Can Johnny Come Out and (Be Taught to) Play?

NYTimes.com Week in Review
By Benedict Carey
Published: January 14, 2007

[...] '[New York]City officials unveiled plans last week for a new kind of playground, outfitted with ponds, pulleys and bulky foam blocks intended to engage the imagination, and “play workers” to help guide fantasy play. In an artist’s rendering of a playground proposed for Lower Manhattan, the guides, dressed in matching bright yellow shirts and baseball caps, oversee the action with an air of calm authority.
[...]
How much help do children need to do what should come naturally? And to what extent does expert guidance — embodied by the so-called play workers — represent adults’ expectations of children, rather than what the youngsters themselves want or need?

“My first impression is that this is more evidence that we don’t trust kids to play by themselves,” said Peter Stearns, provost of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and author of “Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America.” “And I think it’s fair to ask: Is this really for parents, to make them feel their kids are being properly guided while playing?”[...]'