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Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#111

Post by lfowles »

HWR_14 wrote: post #73
lolinder wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly agree based on my own kids, but want to add a caution lest someone misunderstand: this testing, learning, and growing is of a kind that can only be done without adult supervision. It's not something that you can give them with a private lesson. It's not something that can be taught in a classroom. It's not something that can happen at all without adults letting the kids figure it out on their own by…

> We know the toy will break if it's repeatedly thrown down the stairs, so we impose a rule that "we don't do that in our house" For many parents, the toy is expensive enough that it warrants a rule (like the stove.)

Indeed, it's not just that I'm anxious the toy will break. It's that I'm anxious the behavior will continue and the replacement will be broken in short order and so on.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#112

Post by teaearlgraycold »

ccleve wrote: post #19
atonse wrote: post #2

We have really made it a point to have our kid play freely as much as possible and minimize scheduled activities (piano lessons etc.) the problem is that most of his friends are in a million classes so even if he’s free, they often aren’t. That’s been the big challenge. So then there are these magical days where they all don’t have any activities and those invariably happen to be the days ALL kids look forward to. Cu…

I came here to post exactly this. It is appalling that we live in a neighborhood where everyone can walk, there are plenty of kids that my son knows within a mile, he's 14 and more than old enough to be out on his own, but every one of his friends is in a math class, or French school, or out of town on vacation, constantly. He goes to the park and there is no one there. So he stays home and watches anime. The only wa…

As someone that was always surprised at how much more free time I had compared to other kids back in my school days - I'm still very much in support of limited structured activities. Me and the boys would just goof off on bikes and in backyards. This was 15-10 years ago.

I'd talk to people in class and they'd claim to have like 1 or two hours free between school and sleep. And I had something like 8 hours free. What the hell?

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#113

Post by nonethewiser »

mrguyorama wrote: post #94
nonethewiser wrote: post #64

> Moreover, the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey revealed that during the previous year 18.8% of US high school students seriously considered attempting suicide, 15.7% made a suicide plan, 8.9% attempted suicide one or more times, and 2.5% made a suicide attempt requiring medical treatment. Wait a minute, what? Nearly 1 in 10 attempted suicide? So in a middle school of say 400 kids a kid would know…

Maybe there's something like a "mental health crisis" that could be why it's so high.... /s

Im not denying that. Im saying those numbers are shockingly high

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#114

Post by nathanfig »

mseepgood wrote: post #5

Playing video games does not count as play, I assume?

(speculating) Multiplayer games with friends still provide a lot of the same healthy cooperation/conflict that play creates. But yeah I doubt it can be considered a whole substitute.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#115

Post by nonethewiser »

MattGaiser wrote: post #85
nonethewiser wrote: post #64

> Moreover, the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey revealed that during the previous year 18.8% of US high school students seriously considered attempting suicide, 15.7% made a suicide plan, 8.9% attempted suicide one or more times, and 2.5% made a suicide attempt requiring medical treatment. Wait a minute, what? Nearly 1 in 10 attempted suicide? So in a middle school of say 400 kids a kid would know…

I would be curious at how far you have to go for “attempted”, especially when most supposed attempts did not require medical intervention (so it might consist of getting the materials and not having the final nerve to go through with it). But having graduated high school in 2014, my anecdotal reaction based on that experience would be that it seems on the high side but is plausible. My reaction certainly isn’t “no wa…

Yeah there is a lot of gray area. Its also self reported, so they could also feel motivated to over report for some reason or another

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#116

Post by jeremyjh »

kajaktum wrote: post #105
lolinder wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly agree based on my own kids, but want to add a caution lest someone misunderstand: this testing, learning, and growing is of a kind that can only be done without adult supervision. It's not something that you can give them with a private lesson. It's not something that can be taught in a classroom. It's not something that can happen at all without adults letting the kids figure it out on their own by…

