart in age, and that because of Diana’s inexperience (read between the lines here), this doomed the relationship. Whereas, he continued, Kate and William faced a much brighter future because they’d lived together. Times have changed, he observed, and this is for the better: William and Kate are protected from the buyer’s remorse that afflicted Williams’ dad.

It’s a nice theory for why Charles and Di didn’t work out, and it’s utterly false. That is, apart from that royal match that turned into a royal mess (and who will ever know precisely what went wrong?), cohabitation simply does not immunize couples against later difficulties in their marriage. The idea that “test driving” a relationship ensures a better marriage is a myth.

But it’s a persistent myth, in part because it’s easier to acquiesce to the culture than to be counter-cultural, and because beliefs help us organize our world. If we are determined to believe that humans are getting smarter and modernity is trending us toward greater happiness and peace, even in our relationships, then believing the myth of premarital cohabitation fits. As the thinking goes, of course it’s better for couples to live together before they get married – and that happens to be the way things are going anyhow.

We don’t believe them because they’re myths; we believe them because they work for us. And that’s unfortunate, because they cause us to buy into what will in fact make us less happy in our relationships.

Here are three other persistent myths that I think oppress families in their effort to spiritually nurture kids:

“Parents and teenage kids are bound to be at odds.” This is another way of saying, “Parenting a teenager is war.” I wholeheartedly disagree, and the more families I meet where that isn’t the case, the more harmful I believe this myth is. Parents who buy it adopt a warlike stance, dreading their kids growing up (when they should be welcoming it and celebrating it) and expecting the worst from their kid because, after all, “teenagers are just a pain.” This line of reasoning has got to go. Kids – of all ages – need their parents. It’s just that as they get older, they need them in different ways. We intuitively grasp that preschoolers need not be parented as infants are, and that grade-schoolers can do more for themselves than when they were younger; why is burgeoning autonomy in the last part of childhood – adolescence – feared?

“Everyone is bound to rebel/Everyone will have a Prodigal Son experience.” Is this true? It certainly wouldn’t seem so from reading the New Testament, including the passage where that story appears. Luke 15 makes more of a statement about the Father – that his love will never be exhausted, that he rejoices when a sinner repents – than it does about us. And why would Paul and the other NT letter writers bother to exhort their recipients to grow, to persevere, to avoid sinful behavior, if straying from the Lord was the norm, even expected? That doesn’t wash, but this myth causes us to shrug when kids begin to make poor choices or surround themselves with bad influences. We can promote better alternatives for them, and we should believe the best in them. To do otherwise is a bad gamble.

“It’s really no big deal if kids leave the church after graduating high school – someday they’ll come back.” This one’s related to the previous one, but it’s demonstrably untrue. Those who walk away from their faith while in college – either because the seed was never planted while they were in our care or the plant never took root or because the world lured them away – are by and large not coming back to churches. Those who are usually do so after they’ve gotten married and had children. In the meantime, the critical formative years of late adolescence and early adulthood are shaped by the priorities and values of the secular world. Think of it: how many life-shaping decisions did you make between the ages of 18 and 28? And how many of those decisions would you have made differently if God had been in the picture? It won’t do for us to mortgage kids’ futures by adopting an “Eh,” stance when it comes to their spiritual growth. Being firmly rooted in the faith is an imperative for kids before they leave high school. No, we can’t force it and shouldn’t try. But if we’re not giving our best efforts to come alongside kids while we have the chance, we’re missing the golden opportunity.

The Apostle Paul didn’t shrug off the responsibility or urgency of nurturing those he’d led to Christ. To the church at Corinth, he wrote, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some,” to the Ephesians and the Colossians he urged, “Make the most of every opportunity.” You do not see him saying, “Now that you have Christ, I fully expect that you will abandon everything I’ve taught you, return to your former lives, and then maybe possibly come back to him in the end – so I’m not worried.” No – Paul believed that redemption was an all-consuming work and that growth and maturity should be expected.

What is our expectation when God is infused in the life of the family? The Bible teaches us to be realistic about humans’ potential – we are fallen and incomplete, after all – but not pessimistic. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” When parents believe rebellion and faithlessness is a sure stop on their kid’s life journey, and when churches ratify these myths, we are aiming too low – a royal whiff.

Something New

Next weekend we begin piloting something new in 4th-6th grade: an automated check-in system. The benefits to you will ultimately be a streamlined check-in process. The benefits to us will be better tracking of kids' attendance - and a streamlined check-in process. Our hope is that sometime in the not-too-distant future, long check-in lines (for all ages) will be a thing of the past.

To get the system off the ground, we're asking for your help. For starters, anytime you implement a new system - especially if it's technology-based - there are bound to be hiccups. This system will rely on our computers, network, and printers running as they should. While there's no reason to believe they won't, tech problems have a way of surfacing at the 11th hour.

Secondly, the easiest way kids & families will access the check-in system is by entering their phone number. We can also look up kids by last name, but phone number is far faster. So - does your kid know your phone number?

And which number? Good question. The answer is, whichever number(s) we have on file for you. Depending on when you first registered your child (which could have been many years ago!), we may have a home phone, cell phone, or both listed for you. Not to worry - we will have lists of all the kids cross-referenced with the phone number we have on file. But ultimately, the phone number will be the quickest way to check-in.

In the beginning, anyhow. Well down the road our hope is to allow you to use a barcode, like you might at the library or the gym, to check-in. Before we get there, we need to iron out any wrinkles in the system as it is.

Here's what the "new" check-in system will look like (and remember, this is only being implemented in 4th-6th grade to begin with; a full children's ministry rollout is a few months away):

1. Kids will arrive and give the check-in volunteer the last seven digits of their phone number.

2. A screen for your family will pop-up, showing any kids in 4th-6th grade.

3. The check-in volunteer will click next to the name of the kids checking in, and -

4. At the same time, the printer will spit out a fully printed nametag, containing the kid's name, the age group, and their small group number.

And that's it! Quick and efficient, the program also creates electronic records for us, so we can look back at individual attendance records and patterns. Currently we have a team of volunteers who takes the paper check-in packets from the weekends and enters the attendance into our database by hand. Needless to say, we are eager to find a quicker way to do that.

Next weekend, the automated system will be set up for 4th-6th graders in the lobby outside our room. If kids forget to come upstairs, they can still do paper check-in downstairs. Beginning the weekend of March 19-20, we hope to have the system fully implemented & operational upstairs.

Again, your patience with us during a period of change is much appreciated. We know that this upgrade will be a great thing in the long run.