WEBVTT
00:00:00.599 --> 00:00:37.369
Hey, folks. Ned here. Like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly, all the young people you know, to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you like to, in part because we tend to revert to old ways. We hear a great suggestion, or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before. It isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, the Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child, a workbook.
00:00:38.329 --> 00:01:06.810
Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books,*The Self-Driven Child* and*What Do You Say* full of reflections and exercises to do yourself, with your partner, and with your children. We want to help make the self-driven child way your way, so that you can more often than not be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be. If you get a chance, order a copy. Bill and I and your kids would be grateful.
00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:07.590
The
00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:28.790
evidence is that kids who play in kindergarten do better academically by by the end of first grade. Kids who have a heavily academic first grade, insane idea that if we get kids to do academic stuff younger and younger ages. They'll be ahead of other kids, and and we'll be ahead of other countries. It's just such a colossal waste of time.
00:01:29.840 --> 00:02:08.400
Welcome to the Self-Driven Child Podcast. I'm your host Ned Johnson and co-author with Dr. William Stixjuv of the books The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids more control over their lives, and what do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance, and a happy home. Let's play. Is there an invitation that any child would rather receive than the simple but oh so powerful invitation to come play? Instead of viewing playtime as a reward for good behavior or luxury to be squeezed in only when time allows, we should prioritize and
00:02:08.460 --> 00:02:48.039
absolutely essential for the healthy development of kids and their brains. If we, when we limit play, we are stripping away the critical component that trains young brains to cope with anxiety and fosters the resilience and motivation to tackle hard things. How does play help kids develop autonomy, stress tolerance, resilience, and motivation? What does play do for kids that academic instruction cannot? Today, I speak with my friend, colleague, and partner and scribe co-author Dr. William Stickstreet, as we answer these questions, discuss the neuroscience of play and the important takeaways from Dr.
00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:48.039
Peter Gray's seminal new book,
00:02:48.669 --> 00:02:53.199
How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety.
00:02:54.189 --> 00:02:57.699
I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the Self-Driven Child Podcast.
00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:09.930
Hello, Bill. Hey, Ned. Thank you for joining me to play around with the ideas of play. We, of course, both are big fans of Dr.
00:03:10.169 --> 00:04:00.159
Peter Gray and his new book out, Restoring Childhood, and and were fortunate to get the opportunity to have an early read on that book. So we've known it's been coming for a while, and at our endorsement to what is for us a really, really important book, and as you know, I got a chance to talk with him last week as a guest on the podcast. And one of the things that you and I were talking about offline was about how incredibly important play is, not just for all the ways that he talks about so so importantly, but also for for us foundationally for developing a healthy sense of control, and so it strikes me, and I love your thoughts on this, just as a place to start, that when we deprive children of play, we're not only kind of you know wrecking their childhood, but we may also
00:04:00.400 --> 00:05:07.439
kind of be wrecking their adulthood. Is that a fair way to think about that? Well, it seems to me that for hundreds of 1000s, millions of years, young mammals play to learn how to be adults, and in some cultures, they play, and that's all they do is play until they're 13. and And I think that you're right. It's something that's such a basic, primal thing. If we screw it up, we're going to pay for it. That's that's the way human brains develop. Yeah, and you know, I and I right before we published the self-driven child, right before we turned it in, I saw an article by Peter Gray where he was he was pointing to Gene Twangy's research, who found this dramatic decrease in mental health over a period of decades, and also over the same period of time, this increasingly external locus of control, where people started to feel less control of their own lives, and he said the secret that the thing that connects them is play between, like I think between like. 1981, 1981, and 1997, 25% decrease in play. It wasn't just since the
00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:08.100
smartphone, right?
00:05:08.490 --> 00:05:31.220
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Video games, but dramatic decrease in play. And then I read about my first year in graduate school, going back in 1978 or 79. I I read this this article on the evolutionary importance of play, and it just it just stuck with me. And so, yeah, I think that the play is crucial for brain development, and we know that,
00:05:31.730 --> 00:05:35.480
and relationship development, and skill development, and just for
00:05:35.778 --> 00:05:56.288
for everything that we want. Through my grandchildren, had no technology at all until about six, and then and all they do still they're 13 and 10 and seven. All they do is play when they're younger. The first time they went to a dentist was really stressful. They came home. They played dentist.
00:05:53.319 --> 00:06:11.968
That's they kind of work through emotions, and and I think that play is just such an important part for cognitive development, for emotional development. Yeah, I described Peter as a kind of a national treasure for keeping this. He says kids need less school and more playing. I think he's right.
00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:42.040
I told him, by the way, reading his book or rereading it for the prepare for the podcast, it struck me. It felt to me a little bit like his energy is a little bit like Fred Rogers. I mean, it's so insightful and so warm and so respectful of children. Yeah, in ways that I I don't feel like our society as much as we say we cherish children. I don't think that we actually respect children as much as we should,
00:06:42.488 --> 00:06:44.288
yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's right.
00:06:44.709 --> 00:06:54.790
Let me ask this then. I want. I wanted to frame up the kind of next part of the conversation. I wanted to walk through a little bit, just remind listeners, and please read the book if you if you can.
00:06:52.000 --> 00:07:09.779
It's really, really wonderful about what Peter and what other researchers on play, how they define play, and as I understand the kind of four characteristics, and again, you know, then I love your thoughts on how this ties into the the developing the sense of control.
00:07:10.259 --> 00:07:16.949
One is that first is that it's chosen and directed by the players themselves. Two, that it's intrinsically motivated.
00:07:17.610 --> 00:07:25.639
Three, that it's structured by mental rules, which I thought was a really interesting word-not just rules, but mental rules-and fourth, that it's creative and often highly original.
00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:28.250
Yeah.
00:07:26.120 --> 00:08:31.339
Well, it's just such a huge difference between that kind of child-led play that that has those characteristics, and being on a teen adult-led play or electronic play that's programmed, and just in terms of the development of sense of control, the way we think about this sense of control and the kind the difference at least two important strands of research that led us to the importance of sense of control. One was was the research on autonomy and agency, the sense that I can make decisions about my life, I can guide my life according to my own values, and the second was research on the learned helplessness research, and Steve Marc showing that if young organisms have the chance to control strength and stressful, it changes their brain in a way they have enough experience with it that it becomes almost impossible to stress. And so you think about, and that one thing I love about what Peter says is that it's a part of play is being independent, and nobody's telling you what to do. You're structuring so developing the three core executive functions.
00:08:32.269 --> 00:08:48.850
The first inhibition is the first really inhibit working memory, holding the rules in your head while you're playing, and and what you caught is your flexibility. These three cores that you have to use all three right in play. And can I
00:08:48.909 --> 00:08:56.860
jump in there for one second? Please. One of the things that that I think about that that that inhibition right is such a big deal, and we
00:08:58.239 --> 00:08:58.418
and it's
00:08:58.448 --> 00:09:11.249
really you know it's self control. I mean you know you're you're upset. You're playing the game. You know I get I get tagged out, or you know I I make a bad play, or the other team wins, and I'm mad, right?
00:09:07.229 --> 00:09:20.158
And I want to you know I want to kick the ball over the fence, or tell Bill how mad I am, or whatever, whatever. And then I really have to think, you know, do I do it or not, right?
00:09:17.458 --> 00:09:39.408
Because I'd feel a whole lot better if I told Bill how you know much I thought he was a cheater, right? But on the other hand, unlike this team playing that team, where I can tell you off if I'm not going to see you until next year, but if you're the neighborhood kid with whom I need to play, I need you to be there. Otherwise, we can't feel the you know game of kickball or wiffle ball or whatever, right?
00:09:39.828 --> 00:09:53.918
And so I'm stuck between my current drive to want to tell you how known I am, and the inhibition that I need to exhibit to exert, in order that I don't lose you as a future teammate, playmate, whatever.
00:09:50.798 --> 00:10:11.818
And where it seems to me that when it's a ref, I don't have any need to control myself, lest I think the ref is going to call me. But if I think I can, you know, trip you without getting called, I can. I go ahead and do it, right? It's just it's just part of the game. Where if you're if you're going to be a playmate with me, if I do that, I may lose you as a playmate forever.
00:10:12.690 --> 00:10:43.899
That's a great point. I mean, and I think that these these three core executive functions. They call them the core executive functions because they're the ones that develop in the first year of life, you see, little kids having the ability to wait a little bit longer before they start crying for their mother, that kind of thing, or the working memory that Piaget's classic studies where an infant is crawling towards a toy and put a berry in front of it, and at six months, this toy went away. Okay, it stops at night months. He holds he holds he holds it in his working memory.
