Does a decrease in unstructured "play" affect self regulated learning?

The past few days, I have been thinking about opportunities for younger children to learn self-regulation skills… specifically, how this current generation of children are experiencing a completely different childhood than their parents and grandparents. In class this evening, I was considering appropriate expectations for younger children to set their own goals. I was pondering various developmental stages of students and appropriate ways teachers should integrate self-regulating skills into the curriculum, knowing how much to expect from their age/development stage of students. 

I recently read an article about the lack of opportunity for today’s children to engage in unstructured “play.” The article discussed the effect of a lack of unstructured playtime on children learning self-regulation skills.  To be defined as true “play” time, it must be self-directed, done with no outside reward, have some type of rules or structure, and have an element of imagination. According to the article, American children spend an average of 4-7 minutes a day on unstructured play. These numbers are unbelievable!  Over the past 40-50 years, there has been a shift in parental attitudes which have affected parental focus; specifically, the idea of uninhibited, unstructured “play” has become a negative concept that implies a large waste of a child’s time. I have observed the current generation of parents under heavy social pressure to structure children’s playtime and provide more and more adult-guided activities and competitive opportunities to “become the best.” Today’s parents often feel a burdensome responsibility for their children’s development and guilt over allowing their children to “waste time” exploring unstructured personal activities that lack a specific purpose.  Interestingly, research points to the opposite: A 2018 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics* confirms that “play” enhances creativity, imagination, dexterity, boldness, teamwork skills, stress-management skills, confidence, conflict resolutions skills, decision-making skills, problem-solving skills, and learning behavior.

I hypothesize that the increased focus away from unstructured play time has led to a decline in youngsters’ opportunities to experience self-regulated learning, resulting in lower self-efficacy in social and academic arenas. Unstructured “play” provides children the opportunity for problem-solving, collaboration and creativity require the executive functioning skills that are critical for adult success. Universities are seeing an increased number of students who lack coping skills for dealing with bumps in the road of life; presumably lacking self-efficacy and self-regulation skills needed to persevere through increased academic and social demands. 

Yes, educators should be intentional with activities, games, and purposeful modeling of self-regulated learning in their classroom… but I wonder how much of the issue stems from competitive societal pressures placed on parents to produce the “best, most successful” child in the school? 

            *https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/142/3/e20182058#ref-128