The Power of Play

There has been a lot of discussion lately about re-injecting play into preschool and elementary school curricula after the pendulum seemed to swing to the other side in the past few years. According to this New York Times article, many parents and educators are now trying to reinforce the value of unstructured, child-driven play to help kids learn valuable social, emotional, and cognitive skills.

Evidence shows that more free time to play may also help alleviate some of today's childhood ailments, like ADHD. Boston College psychology professor Peter Gray, for example, frequently discusses ADHD on his blog, Freedom to Learn. In one post he wrote: "What does it mean to have ADHD? Basically, it means failure to adapt to the conditions of standard schooling. Most diagnoses of ADHD originate with teachers' observations." In his research, Gray found that kids with ADHD diagnoses show dramatic improvements when they are removed from conventional schooling environments.

We feel fortunate that homeschooling allows our kids the unfettered time and freedom to play, explore and learn.