00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:47.080
The image of the toy and goes around the barrier, you know.
00:10:47.289 --> 00:10:58.210
And the flexibility piece that you see see infants try to one way or they shift to something else. And play is the basic way that kids develop those three core executives. And I love the
00:10:58.330 --> 00:11:40.759
cognitive flexibility, especially. I mean, one of the things that Peter talked about is in the world of play of child-driven play, rules are flexible; they're negotiable, right? And when it's adult-driven, these are rules, Ned. You just have to follow them. You you got to learn to follow the rules, right? We say that all the time, right? But if you think about this in terms of both cognitive flexibility and also facility with with relationships, we bend the rules all the time. And I remember when I was probably in middle school, and my friends are neighborhood kids. We were on a tear of playing wiffle ball, and we would play wiffle ball. I mean, for a million hours, and the parents didn't mind because we weren't going to break anyone we can do with wiffle ball.
00:11:40.850 --> 00:11:43.899
Right on and on it goes, right.
00:11:40.850 --> 00:12:41.139
And then there'd be, you know, John's mom. John, you got kind of got for dinner. Like, no, no, dude, one more play, one more, you know. And we would cajole, and we would badger, and we would bribe, and we make promises we had no intention of keeping. We would do everything we could to figure out how could we get him to stick around, you know, to tell your mom whatever for one more inning or one more game, which maybe was a little bit conniving, but it was interesting because we were a lot of cognitive flexibility there. But we also working. You also had to get really good at paying attention to where is this kid, what matters to him, where is his relationship with his mom, how much have we made her mad three times before? You know, I mean, and and you're you're you're weighing a lot in your head, all in the service of trying to get that game to go longer, but also like all negotiation, knowing that we're going to do this again tomorrow, right? Yeah. So we push as much as we can, but we realize it's too much, and he really does have to go. Then we okay, then we accept it, right?
00:12:41.679 --> 00:13:50.529
Yeah, it's really well put. And I'm just thinking that in relation to that, what one of the points that Peter makes is pretty obvious: is play is when kids feel the happiness. How many of you listening to this? Some of your best memories were summer nights where you're playing with other kids. If you had the experience playing with other kids in the neighborhood, and it started to get dark, and just hope you keep playing till the last possible minute. And he makes the point that he makes the point. Okay, play is not only something that makes kids the happiest, but it's also right. We're talking, and I just and I'm just thinking that lately we've been pointing to seed mayor's research with with the rats and and being able to control a situation and the way it changes the brain to become hard and stress, and we said really it's only through being able to having the experience of handling something stressful and being able to manage it that you develop the confidence, and that's what Peter talks about in some of the not just dramatic play, but the kind of exploration and the the kind of risk taking that kids trying stuff out with no adults around it, and kids tend to be pretty good judges of what safe or what's not.
00:13:51.399 --> 00:14:09.120
I love that point, and you know, and I was thinking about that both well, two ways, both physical risks and social risks, and one of the things that Peter, you know, and experts on play generally make is that play, by definition, should have some risk, right?
00:14:06.090 --> 00:16:11.460
You know, to your point, if if you know, from a developmental perspective, you play at you know fighting, you play at you know climbing, you play at all these things to develop adult skills. And rare is the child who, first time he goes to a playground, climbs to the top of the stairs, and swan dives off the top of it because most people have the self-preservation, right? But play should have some risk. I mean, you you push yourself higher and higher on the swing and say, "Can you jump off? And you want to jump off the top and feel like you're flying, but you're also thinking, "I don't really want to break my leg, right? And that by play, we keep pushing ourselves and taking on risks that are a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And Jonathan High curiously had a great social media piece where you know it used to be the superintendent or principal of school would say, you know, if we didn't have a couple of broken arms, you know, a semester kind of something's not right, you know. And life is risky. So often the work of of loving adults is to keep. Make them feel safe, but in constantly keeping kids safe and sanitized, we deprive them the opportunity to learn to feel brave. And when I think about play, two things: I love to climb. I love to climb. I've always loved to climb, and I can literally remember being age five at the top of some tree, and the wind was blowing, and really traveling what felt like 10 feet in the air as I'm going along with the branches. In hindsight, I'm thinking, what were my parents thinking? And then I remember, frankly, that I have an identical twin brother, and so they might have been thinking, well, we've got to, you know, we've got a pair. I doubt if they're. I'd kind of doubt that that was their thinking, but but I also think they you know they watched me presumably you know I can remember climbing when I was two I climbed out of my crib and into my brother's crib maybe year and a half and so I've always and so I think they had confidence that I could do this but I also had confidence because I had done these things that are scary now what's interesting we talked about this in the self-driven child. There is some literature that people who fall out of a tree before age nine are fantastically less likely to have fear of heights as adults than kids who don't.
00:16:12.210 --> 00:16:19.110
And I had certainly my scrapes that didn't fall from the top of a tree that was 100 feet tall.
00:16:15.659 --> 00:16:34.129
But we take those physical risks and we push ourselves and we test ourselves. The other thing it strikes me is that from a social perspective, you can say you're a little guy or you're not that athletic, and you want to go play the game, and you're sitting there watching. How big are these other kids? How are they playing with each other?
00:16:34.639 --> 00:17:04.259
Are they being mean to it? Does someone look like a bully? And I can absolutely remember going into social situations feeling I'm not sure whether I belong here or not. I don't actually know that this is safe, and I have to take that risk. You know that someone's going to be mean, or I'm going to get you know pushed down in the dirt, or run over in football by some kid who weighs twice what I do. And the act of having to assess that is a really important life skill.
00:16:59.379 --> 00:17:18.869
If you go back to everything supervised and organized and refereed, well, you don't have a need to develop that. You spend all of your time. Then you, well, your training, I guess, is to wait for the whistle or to go and run to someone to save you, as opposed to situational awareness and paying attention to what's risking yourself.
00:17:19.140 --> 00:17:39.079
Yeah, and Peter uses the words confidence and courage. He said,"This is the only way kids could really develop the confidence and courage that they can master stuff. I'm just I'm thinking the story and the self-driven child of the kid who parents begged him not to skateboard down the steep hill. He did it anyway.
00:17:36.529 --> 00:17:39.079
Full evil can
00:17:39.140 --> 00:17:40.640
evil, right? Yeah, broke
00:17:40.670 --> 00:17:44.349
his arm on the way to the hospital. The kid says it was totally worth it.
00:17:45.789 --> 00:18:01.829
I think in the book he's coming back from the hospital. If I if I in my head I don't know if it's true, in my head both wrists are broken, right? Because he's he's done that right, and now he's all casted up, and in the backs of the car going totally worth it.
00:17:57.910 --> 00:18:02.279
Which my seven-year-old grandson,
00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:08.369
like when he's five, he he broke something. The guy in the emergency room said, "This won't be the last bone he breaks.
00:18:08.819 --> 00:18:09.509
Is that right?
00:18:09.900 --> 00:18:25.400
Yeah, I'm also just thinking. You know, we one of the chapters in our second book. What do you say? We talk about Mister Rogers. Is it his story as a child where he's walking on a high wall, and his mother, his grandmother, begging him to come down. Be careful, be careful,
00:18:25.430 --> 00:19:31.789
be careful! Yeah, and just the confidence that gave him the kind of sense of courage that that gave him that it was that he could take that risk, and the confidence he could master. How life changing that experience was for him! It's such a great point, you know. And one of the things we talk about all the time, of course, is is Peter Mayer's work, and what he talks about is again, you have a challenging experience, you feel a sense of control. It wires the brain to be stress tolerant and develop the sense that I can handle this. What he talks about in that research, as you know, is that they can then put a rat back in the same difficult situation where he believes he has control, but actually now in in hidden ways remove the control, but he has the sense of control and he still has the stress tolerance, and so Mayer says at a neurological level this is what a sense of control means, and so young Fred Rogers may not have had the sense that I can jump off this thing and learn to fly, or that I'll never get hurt. That may not have been true, but if he had the sense that I can handle this, right?
