Whenever Sharmista Aich finds her son watching too much television, she just cancels her subscription to the DTH service; sometimes, for as long as two months. She says that her 10-year-old son Aabir has a rather long day at school, from 7:30am till 4:30pm. “There’s homework, then swimming and drawing classes on alternate days. Where is the time to play?” she asks.
Sharmista’s dilemma is something most parents are familiar with. And findings from a research ‘Play Life’, undertaken by kids channel Nickelodeon, have only confirmed that school-going kids today are extremely pressed for time, leaving very little time for outdoor play.
Researchers interviewed six hundred 8-14 year olds across six metros, in the presence of their parents. It was found that on a typical weekday, kids spend 7.2 hours studying, watch TV for about 1.7 hours and play outdoors for only 0.6 hours. On weekends, kids spend 3.2 hours watching TV and 2.8 hours studying, playing outdoors for 1.2 hours.
Overall, only 25% of kids play outdoors on a daily basis. Parental restriction is one of the biggest reasons kids state for this. The other reasons are studies and homework, besides television and computer games. About 30% kids say that their playtime in school is often taken over by teachers for lectures.
A majority of parents (40%) said their kids don’t have any place to play. Over 29% of them offer the ‘where is the time’ excuse. Over 26% were worried about the safety of their kids outdoors. Viewership for kiddie cartoon channels has also been growing, as is traffic from kids to social networking websites. The number of reality shows featuring kids has steadily been rising.
Stakeholders in the educational system say there’s a need for ‘balance’, which for today’s parents is challenging to accomplish. Neha Patel, clinical psychologist, says, “Outdoor activity is always good for the body. Parents and teachers must understand that remaining indoors all the time affects kids psychologically.”
Avnita Bir, principal, RN Podar School, says they have tried to explain the same to parents, but in vain. “Thankfully, the CBSE has now introduced a system where co-curricular activities such as sports will also be graded, along with academics.”
