A book newly acquired by the Thammasat University Libraries reminds us how important it is for societal development that children play the right games.
Children at Play: An American History shows that whatever adults may think about how children should spend their time, kids manage to find the opportunity to do what they want.
Its author, Howard Chudacoff, is a professor of American history at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. Chudacoff asserts that children in highly developed societies are less and less able to play independently; they need to be told what to do by designers of commercial games. This means they have less imaginative and creative power. Chudacoff warns that if kids are not given free time and their whole day is filled with classes, homework, and other scheduled activities, they will not develop independent social skills such as finding out what to do when they are left on their own. By analyzing many children’s diaries and memoirs, he discusses play from 1600 to now for children aged six to twelve. Even during the days of slavery in America, African-American children found time to play, sometimes with white children. Native American boys practiced sports-like and hunting games. By the 20th century, adults tried to build safe places for children to play. Today in some countries, children from privileged families are so protected that they hardly go out to play at all, except in adult-supervised settings. Parents now take children to gymnastics classes, karate, and music lessons to help them develop into productive adults. When left alone, kids go onto the internet to find the freedom children in past years experienced wandering around the streets looking for entertainment. Chudacoff sees excessive TV and video games as dangerous for youngsters, “influencing uncritical minds in insidious ways.” He reminds parents and educators to “consider how and when to give kids more independence to explore their environment, create playthings, interact with other kids, and simply enjoy being young.”
Chudacoff says he was inspired by a 1957 book, Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? which is not in the TU Libraries collection, but may be obtained by interlibrary loan. This landmark study showed that no matter what adults try to do, kids play the way they want to. In previous generations, instead of being driven everywhere by car, kids traveled on their own by foot or bicycle. Many children also worked. Chudacoff himself started working at age twelve, spending over twenty hours per week at a job where his boss was an uncle who paid him 35 cents (11 baht) per hour. Previous generations of children in West played organized sports such as Little League baseball or participated in the Boy Scouts, but also had free time for less organized athletics, building model airplanes, reading, and wandering around the neighborhood. Nowadays, poor children as well as rich ones spend hours daily with video games, staring at a screen. In the past, children were able to entertain themselves with far less. When our grandparents were youngsters, they enjoyed sleds, skates, and dolls, yet might have found the most sanook in a stick, ball, or box.
Children’s Games in Thailand: Play in Bangkok
Many Thai youngsters are now fully occupied with games on their tablets and Iphones, but others still play more traditional games that allow room for the imagination to grow. UNESCO Bangkok reported that these games vary from Bangkok to the north of the Kingdom. In Bangkok, kids can be found playing dern ka la or coconut-shell shoes, where the object is to see who can move fastest wearing this footwear. Or ka fug khai (crow minds its eggs) where players try to fool the crow and steal eggs without being caught. In len saba (throwing saba seeds), kids use their knees, legs, or feet to toss the seeds at a target. Ma karn kluay (banana-stalk horse) involves a banana stalk shaped like a horse, just as peun karnkhuay (banana-stalk gun) finds another use for the same object. Ngoo kin hang (tail-eating snake), especially popular during Songkran festival, has Father Snake trying to catch a Baby Snake protected by Mother Snake. Some Bangkok children’s games seem to reflect the heavy traffic and congestion of the city, such as ree ree khao sarn (being trapped between the arches) where the player must struggle through an archway formed by the arms of playmates.
Play in the North of the Kingdom
In the North, traditional games are apparently more abundant, perhaps because fewer kids there are fully occupied by computerized games. There is ba kang wo (spinning top) from Chiang Mai province, involving a top made of bamboo that makes a noise when spun. Chan-angkarn (Monday-Tuesday) from Chiang Rai province requires players to repeatedly jump over a long rope made of rubber bands held by their opponents. This kind of exercise promoting agility is naturally better for the health than sitting around playing video games for hours, as so many Thai children do. In a similar way, dod nang wong (jumping with rubber-band rope) from Chiang Mai province – the game is called dod nang yang in Chiang Rai province – asks players to jump again and again over a long rope made of rubber bands. As the game continues, the jumps become more difficult. Also from Chiang Rai province, dod yang rod (jumping on motorbike tires) allows kids to work out their energy, seeing how long they can jump on a pile of old tires before falling off. Confirming the point that kids can have lots of sanook without expensive electronic gadgets, other games involving playing with garbage include rod yang (hitting motorbike tires) — seeing how far and fast an old motorcycle tire may be rolled – and yon yang rod (throwing motorbike tires) where kids see who can throw the object the farthest.
Are today’s children overprotected?
Chudacoff points out that modern parents are much more protective of kids than in centuries past, for many historical reasons. Wanting to supervise play and ban dangerous games that may harm the child can make a traditional Northern game such as e-keb (throwing and catching rocks) seem outdated. Should kids be allowed to throw a stone into the air and pick up other rocks, moving them in certain ways before catching the stone? Are stones and garbage the safest playthings? Chudacoff argues that by trying to ban such games, we limit children’s independent learning process. They must figure out for themselves what is dangerous instead of just relying on commands from parents. Less potentially leading to physical injury are such games as e-sok (scooping tamarind seeds) from Mae Hong Sorn province, in which tiny tamarind seeds must be picked up with a paper cone as a test of manual dexterity. Or kradod chuek (jumping rope) from Chiang Rai province and kratai ka kuab (hopping rabbit) from Chiang Mai province, with lots of leaping around.
There are many other such games which may be preserved in the future if all Thai children are not distracted by the expensive electronic toys they see advertised on TV. Yet as Chudacoff admits, children have very successful techniques for pressuring parents to buy toys that they see their friends enjoying. It can easily become a family crisis if a parent dares suggest that instead of an Xbox, a child should try playing with a stone, motorcycle tire, or rope made of rubber bands.
(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).