00:19:28.400 --> 00:21:59.200
Then, and as Mayor points out, it generalizes a difficult situation in one place where where things go poorly makes you confident to handle other situations because you're not wiring for that situation, you're wiring the brain for situations. I mean, I can. I mean, I think of all the. I mean, I think people are listening to this. I mean, think about the scrapes that you got in, the tangles that you got in and out of by yourself, by yourself, maybe with the help of friend, but not someone. Know a parent pulling you out of the deep end, as it were. It's those experiences that were kind of near you know a brush with danger that give you the confidence you can handle hard things now in ways that your kids who haven't had those experiences yet don't yet have that sense that they can handle hard things because they simply don't have the experience. And I keep going back to this idea that we have, I mean, one of the reasons that it strikes me that there is so much anxiety in children, in addition to they don't get enough play, they don't get enough sleep, is that we have become such a litigious society, and safety above all else, and so we've sanitized playgrounds and I mean everything, everything. It's not that I want kids to face you know life threatening risks, but by constantly saying I've got to keep you safe, I've got to keep you safe, I've got to keep you safe, we are also unintentionally giving messages to children that two you need to be afraid, you need to be afraid, and you're not capable of keeping yourself safe, and that's not intended by any loving parent. Look, I'm I'm no different than I get. Oh my God, right? But we really want to be thoughtful. And my favorite line in the entire book is when he writes, "Our job as adults and parents is to protect children from Unseen dangers because of things that we know that they don't know. But when Fred Rogers is on the top of it, he is aware that if he falls off the top of a tall wall, that that is going to hurt. Right? That is not an unseen danger to him. I remember I was hiking years ago, and I'm coming down from the top of this mountain, and there's a parents with their maybe five year old daughter, and this kid has scaled all the way up this. I mean, this is a long, long climb that she's made, and they're within. I mean, they're they're 95% there, and one of the parents behind her saying, "No, be careful, be careful, be careful.
00:21:59.319 --> 00:22:24.410
And I thought, "Is this is what she's put up with for the last hour and a half? She's made it right, and at this point, you know, is this rock different from the one before? I mean, oh my goodness! And her focus is not on being safe; it's on your constant admonition to watch watch out. So, is she really looking at the thing, or is she listening to your words, and yeah, yeah. One of my favorite games.
00:22:25.819 --> 00:22:45.490
My my two of my grandchildren probably three or four years. They have wonderful, wonderful parents, and when they'd be climbing, be safe here, be careful, kind of thing. And so what I do is I say that they can't walk up that slide. It's way too dangerous, and they start to say, "Oh, please, please, you're making me too nervous. I gotta get down.
00:22:45.609 --> 00:22:58.329
And they they can walk up the slide, or they think that I love it. We're challenging, and then they just laugh and laugh and laugh, and I I pretend to plead with them. You're gonna give me a heart attack, please, please don't. And they they beg me.
00:22:58.630 --> 00:23:27.890
They do it sometimes. It's so fun for them to take these risks, and I went to a park about a month ago with my grandchildren in Chicago, and and the park it says it's this playground is designed for children six to 12. My five year old grandchild could do all the stuff that that you could do at age five, and it's just that they and turns out that they make these these playgrounds safer hasn't made them safe. You can still fall and you can still break your arm back and stuff.
00:23:28.099 --> 00:23:37.759
But use them the way they're intended. Then they're climbing the top of something something that wasn't intended to be climbed. You know. Yeah, I felt when I finished reading Peter's book that this is one of the best books I've ever read. I
00:23:38.269 --> 00:23:38.750
agree with you,
00:23:39.170 --> 00:23:51.190
and I I think that your point about overemphasis on safety. I mean, I read years ago that the best way to to help kids stay safe is to tell them as they get older.
00:23:51.190 --> 00:23:56.259
I mean, they're little. You know, you you got they don't know about. You said the unseen dangers. I don't
00:23:56.259 --> 00:23:57.759
know about cars coming around the corner, right?
00:23:58.210 --> 00:24:04.710
Yeah, especially once they're adolescence, you tell them I can't keep you sick. I can't watch you every second. I can't protect you from your dangers.
00:24:04.769 --> 00:24:17.640
And so you talk to them about how to keep themselves sick. You know, and and I think in my perspective, I think obviously we we see things pretty pretty similarly. But the idea is actually I don't.
00:24:17.700 --> 00:24:19.380
I'm taking my ball and leaving Bill.
00:24:21.539 --> 00:24:31.819
But I think that the idea that we want to treat kids respectfully, and part of that is is letting them know that I have confidence that you can keep yourself safe.
00:24:32.119 --> 00:25:19.259
Yeah, let's let's talk about if there's stuff that you're worried about, stuff that could be threatening to you. You want to talk about it? Let's brainstorm about it. But I do think that emphasis has shifted so much to do prioritizing safety. It's the same thing when we were working on the self-driven child. I was listening to a podcast about Alzheimer's, and that's where I I heard that even with elderly adults with Alzheimer's. If they have a choice about something, they do better, and and the idea is that we we way overemphasize that that could be dangerous because even when you're older, you still have that built in the primal drive for a sense of control, for sense of autonomy.
00:25:16.230 --> 00:25:26.660
I mean, I just think we talked about this sense of control being a basic biological and psychological need that they kind of that fuels evolution.
00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:43.660
You know, you see it in a four-month-old infant. It's so obvious by the time the kid's about one and says, "No way, you're the boss of me. As a two-year-old, you're terrible twos. You know, they're saying this is my life. You're the boss of me, and and it just drive.
00:25:40.220 --> 00:25:59.319
It's what drives adolescent development that that drive to independence. You know, and play is is one of the most important means for developing, for for utilizing, for for strengthening for this control. And we short circuit what it is that happens.
00:25:56.710 --> 00:25:59.319
Yeah,
00:25:59.710 --> 00:26:16.859
yeah. You know, it's interesting. I think I'm thinking about your point about executive functions. You know, the core executive functions, and then the the kind of higher level ones. You know, of of self assessment, self awareness, and and emotional flexibility, and and I just yeah, and planning right, all those kind of things.
00:26:14.640 --> 00:27:44.650
And I was sort of made a quick list of in my mind about things that are of of skills that children develop and really wiring in the brain that they develop through play, and so you think about when it's and quick reminder that by definition activities that are adult structured, adult monitored, adult organized, not play, not play. So you think about you know engineer monitor right right right thank you yes that so you think the play it's it's self selective right and think I maybe emphasize all the self right so it's self select you you have to you choose to join or or to quit right it's self organized it's self directed it's self or you know kid refereed right that the rules are made with other people, right? You make the rules; that the rules are flexible, and so you think about you know this is developing initiative and and motivation and communication negotiation skills. You're developing that sense of autonomy that we know is so important for for mental health, stress tolerance, solving their own problems. You know that that sense of you know competency, as Peter talked about, and emotional repair, and and all these things. When you think about going into adulthood, right? I do something. I'm a little selfish, and I'm not. I make my wife mad. Well, how do how do I pay attention to that and go back and fix that? You know, the sense that I I can solve my own problems. I mean, we have people at work where I think, well, they they're waiting for the next instruction. It's like, oh my goodness, you have a brain. I would really want you to use it.
00:27:44.650 --> 00:27:49.900
I don't want you to wait for instructions because I have my own things I have to deal with.
00:27:47.079 --> 00:28:00.549
And I feel in some ways that if kids could go to school back to the original idea of kindergarten, right, where they just go play for four hours and then have two hours of instruction, I think we get a lot more out of that time, including that instruction.
00:28:01.180 --> 00:28:24.019
Oh, I think many people feel that part of the reason that schools have been so many problems is that we've made kindergarten like the worst first grades, and it's just. I was talking years ago with with a relative of mine who is a who was teaching doing Teach for America. She was in an inner city school in Baltimore teaching fourth grade. At the beginning of the year, she found out there's only 110 minute recess.
00:28:24.170 --> 00:28:25.309
Oh my goodness! She
00:28:25.460 --> 00:28:47.440
she went to the preschool and she principals. How could there only be one recess? Well, we can't sacrifice instructional time to see if you can just cram stuff into kids' head all day. The other thing I've been thinking about, you know, is just the other day we've we've been saying and writing that the best neurological marker of resilience and also a sense of control
00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:48.160
is
00:28:48.849 --> 00:29:29.630
the strength of the connections between the prefrontal cortex, which can think logically and go into the past and future and solve problems, put things in perspective and calm yourself down when you start to get upset, and the amygdala, that very primitive part of the brain that senses reactive threat, the the strength of the connections is the best marker for resilience, and it's the neurological signature of a sense of control. And I just asked Gemini AI a couple days ago, what's the best neurological marker for resilience, and it says, "Well, it's the same. It's through the connection. It's the ability of you to stay in your right mind, be able to
00:29:30.140 --> 00:30:12.539
that'll be the stressful situation, and still have the front cortex regulate your stress response so that you're coping as opposed to panicking. And I'm just thinking about the things we're talking about that I've never seen any research on this play strengthen those connections, but it's got to. It has to, right? And when I when I think you know you you and I have a the talk we've been giving about school avoidance, right? And you know avoiding avoidance is. Of course, the major manifestation of anxiety, right? And so, if if you're deeply anxious about school, then it makes sense that you don't that you don't want to go.
