Childhood Is Being Stolen

Michael Godfrey
5 min readMay 31, 2019

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In my previous post, I outlined the benefits of Sabbath for adults in their hectic lives. However, there is something more daunting than an overworked adult: overworked children.

It is no secret that there is too much curriculum to fit into the 6 (or more) hours a school day. It also isn’t a secret that governments and educational bodies encourage you to enrol your 3-year-olds into “early learning programs” where very young children are taught to read and write and sit at a desk. Intending to get our children the best start to life we are stealing their childhood and making them less creative, imaginative, intuitive and resilient than they should be.

With an overcrowded curriculum, there seems to be no place for play. Some schools even reduce lunch and play breaks to fit in all the curriculum. Moreover, some schools have extended their hours and shortened breaks. Sure, project-based learning and play-based learning have their benefits in the classroom, but they are not a suitable replacement for rest and unstructured play. Learning Liftoff outlines the importance of breaks in schools and lists five main benefits — Improved attentiveness, boosted learning productivity, reduced student stress, fostered social skills and improved memory.

Unfortunately, schools and the educational system are not only to blame. Many parents will pick their children up from a long 6+ hour school day and take them straight to dance, football, drama club or tutoring etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with these extracurricular activities as they create excellent teamwork skills and social skills, but one extracurricular activity (or one night of it) does not seem to be enough. I asked a student what she did every afternoon (because she was exhausted) and she replied “I do dancing Monday, Tuesdays, Wednesdays. Thursdays and Fridays after school. And sometimes I have dancing Saturday Morning.” There is something wrong with that. A highly driven schedule, for many, is a form of stress, anxiety and exhaustion. Many children are headed towards burnout while still being a child.

In “Tired? Here’s How to Fix It” I outlined three main things we must do to rest. These were:
1. Remember To Rest (Remember the Sabbath)
2. Find Something that Rejuvenates You
3. Schedule Rest Into Your Week

These guidelines are not exclusive to working adults but are needed for our children as well. Children cannot do these things on their own and need help from parents and teachers to put them into practice, as it is not the children who dictate their own lives.

1. Remember to Rest and Teach Your Kids to Remember

Children need to learn to carve margin into their day and week. The way they are taught this is through the modelling of it from parents. Taking time out could include taking them on a picnic or a walk down to the park.

2. Find Something that Rejuvenates Them

Michael Hyatt (2019) in his book Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less outlines seven basic principles that we must do to replenish our Personal Energy. These are important for both adults and children. Children must:
Sleep
Eat
Move
Connect
Play
Reflect
Unplug

Sleep

According to the National Sleep Foundation (2015) in the United States, Toddlers (1–2 ) should sleep 11–14 hours a day, Preschoolers (3–5) should sleep 10–13 hours, and School age children (6–13) should sleep 9–11 hours a day.

It is a no-brainer if you want your child to be healthy and succeed; make sure they get the right amount of sleep.

Eat

Make sure your children are eating good wholesome food. Packaged stuff, although cheap, should not be a staple (or only thing) in a child’s lunch box.

I was saddened and disgusted when I saw the lunchbox contents of a prep classroom in a low-socio-economic school. Most students lunchboxes consisted of chips, LCM bars, Oreos etc. without even having a sandwich or piece of fruit inside.

The Healthy Kids Association, recommends that lunchboxes should have a Main lunch item (a sandwich, roll, wrap or salad based on grains such as pasta, rice or quinoa), a Nutritious snack (a cold chicken drumstick, crackers with cheese, veggie sticks and hummus, or yoghurt) and a piece of fresh fruit.

Move/connect/play

Children need to have room to move, connect and play. Extracurricular activities can heald with only two of these — move and connect. Children cannot play while in a structured activity. Play is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “engage[ing] in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.” Extracurricular dancing, football etc. have a generally have a goal that is to be worked towards.

“Play, in general, allows children to be imaginative and develop physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. It’s especially true for unstructured free play. This may also offer parents a glimpse into their children’s world and enable them to provide nurturing guidance, instead of strict rules” (Misha Ketchell, 2019)

According to Becky L. Spivey, M.Ed. “Some parents tend to see playing as a waste of time, but it’s actually anything but. When children are playing, they are developing all sorts of real-life skills: problem-solving, sequencing, organization, social skills, compromise, empathy, sympathy, and the list goes on.” The best bit about this though is that they don’t know they are doing it. All they know is that they are having fun!

Unstructured play is desperately needed in children’s lives. It is also a reason why many children love “Sandbox” video games where they can walk freely around without much rhyme or reason. Unfortunately, you don’t see kids being kids and playing in the street in real life. I remember being told that I had to be home when the streetlights came on, and that was it. My brother and I would ride around the surrounding blocks, go to friends houses (on our own accord, NOT a playdate) and play in the street with the neighbourhood kids. We would often go from house to house and play in their yard or playroom, no strings attached.

Unplug and Reflect

Children must have time unplugged from devices (TV, PlayStation, iPad, etc.). The recommended screen time in Australia, based on The Australian National Physical activity and sedentary guidelines, states that children 2–5 years should have less than 1 hour per day and children 5–17 years should have less than two hours per day. In a lot of schools, you would find that your child is already exceeding the limit.

Children also need time doing nothing to reflect on their day and make sense of what has happened throughout it.

3. Schedule Rest Into Their Week

It is vitally important that you do not only schedule rest into your week and days, but you schedule it for your children as well. It is ok if they get bored! They need it!

Remember, kids, do have more hectic lives in this day and age. They are going to school earlier, learning curriculum content a year earlier than we did (Preps are learning what we learned in year 1 or 2) and they have added social pressure.

Think of your kids and their childhood. You want to keep it precious and sacred. You should also want it to be fun, adventurous, risky and safe.

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Michael Godfrey

- Husband, father, teacher and theology student with a mission is to engage, equip and empower others to serve God, Church and neighbour.