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Key points
- The U.S. has one of the lowest amounts in the world of time per day allotted for play for children aged 6-13
- A recent study suggests that overall, both parents and teachers acknowledge that play has multiple benefits.
- Parents, principals, and teachers agree that they wish kids had more time to play while at school.
In the United States, children spend, on average, 6 and a half hours a day in school, or about 32.5 hours per week. Therefore, school time is the dominant activity in a child’s day, at least for 180 days out of the year. While there is no question that school is intended for learning, one question is the mechanism(s) that learning should occur. While books, tests, and chalkboards are important tools, I would like to argue that another effective method for education plays. If this is the case, how prominent is play in schools?
Unfortunately, the amount of time children are given to play while in school has decreased in recent years (see also this article), and the U.S. has one of the lowest amounts in the world of time per day allotted for play for children aged 6-13. Most studies, however, suggest that parents, principals, and teachers recognize that play is beneficial and that they wish kids had more time to play while at school.
Last month, I surveyed to examine how teachers felt about the role of play in school, especially in a COVID-19 world where play has had to change in so many ways for the safety of children. While I reported the exact results in my blog last month, I essentially found that teachers of grades Pre-K through 3 overwhelmingly felt that play is essential to the education of children this age and that play incurs a great number of benefits, including social, emotional, and academic benefits. When asked how many minutes of school a day should include playing, the average response of this group of teachers was 71.85 minutes per day.
To follow up with these findings, I reached out to a group of parents of children this age. I wanted to get their perspective on how important they believed play to be in their child’s education and whether or not they believed their children were getting enough play at school.
I received responses from parents of 59 children who were in Pre-K (14), Kindergarten (11), 1st grade (4), 2nd grade (11), or 3rd grade (19). When asked if they believed that play should be a part of their child’s school day every day, 100% of parents responded “Yes.”
When asked to rate the importance of play in the daily education of children in this grade, on a scale of 1 to 6 (where 6 = very important), 86.2% rated the importance at a 5 or 6, and 94.8% rated it as a 4 or higher (average rating = 5.43 - very close to the teachers’ average rating of 5.63 in response to this question). The rating of importance did not differ by the grade level of the child.
Regarding the amount of play that they believed their children should have in a school day, the average was 81.18 minutes, which was even higher than what teachers had suggested (71.85 minutes) when asked the same question. However, these numbers did differ slightly by grade level. Parents of preschoolers suggested an average of 132.68 minutes per day, parents of Kindergarteners suggested 76.75 minutes per day, parents of first-graders suggested 63.75 minutes per day, second-grade parents suggested 71.75 minutes per day. Third-grade parents dropped down to 54.21 minutes per day. It definitely seems that parents of younger children feel that play should be a larger part of their children’s school day.
When asked to rate their agreement with the statement that their children are given enough time to play each day at school on a scale of 1 to 6 (where 1 = strongly disagree and 6 = strongly agree), the average agreement was 4.47. For most grades, parents’ responses were around a 4, but the Pre-K parents rated their agreement with this question higher, at an average of 5.29. This suggests that the preschool curricula include more play - or at least an amount of play that parents feel is appropriate for their children.
Parents were also asked about the types of play that their children should participate in while at school. The difference between structured play (organized play with rules) and unstructured (open-ended, free) play was explained, and parents were asked what percentage of playtime should be constituted by each. On average, parents felt that children’s play at school should be made up of about 49.36% structured play and 45.96% unstructured play, and ratings did not differ significantly from 50% for either type of play for any grade level.
However, parents did not feel that teachers should be very involved in children’s play at school. On a scale of 1 to 6, where 1 = not involved and 6 = very involved, parents rated teachers’ involvement at a 2.54. This was in agreement with teachers themselves, whose average rating in response to this question was 2.22. It should perhaps be noted, however, that ratings in response to this question were very close to 3 for parents of children in Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st grade, but much closer to 2 for parents of 2nd- and 3rd-graders.
Like teachers, parents agreed that play offers children several benefits. They were asked to rate their agreement from 1 to 6 with several statements about the possible positive impacts that play may have. In terms of socioemotional skills, they agreed that play helps children with conflict resolution skills (average agreement = 5.58), negotiation skills (M = 5.61), and emotional regulation (M = 5.49). Teachers had also suggested that these skills are enhanced by play (ratings of 5.85, 5.76, and 5.74, respectively). Although none of the age groups showed ratings that were significantly different from the other age groups, parents of Kindergarteners, in particular, tended to rate their agreement more highly, with average ratings of 5.91, 6.00, and 5.82, respectively.
Parents also agreed that play has several academic benefits, including the enhancement of literacy skills (M = 5.00), science skills (M = 5.02), mathematical skills (M = 5.08), and creativity (M = 5.76). Ratings for these outcomes did not differ by grade level, and teachers rated their agreement just slightly higher for each of these (5.41, 5.48, 5.41, and 5.85, respectively). But overall, both parents and teachers clearly acknowledged that play has multiple benefits.
Of course, I recognize that the results reported here come from a small convenience sample of parents. However, their close agreement with the teacher ratings from the very similar survey conducted last month serves to augment my argument that play is important–if not essential–to education.
Those who work closely with children, and those who raise them, understand that children need to play with children spending roughly 40% of their waking hours in school on most days, incorporating play into the school day matters. In a world filled with uncertainty, scary news, full schedules, and high anxiety levels, giving children the opportunity–and the time–to play is perhaps more important now than ever before.