00:30:10.019 --> 00:31:21.349
You want to avoid it. So, all the other people who are listening who have children who have, you know, stomach aches in the morning or headaches, and and it's always Monday through Friday, right? They don't have those headaches or stomachaches on Saturday morning, and one if there were more play at school, maybe they'd have a little bit more to look forward to. It's also, of course, a way, a natural way of stress relief, right? You know, this first part of my my day of math class was really intense for me, but then I get to go, you know, talk with Sally, or then I get to go jump rope, or then I get to go, you know, play tetherball or whatever. You know, it's currently on playgrounds for elementary schools today, and so you know this idea of stress and then stress recovery and stress and stress recovery. And this really plays into you know what you just shared, and as well as that work of Steve Mayer of it's something intense, and then you recover from it. And so it's curious that if there were more play for that stress recovery, we'd be wiring brains with that emotional resilience, which would make them better able to handle things, and importantly, to have the sense that I can handle this. Right, because when kids are avoiding, you know, it's it's it's not really the anxiety; it's it's avoiding it.
00:31:21.470 --> 00:31:35.029
That's that's the issue. And if they had the sense that if they develop that sense of control, they I can go to school. This is going to be blah because I hate dealing with this person or this tester or whatever happens to be. But it's going to be hard.
00:31:35.809 --> 00:31:36.680
But I can handle
00:31:37.220 --> 00:31:37.309
it.
00:31:37.489 --> 00:31:59.409
And it's just so curious, you know, the thing that is most enjoyable to kids by which they naturally willingly take risks could be the same thing. The really the the ingredients have been taken out of childhood that allows them to be less anxious, more resilient, more motivated in in the things the harder parts of life that we still think the kids have to do in going to school.
00:31:59.680 --> 00:33:03.359
Yeah, I gave a lecture on play. It was called Einstein Play. It was probably maybe 1517, years ago, something like this. A long time ago, and I was struck. The idea was that because at that time, kindergarten was becoming largely academic, and they were making all these changes to make life more boring and more stressful for for kids and teachers, and and I gave this lecture on play, and these preschool teachers came up afterwards and said, you know, we can dress kids up, do matty play, but they don't know what to do. And this is like 15 something between 1520 years ago. They didn't, they don't know what to do, and even by that time, that kind of natural that built into by nature, and and and I don't I don't remember kind of what it was that the fact was by at that time, but this has been going on for a while, where kids have been playing less and just doing less of what nature has always wanted them to do.
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:17.369
Well, you know, and the thing that I I love that that Einstein played. I also, if I understand from reading a little bit about his history, he also had a job where he had incredible amount of time to just think. Yeah, to just think.
00:33:17.430 --> 00:33:56.500
You know, you don't come up with a paradigm Shifting world-changing theory, you know, in five or 10 minutes between classes, right, or between tasks, my wife's school just changed their schedule, and they have this these block schedules, but they also have 10 minutes of passing time from class to class, which feels like why do they tend 10 minutes? And you know, I was just I was sort of amazed that they did this, and and thrilled because what popped into my mind is that you know famous quote by the great American educator John Dewey. He said that we don't learn from experience, but we learn from reflecting on that experience.
00:33:51.970 --> 00:34:02.309
And how can you you know how can you reflect on things, much less savor something when it's being shoved down you like a fire hose, and so
00:34:02.940 --> 00:34:03.000
yeah,
00:34:04.140 --> 00:34:45.699
you know it's interesting. I was I looked this up the other day about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which curiously America has not signed. We are very much into parental rights, but we're not so into children's rights, which I have feelings about. But one of the things that they write in there that it's a fundamental non-negotiable right for every child, and they recognize the children's right to rest, leisure, play, and recreational activities, and those are fundamental rights. I mean, they're rights to education as well. It's funny. I I was telling Peter when we talked.
00:34:42.190 --> 00:35:03.960
There's a there's a dog grooming place that I I drive by on my way to work every day. On the front of it, there's a sign that says, "Where dogs play to learn, and I thought, can that possibly be more true for? Than it is for children. I mean, really, could that possibly be true? The
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:18.510
evidence is that kids who play in kindergarten do better academically by by the end of first grade than the kids who have a heavily academic first grade. I think we talk about this in the self-driven child.
00:35:18.690 --> 00:35:28.849
We have this insane idea that if we get kids to do academic stuff younger and younger ages, they'll be ahead of other kids and and will be ahead of other countries.
00:35:29.030 --> 00:35:29.539
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:29.900 --> 00:36:42.219
It's just such a colossal waste of time. When I was in graduate school, you know, I took a lot of my coursework through University of Minnesota's Child Development Center, which is one of the top child development child study places in the world, and I remember studying readiness, particularly in the 1960s and 72. People were looking at when's the best time to teach a kid a skill, and you know it turned out did that in multiple languages. The best time to teach a kid to read was age seven, and because you can if you teach them at seven, they learn to read them. You know, in a few months, you know, if you start them at four or five, you know, it's this painful process for many kids. It's a very painful process of a year, year and a half, and it's like I've always said, if you in preschool, it's true now they make really little bikes. One of my grandchildren in Chicago could ride a two-wheel bike when he was three because wow, but they had little bikes now. Yeah, yeah. Nobody my age could do that because they didn't make it. The legs weren't long enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They make these little, these little, these little balance bikes now for little kids where they don't have pedals, but they can get because they can balance it. So you can teach them younger now.
00:36:39.469 --> 00:37:08.670
But when I was growing up, you could you could start start teach your kids to ride a bike at age four, and then you go teach them all about the pedals and the handlebars, the safety, all and stuff. But you wait until they're sick. You can have a whole two year curriculum for riding a bike. Wait until they're six. You know, ride a bike in a week. You know, and yeah, I just think that we miss this idea of readiness and the importance of what play does that that academic instruction can't
00:37:09.449 --> 00:37:20.449
do. So we sacrifice play to emphasize academics when kids aren't ready for those academics, but they are ready to play. Yeah,
00:37:21.019 --> 00:37:27.980
yeah, that's that's basically the idea. So we we got some got some explaining to do. Yeah, you know it's
00:37:28.039 --> 00:37:59.170
funny. There's um there's a really nice all boys school here near where we are, and I went on a tour, you know, about it, and they talked about the multiple recess that they had during the day, and it may be true, you know, that boys need rough and tumble benefit from rough and tumble a little more than girls do, but they said, "We know we've got boys, we've got boys. And and I remember hearing a a less informed educator talking to a little kid who was squirmy warm and saying, "Sit still and pay attention. And all I could think is, "You're going to get one or the other.
00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:01.860
You know that we
00:38:01.978 --> 00:38:25.489
need that we need that movement to to you know helps helps kids pay attention helps them get their squirmy wormies out all those executive functions and I mean children you know to your point you know 10,000 years ago there was no formal education but there was play and nature doesn't change that fast right right part of human nature to want to play and to benefit and learn and grow from play.
00:38:26.090 --> 00:38:26.510
Well put.
00:38:31.460 --> 00:39:42.909
young mammals play to learn how to be adults. It is part of human nature to want to play and to benefit and learn and grow from play. By definition, activities that are adult-structured, adult-monitored, adult-organized are not play. In constantly keeping kids safe and sanitized, we deprive them of the opportunity to learn to feel brave. Handling a difficult situation makes you confident that you can handle other situations because you're not wiring for that particular situation, you're wiring the brain to handle all difficult situations. In focusing so much on potential risks, we unintentionally convey two messages to children: the first being, you need to be afraid, and the second being, you're not capable of keeping yourself safe. Our job as adults and parents is to protect young children from unseen dangers because of things that we know that they don't. But as our kids get older, one of the best things we can do to help kids stay safe is simply to explain to them that we actually, as parents, don't have the power to keep them safe 100 of the time.
00:39:43.690 --> 00:40:09.150
We need to allow them to develop the independence and resilience they need to help keep themselves safe, and convey our confidence in their ability to do so. So, thanks for coming to play with Bill and me as we talk about play. It's incredibly important for kids and for you, for all of us. And thanks most of all to my special guest and favorite of playmates, Dr.
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:15.900
William Stickshard. I'm Ned Johnson, and this has been the Self-Driven Child Play Edition podcast.
