Saumil Majmudar talks about the importance of play in a student’s life & how it can help him get over stress and anxiety
As per Rochester Institute of Technology, one in five children has a diagnosable emotional or behavioural disorder. And up-to one in 10 may suffer from a serious emotional disturbance. A study published by the Indian Journal of Psychiatry in 2009 revealed that childhood and adolescent mental disorder rates stood at 12.5% in the 0-16 age group in Bangalore, 9.4% in 8-12 years’ age bracket in Kerala and 6.3% in 4-11 age bracket in Chandigarh. The overall figure in India stood between 6 and 15%, the same study suggested.
All work & no play
Being a part of the education industry for past eight years and a partner to 650-plus schools, one facet remains constant. Academic and exam pressure and less playtime for children. In the last few decades, there has been a tremendous rise in the parental and personal expectations as to perform better academically because of the competitive environment. As per an article published by International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 63.5% of the children reported stress due to academic pressure with no significant differences across gender, age, grade and several other personal factors. There’s also a concern of less playtime among children. Most of the schools we surveyed provide only two or at the most only three PE classes per week for pre-primary and primary school. And for middle school (grades 6 and above), this drops to one or two.
What is the solutionIJ
As per WHO 2010 report, at least 60 minutes of reasonably rigorous playtime every day is ideal to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression in children. Such a simple solution and yet people find it difficult to implement in children. Children spend a significant part of their time in schools. Getting a group of children together to play after-school and finding a venue is a huge challenge in the Indian context — given the traffic, lack of play grounds and focus on academics. The school’s structure ensures that a certain group of children of the same age gather together during their PE class. Most schools have some space to play as well. The school therefore is the best place to introduce changes.
Why playIJ
We play by nature. Everyone has an instinct to play. For a child’s development, play and academics are complementary to each other. As learning alphabets and numbers, fundamental to the early development of children, so is playing. Play for children is so essential that it has been recognised by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child.
The writer is CEO & Co-founder, EduSports