Would you let your five-year old run an errand like going to the grocery store alone? Or do you think children at this age are not ready to be this independent.
A few years ago, Mediacorp ran a Singaporean version of the Japanese hit series Old Enough! The series featured 20 preschoolers, aged two to five, who did all sorts of things on their own for the first time, from crossing traffic junctions to doing farm chores to buying groceries in the supermarket and the wet market too.
If you watched any of these episodes, you would probably be very impressed at the boldness, courage, and maturity of these kids. At the same time, you would likely believe that this isn’t the norm and that your child could not have done it.
Psychologist Louise Bates Ames disagrees with you.
In “Your Five Year Old,” Ames writes that by this age, children should be able to run errands for their parents, find their own way to the store, select items and get correct change. Kids today aren’t able to do so largely because of the lack of unstructured play.
Between the early 1980s and 1997, children’s play time decreased by 25 percent. Today, the average kid only spends 4 to 7 minutes outside doing something unstructured each day, spending most of their time in school, on homework, and in enrichment activities.
Yes, activities like organised sports, art classes, and music lessons are beneficial. But they don’t provide the same opportunities for learning as free play, says Wendy Mogel, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist. “Activities can build skills,” she says. “But it does not promote independence, and it actually erodes self-confidence.”
You have a unique opportunity to provide the kind of free play that is so beneficial but lacking in your child’s life. More than the family vacation to an exotic destination, your child will remember the forest trek, the camping trip, or the biking adventure.
By Parcsen Loke, Family Life Coach, Centre for Fathering.
Food for Thought: At what age do you think your child is old enough to run errands for you, such as going to the supermarket?
Reference:
https://www.nrpa.org/uploadedFiles/nrpa.org/Advocacy/Children-in-Nature.pdf