00:00:00.599 --> 00:00:37.369
Hey, folks. Ned here. Like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly, all the young people you know, to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you like to, in part because we tend to revert to old ways. We hear a great suggestion, or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before. It isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, the Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child, a workbook.
00:00:38.329 --> 00:01:06.810
Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books,*The Self-Driven Child* and*What Do You Say* full of reflections and exercises to do yourself, with your partner, and with your children. We want to help make the self-driven child way your way, so that you can more often than not be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be. If you get a chance, order a copy. Bill and I and your kids would be grateful.
00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:07.590
The
00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:28.790
evidence is that kids who play in kindergarten do better academically by by the end of first grade. Kids who have a heavily academic first grade, insane idea that if we get kids to do academic stuff younger and younger ages. They'll be ahead of other kids, and and we'll be ahead of other countries. It's just such a colossal waste of time.
00:01:29.840 --> 00:02:08.400
Welcome to the Self-Driven Child Podcast. I'm your host Ned Johnson and co-author with Dr. William Stixjuv of the books The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids more control over their lives, and what do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance, and a happy home. Let's play. Is there an invitation that any child would rather receive than the simple but oh so powerful invitation to come play? Instead of viewing playtime as a reward for good behavior or luxury to be squeezed in only when time allows, we should prioritize and
00:02:08.460 --> 00:02:48.039
absolutely essential for the healthy development of kids and their brains. If we, when we limit play, we are stripping away the critical component that trains young brains to cope with anxiety and fosters the resilience and motivation to tackle hard things. How does play help kids develop autonomy, stress tolerance, resilience, and motivation? What does play do for kids that academic instruction cannot? Today, I speak with my friend, colleague, and partner and scribe co-author Dr. William Stickstreet, as we answer these questions, discuss the neuroscience of play and the important takeaways from Dr.
00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:48.039
Peter Gray's seminal new book,
00:02:48.669 --> 00:02:53.199
How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety.
00:02:54.189 --> 00:02:57.699
I'm Ned Johnson, and this is the Self-Driven Child Podcast.
00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:09.930
Hello, Bill. Hey, Ned. Thank you for joining me to play around with the ideas of play. We, of course, both are big fans of Dr.
00:03:10.169 --> 00:04:00.159
Peter Gray and his new book out, Restoring Childhood, and and were fortunate to get the opportunity to have an early read on that book. So we've known it's been coming for a while, and at our endorsement to what is for us a really, really important book, and as you know, I got a chance to talk with him last week as a guest on the podcast. And one of the things that you and I were talking about offline was about how incredibly important play is, not just for all the ways that he talks about so so importantly, but also for for us foundationally for developing a healthy sense of control, and so it strikes me, and I love your thoughts on this, just as a place to start, that when we deprive children of play, we're not only kind of you know wrecking their childhood, but we may also
00:04:00.400 --> 00:05:07.439
kind of be wrecking their adulthood. Is that a fair way to think about that? Well, it seems to me that for hundreds of 1000s, millions of years, young mammals play to learn how to be adults, and in some cultures, they play, and that's all they do is play until they're 13. and And I think that you're right. It's something that's such a basic, primal thing. If we screw it up, we're going to pay for it. That's that's the way human brains develop. Yeah, and you know, I and I right before we published the self-driven child, right before we turned it in, I saw an article by Peter Gray where he was he was pointing to Gene Twangy's research, who found this dramatic decrease in mental health over a period of decades, and also over the same period of time, this increasingly external locus of control, where people started to feel less control of their own lives, and he said the secret that the thing that connects them is play between, like I think between like. 1981, 1981, and 1997, 25% decrease in play. It wasn't just since the
00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:08.100
smartphone, right?
00:05:08.490 --> 00:05:31.220
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Video games, but dramatic decrease in play. And then I read about my first year in graduate school, going back in 1978 or 79. I I read this this article on the evolutionary importance of play, and it just it just stuck with me. And so, yeah, I think that the play is crucial for brain development, and we know that,
00:05:31.730 --> 00:05:35.480
and relationship development, and skill development, and just for
00:05:35.778 --> 00:05:56.288
for everything that we want. Through my grandchildren, had no technology at all until about six, and then and all they do still they're 13 and 10 and seven. All they do is play when they're younger. The first time they went to a dentist was really stressful. They came home. They played dentist.
00:05:53.319 --> 00:06:11.968
That's they kind of work through emotions, and and I think that play is just such an important part for cognitive development, for emotional development. Yeah, I described Peter as a kind of a national treasure for keeping this. He says kids need less school and more playing. I think he's right.
00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:42.040
I told him, by the way, reading his book or rereading it for the prepare for the podcast, it struck me. It felt to me a little bit like his energy is a little bit like Fred Rogers. I mean, it's so insightful and so warm and so respectful of children. Yeah, in ways that I I don't feel like our society as much as we say we cherish children. I don't think that we actually respect children as much as we should,
00:06:42.488 --> 00:06:44.288
yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's right.
00:06:44.709 --> 00:06:54.790
Let me ask this then. I want. I wanted to frame up the kind of next part of the conversation. I wanted to walk through a little bit, just remind listeners, and please read the book if you if you can.
00:06:52.000 --> 00:07:09.779
It's really, really wonderful about what Peter and what other researchers on play, how they define play, and as I understand the kind of four characteristics, and again, you know, then I love your thoughts on how this ties into the the developing the sense of control.
00:07:10.259 --> 00:07:16.949
One is that first is that it's chosen and directed by the players themselves. Two, that it's intrinsically motivated.
00:07:17.610 --> 00:07:25.639
Three, that it's structured by mental rules, which I thought was a really interesting word-not just rules, but mental rules-and fourth, that it's creative and often highly original.
00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:28.250
Yeah.
00:07:26.120 --> 00:08:31.339
Well, it's just such a huge difference between that kind of child-led play that that has those characteristics, and being on a teen adult-led play or electronic play that's programmed, and just in terms of the development of sense of control, the way we think about this sense of control and the kind the difference at least two important strands of research that led us to the importance of sense of control. One was was the research on autonomy and agency, the sense that I can make decisions about my life, I can guide my life according to my own values, and the second was research on the learned helplessness research, and Steve Marc showing that if young organisms have the chance to control strength and stressful, it changes their brain in a way they have enough experience with it that it becomes almost impossible to stress. And so you think about, and that one thing I love about what Peter says is that it's a part of play is being independent, and nobody's telling you what to do. You're structuring so developing the three core executive functions.
00:08:32.269 --> 00:08:48.850
The first inhibition is the first really inhibit working memory, holding the rules in your head while you're playing, and and what you caught is your flexibility. These three cores that you have to use all three right in play. And can I
00:08:48.909 --> 00:08:56.860
jump in there for one second? Please. One of the things that that I think about that that that inhibition right is such a big deal, and we
00:08:58.239 --> 00:08:58.418
and it's
00:08:58.448 --> 00:09:11.249
really you know it's self control. I mean you know you're you're upset. You're playing the game. You know I get I get tagged out, or you know I I make a bad play, or the other team wins, and I'm mad, right?
00:09:07.229 --> 00:09:20.158
And I want to you know I want to kick the ball over the fence, or tell Bill how mad I am, or whatever, whatever. And then I really have to think, you know, do I do it or not, right?
00:09:17.458 --> 00:09:39.408
Because I'd feel a whole lot better if I told Bill how you know much I thought he was a cheater, right? But on the other hand, unlike this team playing that team, where I can tell you off if I'm not going to see you until next year, but if you're the neighborhood kid with whom I need to play, I need you to be there. Otherwise, we can't feel the you know game of kickball or wiffle ball or whatever, right?
00:09:39.828 --> 00:09:53.918
And so I'm stuck between my current drive to want to tell you how known I am, and the inhibition that I need to exhibit to exert, in order that I don't lose you as a future teammate, playmate, whatever.
00:09:50.798 --> 00:10:11.818
And where it seems to me that when it's a ref, I don't have any need to control myself, lest I think the ref is going to call me. But if I think I can, you know, trip you without getting called, I can. I go ahead and do it, right? It's just it's just part of the game. Where if you're if you're going to be a playmate with me, if I do that, I may lose you as a playmate forever.
00:10:12.690 --> 00:10:43.899
That's a great point. I mean, and I think that these these three core executive functions. They call them the core executive functions because they're the ones that develop in the first year of life, you see, little kids having the ability to wait a little bit longer before they start crying for their mother, that kind of thing, or the working memory that Piaget's classic studies where an infant is crawling towards a toy and put a berry in front of it, and at six months, this toy went away. Okay, it stops at night months. He holds he holds he holds it in his working memory.
