Let kids play!
By Ariana Rathan
From the Ted Talk discussing the importance of allowing children to play in their youth, I found a question within the text and context of the speech. I had never been more interested in a Ted Talk before. It raised the sense of “do” into my life, and that is to advocate for students that are being robbed of play and that sense of wonder.
Sadly it’s impossible to stay young forever and kids have to grow up physically and have to mature, but why? At what age do children really need to grow up? To mature? Because even though children are expected to grow up by a certain age, there are countless adults that act immature and throw fits and children that are perfectly well behaved.
Childhood is, in my opinion, the most important part of someone’s life. It shapes who they are, and it teaches them, shapes them into the person that they grow into. So that is why I ask, why do we rush it? Why do we put so much pressure on children to stop playing and “grow up”.
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I personally don’t have an answer to that question because I was a child at play who in fact had to grow up. I remember the days of my play, our next-door neighbor Miss Nancy. She would sit in her yard for hours and her granddaughter, my sister and I and the rest of the neighborhood friends would run around, letting our imaginations run free. We would be entertained from practical dawn until dusk and always craved more. I would do anything to go back to my days of play.
Why does that have to stop? I believe it doesn’t.
I’ve learned from experience as a younger part of the generation that we are the future and we are the change we want to see in the world. All we need is someone to recognize it. Those that have hope for the future have that sense of “play” in them.
The innocence that adults believe to be immaturity should be cherished and kept. I believe that if there is more play in the world and less work that is pushed onto children, there will be less stress, less anxiety, and less depression. Even though there is so much that is advancing in present-day society, technology will change and children won’t.
We will no longer rob children of their childhood, by placing more and more unnecessary expectations onto them at such a young age.
My goal in life is to recapture that child-like spirit in my life and stop acting like an adult. Something that adults don't have is a spark, a spark that can be lit up by play and wonder and not weighed down by the worries of the world.
