Children who cannot play“victims of frantic 70s”

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32869, 18 March 1972, Page 6

Children who cannot play—“victims of frantic 70s”

(5y

HELEN HOWARD)

LONDON. The five - year - old youngster in the playground of the East London infants’ school was all alone and doing his best to keep back his tears. It was not that the other children, racing around like mad things, had pushed him out. More than once, in his first week, they had asked him to join in their games but, after a minute or so, he had dropped out, seeming to prefer his own company in a quiet corner.

It did not take the teacher on play duty long to find out the trouble when she talked to him at breaktime one morning. He simply did not know how to play. And hard though it may be for some of us to understand, this is a problem which is increasingly alarming educationists and psychologists. At the age of four or five, life has hurried past some children—mainly because of their environment, and the fact that their parents have been too busy to talk or play with them. NO OPPORTUNITY

Some children, it has been found, do not even know how to jump or hop, let alone play organised games. And all because they have never had the opportunity. It has also been shown that several youngsters have been brought up in such a restrited home atmosphere that, though they have normal intelligence, they cannot recognise a picture of a bus, nor open and shut doors. They are victims, say child welfare experts, of the frantic seventies. They are fright-

ened, sometimes to the extent of being unable to speak, and are frequently sent to special schools for the subnormal. It is a state of affairs of which medical specialists are apparently seeing more and more. In one area near London, for instance, a senior medical officer, Dr Geoffrey Knight, has reported that attendances at schools for the subnormal have risen sharply, by almost 30 per cent, in 10 years. But how has it happened in an age when most social researchers agree that leisure time and facilities for recreation have never been better? NO TIME TO COPE

Another British medical officer, Dr Sylvia Gardiner, says that, in a lot of cases, mothers just cannot cope with a child as an individual —particularly if they have to look after a number of children. They simply have not the time, and very often not the inclination, to cope. The problem is accentuated, she goes on, by parents — particularly young couples—who cannot afford to live near their work and are forced to spend hours each day travelling. As a result,-when they get home they are often too tired to talk with their children.

Not that this is a problem peculiar to Britain. It is happening in every industrial society. Professor Eric Hawkins, director of a lan-guage-teaching centre and a professor of education, believes that “no single problem in education is more important” than to get the message across to parents that if they do not talk with their offspring early on, tlft youngsters’ powers of com, munication—not to mention their social and education prospects—can be crippled for life.

Humans are rather like songbirds, he says. Chaffinches, for example, when reared in isolation never learn to sing. RESPONSIBILITY Emphasising the responsibility of early upbringing, Professor Hawkins says: “Society trusts to the young mother untutored, alone, unaided in the kitchen, the handing over of this key on which so much depends.”

So it is scarcely any wonder, he says, that children’s readiness for school differs so much. Nor can things be remedied, he insists, by raising the school age to give unfortunate children a chance to catch up with the others. It all depends, he sd?s, on just how much time a child has alone with an adult in the critical early years. His view is that it is up to family doctors to educate mothers in the need to talk and play with their young children. And local clinics, he Says, should be persuaded to provide a similar service. He would also like to see the setting-up of an army of volunteer senior students which, he says, would become “mothers’ aids” and spend a period of time with children under five with communication problems.

But of course it is not always the parents’ fault. The home environment is extremely important, too. HIGH-RISE FLATS

It does not seem entirely coincidental that the increase in the number of children who cannot play or mix with other children has come at a time when many local authorities 1 have opted for the construction of high-rise flats to ease the housing shortage in many major cities.

Certainly, a recent study of family life in these skyscraper structures has emphasised the detrimental effect they appeared to exert on a child’s upbringing. The report, compiled by the developments department of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, took pains to point out that isolation was a very real problem. Said an N.S.P.C.C. director, Mr Arthur Morton: “There seems little doubt that families with small children living in high flats feel cut off. One has only to picture the plight of a mother with two or three small children living on, say, the eighth floor of a tower block. She is virtually imprisoned with her children.

“If she leaves them, she is tormented with the thought of the danger of their falling out of windows or balconies and, if she permits them to go out to play, she may well be terrified at the prospect of their wandering unattended on busy roads.” SERIOUS LACK In this situation, he says, the children are often denied adequate opportunity for play with others.

He says: “This is a serious lack from which evil consequences may follow.” Lack of space is one reason, the report cites. The location of other residents on both sides and above and below means that a child can never run wild or let off steam.

In fact, 68 per cent of all housewives with children under 16 said they found children’s play a problem, when questioned in the survey.

All too clearly, the problem of a child’s play in the super seventies is not child’s play at all.—Features International.