00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:47.080
The image of the toy and goes around the barrier, you know.
00:10:47.289 --> 00:10:58.210
And the flexibility piece that you see see infants try to one way or they shift to something else. And play is the basic way that kids develop those three core executives. And I love the
00:10:58.330 --> 00:11:40.759
cognitive flexibility, especially. I mean, one of the things that Peter talked about is in the world of play of child-driven play, rules are flexible; they're negotiable, right? And when it's adult-driven, these are rules, Ned. You just have to follow them. You you got to learn to follow the rules, right? We say that all the time, right? But if you think about this in terms of both cognitive flexibility and also facility with with relationships, we bend the rules all the time. And I remember when I was probably in middle school, and my friends are neighborhood kids. We were on a tear of playing wiffle ball, and we would play wiffle ball. I mean, for a million hours, and the parents didn't mind because we weren't going to break anyone we can do with wiffle ball.
00:11:40.850 --> 00:11:43.899
Right on and on it goes, right.
00:11:40.850 --> 00:12:41.139
And then there'd be, you know, John's mom. John, you got kind of got for dinner. Like, no, no, dude, one more play, one more, you know. And we would cajole, and we would badger, and we would bribe, and we make promises we had no intention of keeping. We would do everything we could to figure out how could we get him to stick around, you know, to tell your mom whatever for one more inning or one more game, which maybe was a little bit conniving, but it was interesting because we were a lot of cognitive flexibility there. But we also working. You also had to get really good at paying attention to where is this kid, what matters to him, where is his relationship with his mom, how much have we made her mad three times before? You know, I mean, and and you're you're you're weighing a lot in your head, all in the service of trying to get that game to go longer, but also like all negotiation, knowing that we're going to do this again tomorrow, right? Yeah. So we push as much as we can, but we realize it's too much, and he really does have to go. Then we okay, then we accept it, right?
00:12:41.679 --> 00:13:50.529
Yeah, it's really well put. And I'm just thinking that in relation to that, what one of the points that Peter makes is pretty obvious: is play is when kids feel the happiness. How many of you listening to this? Some of your best memories were summer nights where you're playing with other kids. If you had the experience playing with other kids in the neighborhood, and it started to get dark, and just hope you keep playing till the last possible minute. And he makes the point that he makes the point. Okay, play is not only something that makes kids the happiest, but it's also right. We're talking, and I just and I'm just thinking that lately we've been pointing to seed mayor's research with with the rats and and being able to control a situation and the way it changes the brain to become hard and stress, and we said really it's only through being able to having the experience of handling something stressful and being able to manage it that you develop the confidence, and that's what Peter talks about in some of the not just dramatic play, but the kind of exploration and the the kind of risk taking that kids trying stuff out with no adults around it, and kids tend to be pretty good judges of what safe or what's not.
00:13:51.399 --> 00:14:09.120
I love that point, and you know, and I was thinking about that both well, two ways, both physical risks and social risks, and one of the things that Peter, you know, and experts on play generally make is that play, by definition, should have some risk, right?
00:14:06.090 --> 00:16:11.460
You know, to your point, if if you know, from a developmental perspective, you play at you know fighting, you play at you know climbing, you play at all these things to develop adult skills. And rare is the child who, first time he goes to a playground, climbs to the top of the stairs, and swan dives off the top of it because most people have the self-preservation, right? But play should have some risk. I mean, you you push yourself higher and higher on the swing and say, "Can you jump off? And you want to jump off the top and feel like you're flying, but you're also thinking, "I don't really want to break my leg, right? And that by play, we keep pushing ourselves and taking on risks that are a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And Jonathan High curiously had a great social media piece where you know it used to be the superintendent or principal of school would say, you know, if we didn't have a couple of broken arms, you know, a semester kind of something's not right, you know. And life is risky. So often the work of of loving adults is to keep. Make them feel safe, but in constantly keeping kids safe and sanitized, we deprive them the opportunity to learn to feel brave. And when I think about play, two things: I love to climb. I love to climb. I've always loved to climb, and I can literally remember being age five at the top of some tree, and the wind was blowing, and really traveling what felt like 10 feet in the air as I'm going along with the branches. In hindsight, I'm thinking, what were my parents thinking? And then I remember, frankly, that I have an identical twin brother, and so they might have been thinking, well, we've got to, you know, we've got a pair. I doubt if they're. I'd kind of doubt that that was their thinking, but but I also think they you know they watched me presumably you know I can remember climbing when I was two I climbed out of my crib and into my brother's crib maybe year and a half and so I've always and so I think they had confidence that I could do this but I also had confidence because I had done these things that are scary now what's interesting we talked about this in the self-driven child. There is some literature that people who fall out of a tree before age nine are fantastically less likely to have fear of heights as adults than kids who don't.
00:16:12.210 --> 00:16:19.110
And I had certainly my scrapes that didn't fall from the top of a tree that was 100 feet tall.
00:16:15.659 --> 00:16:34.129
But we take those physical risks and we push ourselves and we test ourselves. The other thing it strikes me is that from a social perspective, you can say you're a little guy or you're not that athletic, and you want to go play the game, and you're sitting there watching. How big are these other kids? How are they playing with each other?
00:16:34.639 --> 00:17:04.259
Are they being mean to it? Does someone look like a bully? And I can absolutely remember going into social situations feeling I'm not sure whether I belong here or not. I don't actually know that this is safe, and I have to take that risk. You know that someone's going to be mean, or I'm going to get you know pushed down in the dirt, or run over in football by some kid who weighs twice what I do. And the act of having to assess that is a really important life skill.
00:16:59.379 --> 00:17:18.869
If you go back to everything supervised and organized and refereed, well, you don't have a need to develop that. You spend all of your time. Then you, well, your training, I guess, is to wait for the whistle or to go and run to someone to save you, as opposed to situational awareness and paying attention to what's risking yourself.
00:17:19.140 --> 00:17:39.079
Yeah, and Peter uses the words confidence and courage. He said,"This is the only way kids could really develop the confidence and courage that they can master stuff. I'm just I'm thinking the story and the self-driven child of the kid who parents begged him not to skateboard down the steep hill. He did it anyway.
00:17:36.529 --> 00:17:39.079
Full evil can
00:17:39.140 --> 00:17:40.640
evil, right? Yeah, broke
00:17:40.670 --> 00:17:44.349
his arm on the way to the hospital. The kid says it was totally worth it.
00:17:45.789 --> 00:18:01.829
I think in the book he's coming back from the hospital. If I if I in my head I don't know if it's true, in my head both wrists are broken, right? Because he's he's done that right, and now he's all casted up, and in the backs of the car going totally worth it.
00:17:57.910 --> 00:18:02.279
Which my seven-year-old grandson,
00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:08.369
like when he's five, he he broke something. The guy in the emergency room said, "This won't be the last bone he breaks.
00:18:08.819 --> 00:18:09.509
Is that right?
00:18:09.900 --> 00:18:25.400
Yeah, I'm also just thinking. You know, we one of the chapters in our second book. What do you say? We talk about Mister Rogers. Is it his story as a child where he's walking on a high wall, and his mother, his grandmother, begging him to come down. Be careful, be careful,
00:18:25.430 --> 00:19:31.789
be careful! Yeah, and just the confidence that gave him the kind of sense of courage that that gave him that it was that he could take that risk, and the confidence he could master. How life changing that experience was for him! It's such a great point, you know. And one of the things we talk about all the time, of course, is is Peter Mayer's work, and what he talks about is again, you have a challenging experience, you feel a sense of control. It wires the brain to be stress tolerant and develop the sense that I can handle this. What he talks about in that research, as you know, is that they can then put a rat back in the same difficult situation where he believes he has control, but actually now in in hidden ways remove the control, but he has the sense of control and he still has the stress tolerance, and so Mayer says at a neurological level this is what a sense of control means, and so young Fred Rogers may not have had the sense that I can jump off this thing and learn to fly, or that I'll never get hurt. That may not have been true, but if he had the sense that I can handle this, right?
