STRUCTURING FUN FOR KIDS MORE THAN CHILD'S PLAY.

Byline: Bill Marvel Dallas Morning News

Knock, knock, knock. Open up! It's the Play Police!

Let's see some identification. Let's see your parent's license. We've been getting some ugly reports: Letting your children run around and play. Having unscheduled and undirected fun. Failure to reinforce positive values through structured games. Toys that don't meet standards for correctness or cognitive enhancement.

Well, why not? We have police for everything else these days. Squads of Food Police monitor our popcorn and pizza intake. All sorts of Correctness Cops stand ready to hector and admonish whenever we fail to recycle or sneak away somewhere to light up or tell a joke that wounds some tender sensibility.

And now, the Authorities have closed in on the last freedom - children's play.

According to a recent story, therapists and psychologists now tell us play must be structured so that it boosts confidence, focuses on feelings and helps build character 12 ways. Proper play is full of ``lessons'' to be learned, ``teachable moments.''

One wonders if any of these Play Police ever had children. In fact, one wonders if any of them ever were children.

Did any of them ever scrounge around some trash heap for neat stuff to play with? Did they ever play baseball in a vacant lot without a presiding committee of adults to officiate, manage and interfere? Did any of them ever throw a rock at a tin can or go to a creek and catch a snake? Did they ever put on Mom's makeup, dress up in Dad's old Army uniform? Roller skate on the sidewalk unencumbered by $55 worth of safety gear?

Did any of them ever go to some other kid's house to play without both sets of parents first exchanging references, checking Dun & Bradstreet ratings and penciling in the appointment on their Daytimers?

How did we ever manage without them?

I suppose I'm revealing my age by even asking these questions. But if my parents ever gave a thought to cognitive enhancement as my friends and I were gouging roads through the weedy wilderness of the vacant lot on the corner, I would have stopped what I was doing immediately.

We ruined several of my mother's good teaspoons trying to dig a hole to China. Once we built a miniature city of shoe boxes and bombed it into oblivion with dirt clods. No character building there.

And on one day of days, we found a treasure trove of discarded spark plugs behind an old garage. You'd be amazed at the things you can do with hundreds of old spark plugs. Most of the places where we played would have been declared hazardous sites by the EPA and OSHA.

We built forts and shot each other with cap pistols. We spent an afternoon exploring an abandoned airport. We pushed doll carriages up and down the block, showing off our ``babies.'' We formed tribes and went to war, sued for peace, then went to war again. We were an unscheduled, unruly, stereotyping, politically incorrect mob. But we had fun.

And most of us emerged unscathed.

They tell us the world has changed. I've heard all the arguments about how neighborhoods are not safe anymore, how creeks and empty lots and abandoned buildings and - heaven help us - even playgrounds are dangerous places, with drug dealers and molesters and liability lawyers lurking around every swing set.

But I swear, play can't be much fun for today's kids. We've planned, scheduled, managed and monitored it to the point there isn't any real play left. How much fun can you have with all those experts hanging over your shoulder, checking off their list of civic virtues absorbed?

Big Brother is watching. Have you cognitively enhanced your kid today?

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Therapists and psychologists now tell us play must be structured so that it boosts confidence.

Phil McCarten/Daily News