My Reacton to a Newspaper Article about Playing with Your Children.

The San Jose Mercury News had an article today entitled "Playing with your child: Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing."  The title of this article stuck me as being offensive, playing with our children can be bad.  Just a couple weeks ago in church we discussed how giving our children time is important, and saying "I give them quality time if not very much time" is just a cop-out.

The article is a syndicated article, and was actually written by Heidi Steven of the Chicago Tribune.  As I read the article, it wasn't near as offensive as I thought it would be, but the Headline still offends me.  Usually Headlines are added by the local paper.

I am not quoting the article directly, as I was informed by the paper that it is copyrighted.  However the points of the article are, play time should be scheduled, and there should be a limit to playtime based on the child's age and the conditions.   The article says the play time should be bounded, or in other words distractions should be done away with and the focus should be playing with the child.

The article also makes some good practical suggestions.  When a child is playing with a friend, parent play is not always wanted.  An adult is helpful with puzzles or with games and can keep the game or activity going. 

It is not always inherent on the parent to  come to the rescue when a child says, "I'm bored."  Sometimes the child learning how to cope teaches leadership and creativity.

The article makes a case against tickling, saying it is an adult controlled activity of laughter.  I was ticklish growing up and sometimes tickled too much.  However the tickling experiences were also bonding experiences, mostly with my older siblings.   There is a place for tickling, in moderation.

So my conclusion is playing with your child has its place.  Sometimes you may need to set limits, and  have time to focus exclusively on the.  I worry more about not giving enough time to our children rather than playing too much with them.  To a child, as said at church, they don't know what is "quality time" just what is time.