The Real Value of Play
By Christin Perry-Michalik
Christin Perry-Michalik is a licensed therapist and a member of the Lost Voices Board of Directors.
I have been a therapist for the past 16 years, with all but 2 of those years working exclusively or predominantly with children and teens. One of the more disturbing things I’ve been seeing in recent years is increasingly anxious kids who think their lives are all about resume-building. They are convinced that getting good grades and pursuing the right activities will get them into the “right” school, so that they can then land the “right” career. Kids are depressed. They are less able to just be kids, using childhood to figure out and appreciate the inherent value in who they are.
Instead, they feel they have to earn value by being “good enough.”
Often kids like those we see in Lost Voices programs experience traumas, and this of course creates anxiety. But we also have a large portion of our kids who have supposedly experienced all the right things through education, team sports and other activities who don’t know how to relax, don’t know how to connect, and don’t know their worth. (more…)