For Scarlett Cooper and her father Simon, their Friday morning visit to the local playground has become something of a ritual. It is the only time in the week when five-year-old Scarlett gets to spend time with her father.
“Sometimes I see Scarlett in the mornings, but she is always asleep by the time I get home from work,” says the 37-year-old British engineer. “To be honest with you, coming to the playground is an easy way to start the weekend, and it also gives my wife an opportunity to have a bit of a lie-in.”
Scarlett and Simon’s exclusive time together normally lasts for “around an hour or so” and takes place at a time when the playground at the junction of Delma and Salaam streets is “usually deserted”, says Mr Cooper. “Scarlett enjoys having her pick of the swings and the slides.”
Mr Cooper would prefer to be able to spend more time with his daughter, but says that the demands of work and family mean that an hour or two each week is all he can manage.
Those demands include 55 to 60 hours a week in the office, time with his two-year-old son and a “seemingly endless round of children’s birthday parties and trips to the supermarket” each weekend.
When it comes to how Scarlett spends her week, Mr Cooper says that he has a “fair idea” but admits that Scarlett’s nanny spends a “significant amount of time” with his daughter each week, as his wife also works full-time.
According to statistics released last week the fact that both of Scarlett Cooper's parents are at work may make them atypical in terms of the UAE. Six out of 10 mothers surveyed in the 2014 Fun City Children's Play Index claimed to play the main role in their child's development, but the small amount of time Mr Cooper spends with his daughter is part of what the index identifies as a "concerning trend".
According to the index, the number of fathers playing with their children in a cross-section of Arabian Gulf countries has fallen from 7 per cent last year to just 4 per cent this year. The figure for the UAE is even lower, at just 2 per cent.
The research was conducted by the social and media-research agency IPSOS on behalf of Fun City, the indoor play provider whose portfolio of GCC and India-based “family entertainment centres” includes 17 mall outlets throughout the UAE.
The 2014 survey is Fun City’s third and its findings are based on 1,000 interviews conducted in the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. The mothers interviewed were aged 18 or older, with children aged between two and 12. Of the interviews, 400 were conducted in the UAE.
As well as the reduction in the amount of time fathers spent with their children, the index also found that social play, which research identifies as being crucial to the development of emotional and social skills among younger children, is declining.
According to the survey, only one-third of children tend to play with their friends, while 40 per cent play only with siblings, and 31 per cent said they spent the majority of their play time alone.
Less than one in three of two and three-year-old children engaged in what the survey describes as “physical play” and spent an equal amount of time on passive activities such as watching television.
Last year a longitudinal research study at the University of Glasgow surveyed 11,000 children and found that watching three or more hours of television a day at age five led to a small increase in behavioural problems in children between the ages of five and seven.
For Aamnah Husain, Fun City’s parenting expert, the research provides an important “snapshot” of children’s play and behaviour in the UAE.
“The data we’re gathering reflects how the world is changing right now and how children’s lives and parenting are changing right now,” the psychologist says.
“The first questions we set out to answer are very basic. What can we do to improve the well-being of our children? How can we support their social, cognitive and emotional development? How does a child’s environment, technology and social interaction affect them?”
Saif Nimri, IPSOS’s UAE research director, says that the apparent decline in social interaction and the variety of activities experienced by children are two of the most significant trends identified by the research.
“What is really interesting when we talk to mothers about their children is the lack of interaction. Social entertainment, like going on picnics and going to malls with the parents or other carers, is diminishing and only stands at about 2 per cent for our population. We’re not giving our children the well-rounded and well-balanced play time they need.”
The quality of play, its role in child development and how this varies between cultures is something that has occupied much of Fiona Baker’s career.
A faculty member of the Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE), Ms Baker has lived in Abu Dhabi since 2001, and her research has focused on the role of play in Abu Dhabi kindergartens and its use by Emirati teachers.
She insists that if play is to be effective and meaningful a more nuanced understanding of how it works and of how different types of play operate is required.
“People used to say that childhood is a preparation for adulthood rather than understanding it as a stage of development in its own right, but research now shows us that early childhood is the key to a child’s future,” says Ms Baker.
“If children aren’t playing, if they’re not developing actively and capably, they won’t achieve at the level that they should.”
One of the key things to understand, she says, is that while it may appear universal, play is also culturally differentiated and distinct. “Play is often understood as being something that is universal but it is entirely not a universal thing.
“Culture can be transmitted through play. We learn about our culture through play, about what the father does, what the mother does, and about what our heritage was and is.
“If you take that out and you’re playing with pieces of plastic or you’re playing on an iPad, then you’re not really learning about your own cultural heritage.”
For Ms Baker, encouraging outdoor play is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to not only teach children about their culture, but to engage them in activities that are not only distinctive but also inspiring.
“Within this country in particular, where it’s very important to preserve national heritage, why take it all out? It’s not on iPad games, it’s not in plastic from ELC [Early Learning Centre], it’s within the natural environment.
“Outdoor play allows us to understand the world around us, to be independent of digital devices and to be imaginative within our own environment,” says Ms Baker.
“How can children wonder about their environment if they’ve never been part of it? The environment is free and it opens up opportunities to which teachers, parents and children can respond.”
Ms Baker insists however that for any type of play to work there has to be a high degree of interaction between everybody engaged in the process of play.
“It’s not the nanny or the mother sitting down on a bench and having time on the mobile phone. It’s the interaction between the children, the adults and the environment that’s really important.”
The need to be “fully present” when playing with children is something that Samira Al Nuaimi, one of Ms Baker’s colleagues at the ECAE, knows all about.
The mother of five children aged seven to 16, Mrs Al Nuaimi is a former high schoolteacher who is now the head of student affairs and development at the ECAE. She has always worked full-time and has just completed a doctorate.
“I think time management is very important. Understand when you have to sit with your kids and think about everything you do. You may be tired or busy or thinking about other things, but it is important to sit with your kids and to give them your full attention, even if it is only for one hour each day.”
While research such as the 2013 University of Glasgow study has shown there is no direct link between the use of digital devices and behavioural or learning difficulties, both Ms Baker and the authors of the Fun City Children’s Play Index agree that play is often at its best when it is simple, imaginative and free.
To illustrate her point, Ms Baker shows a ruler-sized rectangle of plastic punctured with differently shaped holes.
“People now seem to value technology more than they value play and that’s a problem. It’s not that we should value technology more than play, we should be looking at both to understand how they collide.
“As an educator I’d rather carry this in my pocket than an iPad.”
nleech@thenational.ae
