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Posts tagged ‘Jonathan Haidt’

Jul 2

A Child’s Work Is About Play

When I was in grad school, I took several courses on child therapy. For younger kids, it was all about play. As I began to see children, I discovered that the kids didn’t really understand how to play.

This was in the mid 1990s, and it only got worse. Jonathan Haidt has gotten it correct. By the time the 2010s rolled around, the phone and the iPad were king. Where were children’s minds going?

Freud was right about dreaming being the royal road to our unconscious. It is how we process the stuff of that day, turn it over, and make sense of what might not make sense to us. Child therapists are correct about kids needing to work things out in free play. Play is the language of childhood, and it is understood by engaging in a free flight of thoughts. Kids don’t learn to think by being told what they need to know! Kids learn by doing, and by having parents who can honor the language of childhood: play. We’re coming back to this vital concept in 2026.

This is now happening in the schools, where tech is slowly being reframed and pulled out of spaces so that children learn to have a childhood, create, and do the work of childhood: play.

When I was seeing children in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was stunned by the lack of creative play. This was before the age of the phone. No, you can’t bring your pet rock into the session, but yes, I want to see you imagine, play school, and work out your struggles. And, as children played and allowed me to interact with them, they resolved the tricky issues of life. I’ll say it again: you can’t do it with a phone or tablet, and in 2026 we’re seeing the results. Depression and anxiety are on the rise. Kids aren’t able to cope with the basic things of life.

Playing away from the computer may also be a good prescription for adults. We discover things during our creative times that tend to open us up to new insights. The kids I saw in the 1990s are now adults and are struggling to work it all out—again. They’re turning to new methods. They’re discovering the adult versions of what needed to happen in childhood: prayer, meditation, and play.

Meditation and prayer can cause us to discover ourselves in new ways; play allows for us to create, to imagine, and to discover what is bothering us. Physical play allows us to explore our minds in different ways than engaging with someone else’s idea of our universe.

An example of this is George Lucas. Lucas has a fertile imagination. He imagined a planet with two suns; we saw it in Star Wars on the planet of Tatooine. Now, we know it exists in space. Imagination comes from developing our play skills. Play enables us to dream and to learn about ourselves in different ways than books allow us to do.

I’m an avid reader. I finish a book and face serious story withdrawal. While books allow my mind to create good things, play allows us to make it come to life. Adult coloring books are fun.

Play allows a child to explore building foundations of life, fixing the problem when the “stuck” moment arises. Play builds confidence that allows a child to see if they can fix something. Physical play allows for setting rules on our own terms, and we learn that no, we can’t defy the laws of nature—but maybe we can explore new ways of engaging with them.

Play is the basis of imagination and of thinking outside the box. Without play, would we have gone to the moon? Would we have all the things we have today if, throughout history, kids playing with other kids had never asked why something couldn’t be done, and then gone and done it?

Play challenges the child and the adult to challenge the norms and go outside of the box. Why not? For those who can color outside of the lines, it is an essential part of becoming a creative adult, and for those who need more of a structured existence, it can serve to teach us to understand our limitations and accept those that want to fly.

Play teaches children to make fair rules and to work things out for themselves.

Play is about finding solutions that are creative and respectful. It is about creating memories and stories that support growth. Play in the simpler days was about staying out until the streetlights came on and being with the kids in the neighborhood. It was about bonding and exploration. How do we get back to that and give kids a chance to explore?

A line in a piece of music from days gone by—“Bookends” by Simon and Garfunkel—keeps returning to my mind. While we must move forward, can we have this thought return for our children?

Time it was and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, A time of confidences

Maybe the welder and the scientist will join forces as children to pursue new memories. Maybe parents will learn that free, unstructured play is a great thing, and it keeps the mind young. Maybe in our brave new frontier, the geeky kid and the builder will learn to join creatively to spark imaginations. Where could play take us? To Saturn and beyond?

Jul 24

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The Trauma Queue

This past week I read some Jonathan Haidt. He’s a researcher and writer. His latest book is titled The Anxious Generation, and it held few, if any, surprises for me. With the advent of the smartphone, and with younger kids finding themselves submerged in content that is not age appropriate, I’m not surprised at all to see the general mood of the world becoming less stable and less forgiving of others. The unreasonable push towards perfection has society caught with a noose around its neck.

I’m not against social media. That being said, I’m not for anything that causes our young adults and teens to not understand themselves. I’m for a compromise.

People shout about large pharmaceutical companies. I think we need to be even more concerned about social media companies that get people hooked on screens, who then find depression and anxiety kick in. I’ve surveyed clients informally, and I find that those who can turn off their social media feeds and decrease screen time are more capable of understanding who they are. They are more skilled at working towards constructive goals. These people are not trying to keep up with the Joneses—they are their own family.

As a therapist and spiritual director, I see more people with more uncertainty every day. They ask: “My life isn’t exciting, so what can I say or do that will make me interesting to others? I’ve got to keep people engaged.”

The “like” button is a curse to all.

I come from an era when keeping up with the Joneses meant getting the first or second pool on the block, or having the latest tech when that was a stereo system that had an amazing sound system with speakers that put out wonderful noise.

Now the things that tech allow are both wonderful and dangerous.

Anxiety has risen to unreasonable levels. Life direction for people in their twenties is questionable, and people don’t know how to be friends and form face-to-face personal relationships. Living under the same roof is really hard work. Doing things without tech is a skill that is being lost.

Michael Crichton, in Jurassic Park, asks us to consider the question of whether or not we should create even though we have the technology to do so. I’m thinking that, in the 2010s, this was a question that wasn’t fully asked by those with the skills to create this new thing on a screen. And yet, we’re finding answers that we weren’t prepared for.

A queue for the local or online therapist is much longer today than it was when I began this work thirty years ago. Back in the 1990s, therapists were marketing to get clients. Waiting lists are very real things now. The waiting lists are filled with people needing help with anxiety, depression, and claims of trauma. I don’t question the anxiety and depression, but sometimes what I hear as trauma is someone encountering a situation that they lack the skills to handle. I reframe this and do some teaching. Clients show clear relief and can move forward with a better outlook on life. Those with trauma want nothing more than to work through it and move forward. Trauma is soul shattering.

Do we ask ourselves if we’re doing the right thing? Do we follow the crowd? For some people, not understanding the process of decision-making is real. When you surrender yourself to the crowd, things can go wrong, and you might wind up in a queue that isn’t for your favorite ride at your favorite park.