"The power of plain old fun."

"Fun arises from playing.
    "But fun isn’t what play is really about, developmentally. The pursuit of fun is just what gets children going. It’s because play is fun that children are willing to do all the hard stuff of regulating themselves, planning, rule-making, and frustration-tolerating to get to the point where the fun finally happens. Fun is the spoonful of sugar. The 'medicine' going down is all the lessons in socialisation. It’s all the self-control and resourcefulness it takes to make something fun happen…unless an adult is organising it FOR the kids.
    "At which point, it’s just the sugar.
    "So what we need is a place where children can pursue fun and make it happen without adults stepping in. When adults take charge, they skip over the hard, annoying stuff — the squabbling and compromising that the children would otherwise have to do. That means the children don’t get as much chance to practice the skills of getting along. The road ahead is bumpier.

    "In short: To raise a generation of happy, healthy children, we can’t keep denying them the chance to make their own fun. Free play is the greatest engine for health, joy, connection, and learning. That’s why all animals do it.
    "Except, increasingly, us."

~ Lenore Skenazy, from her post 'Is Free Play Too Free for Its Own Good?'