Part IV: Family fun times
Chapter 11: Making time for play
The main way for children to investigate their environment and make sense of the world is through play. When you watch children closely as they play, you can see they’re doing so much more than just having fun. I’m a strong advocate of the importance of play in a child’s life. I think it’s very easy to become too serious about life and have high expectations of children. Childhood to me seems to be getting shorter. The coining of the ‘tweens’ stage of childhood seems to be an example of how children are growing up much more quickly than in previous generations. Children are now given homework early in primary school and the volume of work consumes time they would have once spent playing. ...
