086: Playing to Win: How does playing sports impact children?

03/18/19 • 45 min

Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive

Individual sports or competitive? Recreational or organized? Everyone gets a trophy or just the winners? And why do sports in the first place? Granted there are some physical benefits, but don’t we also hope that our children will learn some kind of lessons about persistence and team work that will stand them in good stead in the future? In this interview with Dr. Hilary Levy Friedman we discuss her book Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture, the advantages that sports can confer on children (which might not be the ones you expect!), as well as what children themselves think about these issues. Read Full Transcript Jen: 01:23 Hello and welcome to today's episode of Your Parenting Mojo podcast, and today's episode actually comes to us courtesy of a question from my husband who said “You should really do an episode on the benefits of sports for children.” And I said, sure and I said about researching it and I actually stumbled on Dr. Hilary Levey Friedman’s book Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture, and I really got more than I bargained for with that book. Dr. Friedman has studied not just the advantages and drawbacks associated with participation in sport as an activity, but also much broader sociological issues like how participation in sports helped children to increase what she calls Competitive Kid Capital and can actually impact the child's academic and lifelong success. So, Dr. Friedman received her Bachelor's Degree from Harvard and Master’s in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University. She's currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Education at Brown University and is the mother of a preschooler and a first grader. Welcome Dr. Friedman. Dr. Friedman: 02:24 Thanks for having me. Jen: 02:25 You're right there in the thick of it with us. Dr. Friedman: 02:27 Yes. Jen: 02:29 So, I want to kind of start at the beginning or what seems like the beginning to me here because decades ago it seems as though it was far more common for children to engage in really unstructured outdoor playtime rather than organized sports. I'm curious as to your thoughts on what has shifted here and what do you think children are missing out by not having as much of this unstructured outdoor play? Dr. Friedman: 02:51 Well, it depends what time we're talking about. I mean if we’re talking about 200 years ago, I mean kids were working in the fields and 50 years after that, they were working in factories. So about a hundred years ago, 1918, we're seeing the formation of kids' athletic leagues in particular and also some other organized activities, but it's really more of like a popular myth or a misconception that kids use to spend all this time playing and having free time. The 1950s, which is that time we sort of pulled up is this Utopian time of kids playing in the streets and playing stickball and baseball and all of that is more the anomaly rather than the norm. So, today it is absolutely true that kids spend so much more time, especially, it depends on what age exactly we're talking about, but they spend a lot of time in organized play, not just in organized sports, but we just have to think about the ways in which that took a different shape historically in American childhood. Jen: 03:56 Yeah. Yeah. So, it's less that they were always able to engage in this unstructured play and whether that was sort of a phenomenon of its time just like the structured play as a phenomenon of its time today. Dr. Friedman: 04:07 Yes. Jen: 04:08 Do you think there are unique benefits associated with that unstructured time that maybe children are not able to realize today through the structured play that happens? Dr. Friedman: 04:17 Again, I think it depends on the age group we're talking about, so I'll limit it to elementary school aged kids just because that's the age group that Playing to Win focuses upon. So, I think certainly kids are working out all kinds of ideas, both intellectual but also social and moral when they play together and come up with their own games. Now, I don't think that having organized play is mutually exclusive to that either. So, I'll just give you one example in particular, part of Playing to Win is also about chess, not just about sports. And so I remember being at a chess summer camp for a few weeks and observing there and meeting families and the kids would play chess and then there'd be a recess time and then they'd play a little bit more chess and then have lunch and then have like a much longer period of recess and go out to a playground. And they came up with all these games that they invented on the playground and with pool noodles even though there wasn't a pool nearby and they had rules. It was very elaborate. So yes, they were spending time unstructured play as well, but they also had this space t...

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085: White privilege in schools

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting. Click here to view all the items in this series.

Public schools are open to all children, no matter what their race, so where’s the privilege in schools? In this episode we’ll learn more about how even (and perhaps especially) well-meaning liberal White parents perpetuate inequalities in schools which disadvantage children from non-dominant cultures. We’ll cover the way that purportedly ‘scientific’ standardized tests perpetuate inequality, ‘second generation segregation’ (which is still alive and well in schools), how White parents who want the best for their children end up disadvantaging others – and what are some steps we can take to move forward. Dr. Allison Roda's book Inequality in gifted and talented programs: Parental choices about status, school opportunity, and second-generation segregation - Affiliate link References Antonio, A., Chang, M.J., Hakuta, K., Kenny, D.A., Levin, S., & Milem, J.F. (2004). Effects of racial diversity on complex thinking in college students. Psychological Science 15(8), 507-510. DOI 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00710.x

Bifulco, R., Cobb, C., & Bel, C. (2009). Can interdistrict choice boost student achievement? The case of Connecticut’s interdistrict magnet school program. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 31(4), 323-345.

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Conway-Turner, J. (2016). Does diversity matter? The impact of school racial composition on the academic achievement of elementary school students in an ethnically diverse low-income sample (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://mars.gmu.edu/jspui/bitstream/handle/1920/10405/ConwayTurner_gmu_0883E_11159.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Gamoran, A., Barfels, S., & Collares, A.C. (2016). Does racial isolation in school lead to long-term disadvantages? Labor market consequences of high school racial composition. American Journal of Sociology 121(4), 1116-1167.