00:19:28.400 --> 00:21:59.200
Then, and as Mayor points out, it generalizes a difficult situation in one place where where things go poorly makes you confident to handle other situations because you're not wiring for that situation, you're wiring the brain for situations. I mean, I can. I mean, I think of all the. I mean, I think people are listening to this. I mean, think about the scrapes that you got in, the tangles that you got in and out of by yourself, by yourself, maybe with the help of friend, but not someone. Know a parent pulling you out of the deep end, as it were. It's those experiences that were kind of near you know a brush with danger that give you the confidence you can handle hard things now in ways that your kids who haven't had those experiences yet don't yet have that sense that they can handle hard things because they simply don't have the experience. And I keep going back to this idea that we have, I mean, one of the reasons that it strikes me that there is so much anxiety in children, in addition to they don't get enough play, they don't get enough sleep, is that we have become such a litigious society, and safety above all else, and so we've sanitized playgrounds and I mean everything, everything. It's not that I want kids to face you know life threatening risks, but by constantly saying I've got to keep you safe, I've got to keep you safe, I've got to keep you safe, we are also unintentionally giving messages to children that two you need to be afraid, you need to be afraid, and you're not capable of keeping yourself safe, and that's not intended by any loving parent. Look, I'm I'm no different than I get. Oh my God, right? But we really want to be thoughtful. And my favorite line in the entire book is when he writes, "Our job as adults and parents is to protect children from Unseen dangers because of things that we know that they don't know. But when Fred Rogers is on the top of it, he is aware that if he falls off the top of a tall wall, that that is going to hurt. Right? That is not an unseen danger to him. I remember I was hiking years ago, and I'm coming down from the top of this mountain, and there's a parents with their maybe five year old daughter, and this kid has scaled all the way up this. I mean, this is a long, long climb that she's made, and they're within. I mean, they're they're 95% there, and one of the parents behind her saying, "No, be careful, be careful, be careful.
00:21:59.319 --> 00:22:24.410
And I thought, "Is this is what she's put up with for the last hour and a half? She's made it right, and at this point, you know, is this rock different from the one before? I mean, oh my goodness! And her focus is not on being safe; it's on your constant admonition to watch watch out. So, is she really looking at the thing, or is she listening to your words, and yeah, yeah. One of my favorite games.
00:22:25.819 --> 00:22:45.490
My my two of my grandchildren probably three or four years. They have wonderful, wonderful parents, and when they'd be climbing, be safe here, be careful, kind of thing. And so what I do is I say that they can't walk up that slide. It's way too dangerous, and they start to say, "Oh, please, please, you're making me too nervous. I gotta get down.
00:22:45.609 --> 00:22:58.329
And they they can walk up the slide, or they think that I love it. We're challenging, and then they just laugh and laugh and laugh, and I I pretend to plead with them. You're gonna give me a heart attack, please, please don't. And they they beg me.
00:22:58.630 --> 00:23:27.890
They do it sometimes. It's so fun for them to take these risks, and I went to a park about a month ago with my grandchildren in Chicago, and and the park it says it's this playground is designed for children six to 12. My five year old grandchild could do all the stuff that that you could do at age five, and it's just that they and turns out that they make these these playgrounds safer hasn't made them safe. You can still fall and you can still break your arm back and stuff.
00:23:28.099 --> 00:23:37.759
But use them the way they're intended. Then they're climbing the top of something something that wasn't intended to be climbed. You know. Yeah, I felt when I finished reading Peter's book that this is one of the best books I've ever read. I
00:23:38.269 --> 00:23:38.750
agree with you,
00:23:39.170 --> 00:23:51.190
and I I think that your point about overemphasis on safety. I mean, I read years ago that the best way to to help kids stay safe is to tell them as they get older.
00:23:51.190 --> 00:23:56.259
I mean, they're little. You know, you you got they don't know about. You said the unseen dangers. I don't
00:23:56.259 --> 00:23:57.759
know about cars coming around the corner, right?
00:23:58.210 --> 00:24:04.710
Yeah, especially once they're adolescence, you tell them I can't keep you sick. I can't watch you every second. I can't protect you from your dangers.
00:24:04.769 --> 00:24:17.640
And so you talk to them about how to keep themselves sick. You know, and and I think in my perspective, I think obviously we we see things pretty pretty similarly. But the idea is actually I don't.
00:24:17.700 --> 00:24:19.380
I'm taking my ball and leaving Bill.
00:24:21.539 --> 00:24:31.819
But I think that the idea that we want to treat kids respectfully, and part of that is is letting them know that I have confidence that you can keep yourself safe.
00:24:32.119 --> 00:25:19.259
Yeah, let's let's talk about if there's stuff that you're worried about, stuff that could be threatening to you. You want to talk about it? Let's brainstorm about it. But I do think that emphasis has shifted so much to do prioritizing safety. It's the same thing when we were working on the self-driven child. I was listening to a podcast about Alzheimer's, and that's where I I heard that even with elderly adults with Alzheimer's. If they have a choice about something, they do better, and and the idea is that we we way overemphasize that that could be dangerous because even when you're older, you still have that built in the primal drive for a sense of control, for sense of autonomy.
00:25:16.230 --> 00:25:26.660
I mean, I just think we talked about this sense of control being a basic biological and psychological need that they kind of that fuels evolution.
00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:43.660
You know, you see it in a four-month-old infant. It's so obvious by the time the kid's about one and says, "No way, you're the boss of me. As a two-year-old, you're terrible twos. You know, they're saying this is my life. You're the boss of me, and and it just drive.
00:25:40.220 --> 00:25:59.319
It's what drives adolescent development that that drive to independence. You know, and play is is one of the most important means for developing, for for utilizing, for for strengthening for this control. And we short circuit what it is that happens.
00:25:56.710 --> 00:25:59.319
Yeah,
00:25:59.710 --> 00:26:16.859
yeah. You know, it's interesting. I think I'm thinking about your point about executive functions. You know, the core executive functions, and then the the kind of higher level ones. You know, of of self assessment, self awareness, and and emotional flexibility, and and I just yeah, and planning right, all those kind of things.
00:26:14.640 --> 00:27:44.650
And I was sort of made a quick list of in my mind about things that are of of skills that children develop and really wiring in the brain that they develop through play, and so you think about when it's and quick reminder that by definition activities that are adult structured, adult monitored, adult organized, not play, not play. So you think about you know engineer monitor right right right thank you yes that so you think the play it's it's self selective right and think I maybe emphasize all the self right so it's self select you you have to you choose to join or or to quit right it's self organized it's self directed it's self or you know kid refereed right that the rules are made with other people, right? You make the rules; that the rules are flexible, and so you think about you know this is developing initiative and and motivation and communication negotiation skills. You're developing that sense of autonomy that we know is so important for for mental health, stress tolerance, solving their own problems. You know that that sense of you know competency, as Peter talked about, and emotional repair, and and all these things. When you think about going into adulthood, right? I do something. I'm a little selfish, and I'm not. I make my wife mad. Well, how do how do I pay attention to that and go back and fix that? You know, the sense that I I can solve my own problems. I mean, we have people at work where I think, well, they they're waiting for the next instruction. It's like, oh my goodness, you have a brain. I would really want you to use it.
00:27:44.650 --> 00:27:49.900
I don't want you to wait for instructions because I have my own things I have to deal with.
00:27:47.079 --> 00:28:00.549
And I feel in some ways that if kids could go to school back to the original idea of kindergarten, right, where they just go play for four hours and then have two hours of instruction, I think we get a lot more out of that time, including that instruction.
00:28:01.180 --> 00:28:24.019
Oh, I think many people feel that part of the reason that schools have been so many problems is that we've made kindergarten like the worst first grades, and it's just. I was talking years ago with with a relative of mine who is a who was teaching doing Teach for America. She was in an inner city school in Baltimore teaching fourth grade. At the beginning of the year, she found out there's only 110 minute recess.
00:28:24.170 --> 00:28:25.309
Oh my goodness! She
00:28:25.460 --> 00:28:47.440
she went to the preschool and she principals. How could there only be one recess? Well, we can't sacrifice instructional time to see if you can just cram stuff into kids' head all day. The other thing I've been thinking about, you know, is just the other day we've we've been saying and writing that the best neurological marker of resilience and also a sense of control
00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:48.160
is
00:28:48.849 --> 00:29:29.630
the strength of the connections between the prefrontal cortex, which can think logically and go into the past and future and solve problems, put things in perspective and calm yourself down when you start to get upset, and the amygdala, that very primitive part of the brain that senses reactive threat, the the strength of the connections is the best marker for resilience, and it's the neurological signature of a sense of control. And I just asked Gemini AI a couple days ago, what's the best neurological marker for resilience, and it says, "Well, it's the same. It's through the connection. It's the ability of you to stay in your right mind, be able to
00:29:30.140 --> 00:30:12.539
that'll be the stressful situation, and still have the front cortex regulate your stress response so that you're coping as opposed to panicking. And I'm just thinking about the things we're talking about that I've never seen any research on this play strengthen those connections, but it's got to. It has to, right? And when I when I think you know you you and I have a the talk we've been giving about school avoidance, right? And you know avoiding avoidance is. Of course, the major manifestation of anxiety, right? And so, if if you're deeply anxious about school, then it makes sense that you don't that you don't want to go.
