📘 Part 3: Children and activities

This episode's vocabulary

Range (noun) - a set of similar things.

Bouldering (noun) - an activity in which people climb up and over rocks or artificial rock walls at fairly low heights without using ropes.

Nature connectedness (noun) - individual differences in what people feel, think and experience in their sense of connection with the natural environment.

Bent (noun) - a natural skill.

Formality (noun) - something that has to be done but has no real importance.

To divvy (verb) - to share something between different people or groups.

Overwhelming (adj.) - difficult to fight against.

Temptation (noun) - the wish to do or have something that you know you should not do or have.

Helicopter parenting (noun) - a way of taking care of a child that involves a parent being very closely involved with their child's life, especially their education, and trying to control it too much.

Vast (adj.) - extremely big.

Dependency (noun) - a situation in which you need something or someone and are unable to continue normally without them.

To impede (verb) - to make it more difficult for something to happen or more difficult for someone to do something.

Wrap someone (up) in cotton wool (idiom) - to try to protect someone too carefully.

Questions and Answers

M: What activities do children often do in your country?

R: Probably not much different to what they do elsewhere, frankly. You often see them playing in the park, though increasingly, video games and other digital sports are a thing. So they might be outdoors less frequently. But the range of activities is still wide. I mean, the bouldering place near me has lots of kids in it quite regularly, for example.

M: What role do outdoor activities play in a child's development?

R: Oh, quite major ones, actually. You really shouldn't ask a teacher this question. First of all, they develop a sense of nature connectedness. Which is useful for regulating emotions and stress. I also read a paper once about the development of the awareness of risk in young people as well, when they were doing these kinds of activities. There are a few other things as well, but those are the ones that stick out the most at the moment.

M: What are the differences between activities at home and at school?

R: Actually, I was about to say that the ones at school have more of an educational bent to them. But that's probably not true, since kids learn things at home all the time, like cooking from their relatives. So it's not that. Probably the difference is the level of structure or formality involved since at home, you have more freedom to pursue the interest and try things out. Whereas at school resources are shared and time is divvied up according to the will of the teacher.

M: How have children's games changed in the past few decades?

R: I suppose the role of technology is greater, but the elements of competition and cooperation are still there. So on the one hand, they've changed a lot in they're format or expression, but the rules are, well, they've remained in place.

M: Do you think technology affects the way children play today?

R: Well, there's an overwhelming temptation to say yes, because of all the moral panic around video games and social media affecting kids' brains and making them more anxious and aggressive. But to be honest, people have been having meltdowns about young people for 1000s of years. And we're still here and doing reasonably well. So I don't think so. I don't think it does significantly.

M: Should parents strictly regulate their children's playtime activities?

R: Oh, God, absolutely not. Well, I don't think young people are in a unique kind of crisis. Helicopter parenting is definitely not good for the vast majority of people, and creates a weird kind of dependency that could impede the development of young people and some of their social skills later in life. Of course, you should protect your kids from clear and present danger, but not to the extent you're wrapping them in cotton wool, that's not going to be good for anybody.