Don’t Confuse Children’s Needs With the Needs of Parents.

Families definitely need help but the needs of parenthood and childhood are not the same.

We humans have spent most of our evolutionary time in hunter-gatherer societies. Which means children have evolved to grow and develop in free roaming multi-aged play groups.

Within such a structure, children can each mature and acquire skills at their own individual rate. Such a structure also allows for tremendous behavioral latitude. Children have learned through play for most of our evolution. They ran about. They fidgeted. They yelled and shrieked and whispered. They moved. They made their own choices.

Children still need to do all these things. 2-years-old or 12-years-old, children need to play and move and explore under their own motivation.

What parents need today is a very different thing, and it’s vitally important that we don’t confuse the two. Parents need to meet the financial needs of their family. They also need to feel useful and valued in the world. They need to contribute some of their energy into a life of industry. They need the literal time and space to enjoy their children.

They raise our next generation of Americans, and they are currently exhausted, burned out, and frayed at both ends.

As adults we tend to forget what it was like to be a kid. We forget that a child’s brain is developing slowly and functions very differently from our own brain. We forget that growing a human to adulthood is a long, long process. We forget that kids need a lot of freedom. Because we forget these things, we tend to assume that which is “good for parents” is “good for kids.”

This is a big mistake.

There are proposals being passed around to remake our school system. Some proposals go so far as to recommend our schools go year round and the days extend to eight hours long. This would greatly ease the financial burden of after school childcare for many parents.

But sacrificing our children’s need for free unstructured time is appalling. It’s a sacrifice of the most basic human rights of a child. And it won’t work. Children who don’t get free play act out more than those who do. We know this. That “acting out” is a child screaming for help.

If you grew up with free unstructured playtime, you’ll know how important this time is for kids. Or ask any child development expert and you’ll get the same answers.

Don’t ask young kids to do academic tasks too early. Don’t expect them to sit still until they are much, much older. Nurture a love of learning through play. Let kids move. Get them outdoors. Give children freedom for self-motivated unstructured play. Plan for kids to develop at different rates and to learn in different ways.

The American school system does not currently accommodate most of these needs and certainly needs revamping. But be careful where you look for solutions.

The answer to good schools will come from educational psychologists who study how brains function when learning, child development experts who recognize the long time it takes to maturity and the diverse areas of growth that occur outside of school, and educators who are so dedicated to our kids.

Schools cannot fix all our societal and family problems. They are already grossly underfunded and overburdened. Let’s be clear. We need to redesign schools to better understand and meet the developmental and learning needs of children. We need to redesign our society to better meet the needs of parents and everyday workers.

Parents need the kind of support we see in almost all other first world countries. Subsidized childcare options for daycare, a nanny, or a stay-at-home-parent. A salary and Social Security payments for stay-at-home-parents. A living wage from one job. Reasonable work hours and scheduling. A work ethic that includes moral obligations to family time. A more human pace of life that is not dictated by the financial avarice of the top 1%.

Please do not try to fix these adult problems by ignoring our children’s needs. They have a basic human right to live in a way that reflects the developmental needs of a young and immature brain. They have a basic human right to an education that is born from our growing knowledge of child development and our children’s need for free time and free play.

Kathleen Cawley is a physician assistant and author. She is a regular guest columnist for the Auburn Journal where she writes on parenting and childhood. Her book, Navigating the Shock of Parenthood: Warty Truths and Modern Practicalities — from a mom with twins, will be available in winter of 2022. You can find her on Facebook at The Shock of Parenthood and on Medium.