Holme, J.J. (2002). Buying homes, buying schools: School choice and the social construction of school quality. Harvard Educational Review 72(2), 177-205.

Knoester, M., & Au, W. (2014). Standardized testing and school segregation: Like tinder for fire? Race Ethnicity and Education 20(1), 1-14.

Mickelson, R.A. (2001). Subverting Swann: First- and second-generation segregation in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. American Educational Research Journal 38(2), 215-252

National Center for Education Statistics (2017) National Assessment of Educational Progress (Reading and Math results). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/

Nava, J. (2017, August 28). Do parents value school diversity? The PDK poll offers insights. Learning First Alliance. Retrieved from https://learningfirst.org/blog/parents-attitudes-toward-school-diversity

Posey-Maddox, L. (2014). When middle-class parents choose urban schools: Class, race, and the challenge of equity in public education. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Roda, A. (2018). School choice and the politics of parenthood: Exploring parent mobilization as a catalyst for the common good. Peabody Journal of Education 1-20.

Roda, A. (2017). Parenting in the age of high-stakes testing: Gifted and talented admissions and the meaning of parenthood. Teachers College Record 119, 1-53.

Roda, A. (2015). Inequality in gifted and talented programs: Parental choices about status, school opportunity, and second-generation segregation. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Roda, A., & Wells, A.S. (2013). School choice policies and racial segregation: Where White parents’ good intentions and privilege collide. American Journal of Education 119)2), 261-293.

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Smith, J.A. (2015, February 2). As parents get more choice, S.F. schools resegregate. San Francisco Public Press. Retrieved from https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2015-02/as-parents-get-more-choice-sf-schools-resegregate

Trachtenberg, P., Roda, A., & Coughlan, R. (2016, December 12). Remedying school segregation: How New Jersey’s Morris School District chose to make diversity work. The Century Foundation. Retrieved from https://tcf.org/content/report/remedying-school-segregation/

Watson, J. (2018, November 26). Cindy Hyde-Smith’s experience is not an outlier: School segregation in America is still a troubling fact today. NBC News. Retrieved from htt...

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087: Talking with children about race, with Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting. Click here to view all the items in this series.

We’ve laid a lot of groundwork on topics related to race by now: we learned about White privilege in parenting, and White privilege in schools, and even how parents can use sports to give their children advantages in school and in life. Today my listener Dr. Kim Rybacki and I interview a giant in the field: Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of the now-classic book (recently released in a 20th anniversary edition!) Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race. We begin by assessing what is White parents’ responsibility to help dismantle structural racism, and then learn how to discuss race and racism with our children. And in the next episode in this series I’ll have some really in-depth resources to support you in having these conversations with your own children. Dr. Tatum was featured in a short piece with Lester Holt on how to talk with children about racial injustice that you might also find helpful - she describes ways you can answer their questions honestly and fully in an age-appropriate way. You can find a link to the interview on her website here. References Bonilla-Silva, E., (2004). From bi-racial to tri-racial: Towards a new system of racial stratification in the USA. Ethnic and Racial Studies 27(6), 931-950.

Cheney-Rice, Z. (2018, November 11). Bernie Sanders and the lies we tell White voters. New York Intelligencer. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/bernie-sanders-and-the-lies-we-tell-white-voters.html

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen, J. (2009). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. National Association for the Education of Young Children. Available at https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/books/anti-bias-education

Hagerman, M. (2018). White Kids: Growing up with privilege in a racially divided America. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Helms, J. E. (Ed.). (1990). Contributions in Afro-American and African studies, No. 129. Black and White racial identity: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY, England: Greenwood Press.

King, M.L. (2010). Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community? Boston, MA: Beacon.

Kivel, P. (2017). Uprooting racism: How White people can work for racial justice (4th Ed.). Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society.

Miller, S. (2017, December 8). Reading race: Proactive conversations with young children. Raising Race-Conscious Children. Retrieved from http://www.raceconscious.org/2017/12/explicitlanguageracebooks/

Roda, A. (2015). Inequality in gifted and talented programs: Parental choices about status, school opportunity, and second-generation segregation. London, U.K.: Palgrave MacMillan.

Stalvey, L.M. (1989). The education of a WASP. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Sullivan, S. (2014). Good White people: The problem with middle-class White anti-racism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Tatum, B.D. (2017). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?. New York, NY: Basic.

Van Ausdale, D.V. & Feagin, J.R. (2001). The first R: How children learn race and racism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen: 01:25 Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We have a very special episode lined up for today and I’m recording this introduction separately, so as not to take time away from the interview. If you’re a regular listener, you might have heard my episodes on White Privilege and Parenting and also White Privilege in Schools in which we looked at some of the structural racism that’s present in our society that we might not have recognized until now, especially if we’re White. I’d also like to direct you back to the very beginning of the show because in episode 6, which was called “Wait, is my toddler racist?” We discovered how implicit bias works, how it’s often present even in very young children and how just not talking with children about color or what is known as the colorblind approach is one of the more effective ways to raise a child who experiences racial prejudice. Jen: 02:10 Having been completely immersed in the literature on this topic for the last couple of months, I’m also going to adjust my terminology to be more in line with the language that my guest uses. Ra...