00:30:10.019 --> 00:31:21.349
You want to avoid it. So, all the other people who are listening who have children who have, you know, stomach aches in the morning or headaches, and and it's always Monday through Friday, right? They don't have those headaches or stomachaches on Saturday morning, and one if there were more play at school, maybe they'd have a little bit more to look forward to. It's also, of course, a way, a natural way of stress relief, right? You know, this first part of my my day of math class was really intense for me, but then I get to go, you know, talk with Sally, or then I get to go jump rope, or then I get to go, you know, play tetherball or whatever. You know, it's currently on playgrounds for elementary schools today, and so you know this idea of stress and then stress recovery and stress and stress recovery. And this really plays into you know what you just shared, and as well as that work of Steve Mayer of it's something intense, and then you recover from it. And so it's curious that if there were more play for that stress recovery, we'd be wiring brains with that emotional resilience, which would make them better able to handle things, and importantly, to have the sense that I can handle this. Right, because when kids are avoiding, you know, it's it's it's not really the anxiety; it's it's avoiding it.
00:31:21.470 --> 00:31:35.029
That's that's the issue. And if they had the sense that if they develop that sense of control, they I can go to school. This is going to be blah because I hate dealing with this person or this tester or whatever happens to be. But it's going to be hard.
00:31:35.809 --> 00:31:36.680
But I can handle
00:31:37.220 --> 00:31:37.309
it.
00:31:37.489 --> 00:31:59.409
And it's just so curious, you know, the thing that is most enjoyable to kids by which they naturally willingly take risks could be the same thing. The really the the ingredients have been taken out of childhood that allows them to be less anxious, more resilient, more motivated in in the things the harder parts of life that we still think the kids have to do in going to school.
00:31:59.680 --> 00:33:03.359
Yeah, I gave a lecture on play. It was called Einstein Play. It was probably maybe 1517, years ago, something like this. A long time ago, and I was struck. The idea was that because at that time, kindergarten was becoming largely academic, and they were making all these changes to make life more boring and more stressful for for kids and teachers, and and I gave this lecture on play, and these preschool teachers came up afterwards and said, you know, we can dress kids up, do matty play, but they don't know what to do. And this is like 15 something between 1520 years ago. They didn't, they don't know what to do, and even by that time, that kind of natural that built into by nature, and and and I don't I don't remember kind of what it was that the fact was by at that time, but this has been going on for a while, where kids have been playing less and just doing less of what nature has always wanted them to do.
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:17.369
Well, you know, and the thing that I I love that that Einstein played. I also, if I understand from reading a little bit about his history, he also had a job where he had incredible amount of time to just think. Yeah, to just think.
00:33:17.430 --> 00:33:56.500
You know, you don't come up with a paradigm Shifting world-changing theory, you know, in five or 10 minutes between classes, right, or between tasks, my wife's school just changed their schedule, and they have this these block schedules, but they also have 10 minutes of passing time from class to class, which feels like why do they tend 10 minutes? And you know, I was just I was sort of amazed that they did this, and and thrilled because what popped into my mind is that you know famous quote by the great American educator John Dewey. He said that we don't learn from experience, but we learn from reflecting on that experience.
00:33:51.970 --> 00:34:02.309
And how can you you know how can you reflect on things, much less savor something when it's being shoved down you like a fire hose, and so
00:34:02.940 --> 00:34:03.000
yeah,
00:34:04.140 --> 00:34:45.699
you know it's interesting. I was I looked this up the other day about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which curiously America has not signed. We are very much into parental rights, but we're not so into children's rights, which I have feelings about. But one of the things that they write in there that it's a fundamental non-negotiable right for every child, and they recognize the children's right to rest, leisure, play, and recreational activities, and those are fundamental rights. I mean, they're rights to education as well. It's funny. I I was telling Peter when we talked.
00:34:42.190 --> 00:35:03.960
There's a there's a dog grooming place that I I drive by on my way to work every day. On the front of it, there's a sign that says, "Where dogs play to learn, and I thought, can that possibly be more true for? Than it is for children. I mean, really, could that possibly be true? The
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:18.510
evidence is that kids who play in kindergarten do better academically by by the end of first grade than the kids who have a heavily academic first grade. I think we talk about this in the self-driven child.
00:35:18.690 --> 00:35:28.849
We have this insane idea that if we get kids to do academic stuff younger and younger ages, they'll be ahead of other kids and and will be ahead of other countries.
00:35:29.030 --> 00:35:29.539
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:29.900 --> 00:36:42.219
It's just such a colossal waste of time. When I was in graduate school, you know, I took a lot of my coursework through University of Minnesota's Child Development Center, which is one of the top child development child study places in the world, and I remember studying readiness, particularly in the 1960s and 72. People were looking at when's the best time to teach a kid a skill, and you know it turned out did that in multiple languages. The best time to teach a kid to read was age seven, and because you can if you teach them at seven, they learn to read them. You know, in a few months, you know, if you start them at four or five, you know, it's this painful process for many kids. It's a very painful process of a year, year and a half, and it's like I've always said, if you in preschool, it's true now they make really little bikes. One of my grandchildren in Chicago could ride a two-wheel bike when he was three because wow, but they had little bikes now. Yeah, yeah. Nobody my age could do that because they didn't make it. The legs weren't long enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They make these little, these little, these little balance bikes now for little kids where they don't have pedals, but they can get because they can balance it. So you can teach them younger now.
00:36:39.469 --> 00:37:08.670
But when I was growing up, you could you could start start teach your kids to ride a bike at age four, and then you go teach them all about the pedals and the handlebars, the safety, all and stuff. But you wait until they're sick. You can have a whole two year curriculum for riding a bike. Wait until they're six. You know, ride a bike in a week. You know, and yeah, I just think that we miss this idea of readiness and the importance of what play does that that academic instruction can't
00:37:09.449 --> 00:37:20.449
do. So we sacrifice play to emphasize academics when kids aren't ready for those academics, but they are ready to play. Yeah,
00:37:21.019 --> 00:37:27.980
yeah, that's that's basically the idea. So we we got some got some explaining to do. Yeah, you know it's
00:37:28.039 --> 00:37:59.170
funny. There's um there's a really nice all boys school here near where we are, and I went on a tour, you know, about it, and they talked about the multiple recess that they had during the day, and it may be true, you know, that boys need rough and tumble benefit from rough and tumble a little more than girls do, but they said, "We know we've got boys, we've got boys. And and I remember hearing a a less informed educator talking to a little kid who was squirmy warm and saying, "Sit still and pay attention. And all I could think is, "You're going to get one or the other.
00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:01.860
You know that we
00:38:01.978 --> 00:38:25.489
need that we need that movement to to you know helps helps kids pay attention helps them get their squirmy wormies out all those executive functions and I mean children you know to your point you know 10,000 years ago there was no formal education but there was play and nature doesn't change that fast right right part of human nature to want to play and to benefit and learn and grow from play.
00:38:26.090 --> 00:38:26.510
Well put.
00:38:31.460 --> 00:39:42.909
young mammals play to learn how to be adults. It is part of human nature to want to play and to benefit and learn and grow from play. By definition, activities that are adult-structured, adult-monitored, adult-organized are not play. In constantly keeping kids safe and sanitized, we deprive them of the opportunity to learn to feel brave. Handling a difficult situation makes you confident that you can handle other situations because you're not wiring for that particular situation, you're wiring the brain to handle all difficult situations. In focusing so much on potential risks, we unintentionally convey two messages to children: the first being, you need to be afraid, and the second being, you're not capable of keeping yourself safe. Our job as adults and parents is to protect young children from unseen dangers because of things that we know that they don't. But as our kids get older, one of the best things we can do to help kids stay safe is simply to explain to them that we actually, as parents, don't have the power to keep them safe 100 of the time.
00:39:43.690 --> 00:40:09.150
We need to allow them to develop the independence and resilience they need to help keep themselves safe, and convey our confidence in their ability to do so. So, thanks for coming to play with Bill and me as we talk about play. It's incredibly important for kids and for you, for all of us. And thanks most of all to my special guest and favorite of playmates, Dr.
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:15.900
William Stickshard. I'm Ned Johnson, and this has been the Self-Driven Child Play Edition podcast.
