For many years I have been observing and writing about children’s play and its great importance for their healthy development (1988, 2013, 2015). More recently, however, I have discussed my deep concerns about how many of today’s children have lost the time and space to play independently, and I have speculated about the potential negative effects of this loss of self-designed, extended-time play that most children in the past experienced [1,2]. This is because many children today are often “scheduled” extensively. In addition to daycare, preschool, and school time, the rest of their time usually also is filled with structured activities. During the past few months, however, as restrictions on families have been imposed in an attempt to stop the extensive spread of the coronavirus, many of the typically scheduled activities of children, which are adult planned and controlled (e.g. school, sports, music/art lessons, etc.) have not been available to them.

References

1. Bergen D. “Commentary: The “play deficit” discovered by physicians! Implications for policy and practice”. Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Disorders5 (2018): 128-132.
2. Bergen D. “Commentary: Encouraging children’s optimum development in an environment of technological change”. Acta Scientific Paediatrics5(2019): 52-59.
3. Davis D and Bergen D. “Relationships among play behaviors reported by college students and their responses to moral issues: A pilot study”. Journal of Research in Childhood Education 28 (2014): 484-498.
4. Bergen D and Williams E. “Differing childhood play experiences of three young adult cohorts have implications for physical, social and academic development”. Poster presentation at the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago (2008).
5. Bergen D., et al. “Chinese and American students’ memories of childhood play: A comparison”. International Journal of Educology2 (1997): 109-127.
6. Bergen D. “Does pretend play matter? Searching for evidence. Comment on Lillard et al”. Psychological Bulletin 1 (2013): 45-48.
7. Root-Bernstein M and Root-Bernstein R. “Imaginary world play in childhood and maturity and its impact on adult creativity”. Creativity Research Journal4 (2006): 405-425.
8. Bergen D. “Play as the learning medium for future scientists, mathematicians, and engineers”. American Journal of Play4 (2009): 1-10.
9. Bergen D. “Play as a method of assessing young children’s learning and development: Past, present, future”. In O. Saracho and B. Spodek (Eds.). Contemporary perspectives on assessment and evaluation in early childhood education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age(2015): 221-246.
10. Bergen D. “Play as a medium for learning and development: A handbook of theory and practice”.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books (1998).

Citation

Citation: Doris Bergen. “Commentary: Coronavirus Restrictions as Opportunities for Children’s Play". Acta Scientific Paediatrics 3.8 (2020): 76-77.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Doris Bergen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.