Whenever this kind of opinion props up I wonder how far would you let your child to "fail"? Clearly we need our children to stumble and fail in a low-stake environment before they actually experience them later on in life. This naturally involves taking some risk. I remember being able to walk freely around the village pretty much without any supervision, I did get hurt a lot either from running into walls or getting…

Yes, I grew up in a small town and pretty much had the run of it from the age of 6 or 7, and quite a lot of freedom even before that. My friends and I would be out all day, every day, all summer long - probably never more than two miles from home but definitely in that range. With my own kids I'm less protective than a lot of parents in my neighborhood but I wouldn't really be comfortable with that, certainly not at that age and even if I was none of their friends would be allowed to do that, most kids stay on their block or cul-de-sac.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#118

Post by nonethewiser »

anigbrowl wrote: post #107
nonethewiser wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true with rough and tumble play as well. Which i imagine is virtually non-existant for kids raised only by single mothers. And is extremely important for adolescent boy.s Basically it teaches limits - what hurts and what causes pain to others. And overall leads to much healthier social development. Jordan Peterson talks a lot about this https://youtu.be/Ay1KVzVXbjc

Most people do that with peers, not parents.

Parents can play rough with their kids. They tend to if they value it. If they dont value it why would they let them play rough with others, who obviously care about their kids less than they do?

To be clear, im not saying it has to come from their parents. Just that it’s usually the dad powerbombing the kid on the bed and advocating for contact sports. This dynamic illustrated: https://imgur.io/8RZn2YF

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#119

Post by uoaei »

mrguyorama wrote: post #80
Waterluvian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I explain this is, "my job is not to protect my kids from harm, it's to protect them from irreparable harm." I've had this instinct whenever my kids are on the jungle gym to say, "slow down!" "That's too high!" etc. but I usually catch myself and think, "if they fall is it a cry or a hospital visit?"

If you don't allow your kids to fuck up, they will never build healthy behaviors around fucking up. It's very helpful for kids to give them safe chances to fuck up.

Witnessed this kind of thing today. Doting father of three boys on vacation. They're all ditzing around on busy sidewalks and the father barks "Control yourselves!"

It occurred to me at that moment that this kind of hovering and scolding teaches children to externalize the responsibility of understanding their environment and their place within it. They will literally never learn the lessons this father wants to impart because he will always be there to act for them, until the children's brains lose the plasticity necessary to properly internalize those things. Perhaps they will always struggle with a psychological complex they can never fully understand.

I know this because I had a doting mother who always defined my priorities for me. I learned to nearly fully externalize the maintenance of those priorities to her expectations (which were transitively pinned to those of the formal academic and "professional" systems).

Because of this I'm currently going through something of an existential crisis -- I really don't know what I want to do. My career has been unfulfilling and trying to develop lasting hobbies and interests have not borne out the deep kinds of satisfaction others seem to be able to achieve. I still hold out hope I can find something that "gets the ball rolling" but learning patience while watching myself continue to orient myself toward goals that have definitive, quantifiable, socially-acceptable ends has been unsettling. I want to feel comfortable in my day-to-day, or at least confident that the processes I enact encourage the development of a more whole being.

Re: Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

#120

Post by jeremyjh »

hattmall wrote: post #108
ccleve wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to post exactly this. It is appalling that we live in a neighborhood where everyone can walk, there are plenty of kids that my son knows within a mile, he's 14 and more than old enough to be out on his own, but every one of his friends is in a math class, or French school, or out of town on vacation, constantly. He goes to the park and there is no one there. So he stays home and watches anime. The only wa…

Blaming other parents is great and probably correct, but putting blame on things outside of your control is a cop out. Why don't you move to an area that's not like that, or you go an play with your kid at the park until other kids show up. or build an app that makes the makes scheduling the play time very seamless.

Yeah dude why don't you take your 14 year-old to the park to play with their mom or just launch a startup to solve this problem.
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