As children direct their own free play and solve the problems that come up, they must exert control over themselves and must, at times, accept restrictions on their own behavior and follow the rules if they want to be accepted and successful in the game.
As children negotiate both their physical and social environments through play, they can gain a sense of mastery over their world, Gray contends. It is this aspect of play that offers enormous psychological benefits, helping to protect children from anxiety and depression.
They grow up feeling that they are dependent on luck and on the goodwill and whims of others Anxiety and depression often occur when an individual feels a lack of control over his or her own life. Children learn to handle their emotions, including anger and fear, during play. In free play, children put themselves into both physically and socially challenging situations and learn to control the emotions that arise from these stressors.
They role play, swing, slide, and climb trees Gray suggests that the reduced ability to regulate emotions may be a key factor in the development of some anxiety disorders. They are afraid of their own fear, and therefore small degrees of fear generated by mildly threatening situations lead to high degrees of fear generated by the person's fear of losing control. Play helps children make friends and learn to get along with each other as equals. Social play is a natural means of making friends and learning to treat one another fairly.
Since play is voluntary and playmates may abandon the game at any time if they feel uncomfortable, children learn to be aware of their playmates' needs and attempt to meet them in order to maintain the play.
Gray believes that "learning to get along and cooperate with others as equals may be the most crucial evolutionary function of human social play Even those who are more skilled at the game's actions Most importantly, play is a source of happiness.
When children are asked about the activities that bring them happiness, they say they are happier when playing with friends than in any other situation. Perhaps you felt this way when remembering your own childhood play experiences at the beginning of this article. Gray sees the loss of play time as a double whammy: we have not only taken away the joys of free play, we have replaced them with emotionally stressful activities.
There has been a significant increase in anxiety and depression from to present day in teens and young adults and Gray cites several studies documenting this rise. One showed that five to eight times as many children and college students reported clinically significant depression or anxiety than 50 years ago and another documented a similar trend in the fourteen- to sixteen-year-old age group between and It is important to remember that genetic background, as well as nutrition and exercise, may affect a child's growth.
A sense of body image begins developing around age 6. Sedentary habits in school-age children are linked to a risk for obesity and heart disease in adults. Children in this age group should get 1 hour of physical activity per day. There can also be a big difference in the age at which children begin to develop secondary sexual characteristics. For girls, secondary sex characteristics include:.
By age 5, most children are ready to start learning in a school setting. The first few years focus on learning the fundamentals. In third grade, the focus becomes more complex. Reading becomes more about the content than identifying letters and words.
An ability to pay attention is important for success both at school and at home. A 6-year-old should be able to focus on a task for at least 15 minutes. By age 9, a child should be able to focus attention for about an hour. It is important for the child to learn how to deal with failure or frustration without losing self-esteem. There are many causes of school failure, including:. Early school-age children should be able to use simple, but complete, sentences that contain an average of 5 to 7 words.
As the child goes through the elementary school years, grammar and pronunciation become normal. Children use more complex sentences as they grow. Language delays may be due to hearing or intelligence problems. In addition, children who are unable to express themselves well may be more likely to have aggressive behavior or temper tantrums. A 6-year-old child normally can follow a series of 3 commands in a row.
By age 10, most children can follow 5 commands in a row. Children who have a problem in this area may try to cover it up with backtalk or clowning around. They will rarely ask for help because they are afraid of being teased. Frequent physical complaints such as sore throats, tummy aches, or arm or leg pain may simply be due to a child's increased body awareness. Although there is often no physical evidence for such complaints, the complaints should be investigated to rule out possible health conditions.
This will also assure the child that the parent is concerned about their well-being. Peer acceptance becomes more important during the school-age years. Useful work does include that done in climbing stairs or accelerating to a full run, because these are accomplished by exerting forces on the outside world.
If a person needs more energy than they consume, such as when doing vigorous work, the body must draw upon the chemical energy stored in fat. So exercise can be helpful in losing fat. However, the amount of exercise needed to produce a loss in fat, or to burn off extra calories consumed that day, can be large, as Example 1 illustrates.
If a person who normally requires an average of 12, kJ kcal of food energy per day consumes 13, kJ per day, he will steadily gain weight. How much bicycling per day is required to work off this extra kJ? Table 2 states that W are used when cycling at a moderate speed. The time required to work off kJ at this rate is then.
If the person uses 13, kJ but consumes only 12, kJ, then the amount of fat loss will be. Figure 2. A pulse oxymeter is an apparatus that measures the amount of oxygen in blood. Such measurements can indicate the level of athletic conditioning as well as certain medical problems. Figure 3. This fMRI scan shows an increased level of energy consumption in the vision center of the brain. Here, the patient was being asked to recognize faces. All bodily functions, from thinking to lifting weights, require energy.
See Figure 3. The many small muscle actions accompanying all quiet activity, from sleeping to head scratching, ultimately become thermal energy, as do less visible muscle actions by the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. Shivering, in fact, is an involuntary response to low body temperature that pits muscles against one another to produce thermal energy in the body and do no work.
Nerve cells use this electrical potential in nerve impulses. This bioelectrical energy ultimately becomes mostly thermal energy, but some is utilized to power chemical processes such as in the kidneys and liver, and in fat production. Figure 4. Shot putter at the Dornoch Highland Gathering in
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