Recreational Therapy with Heart and Hand Center

WRITTEN BY SALLY JO HAND

"Just 10 more minutes! Just let me finish this game!" Urgent pleas from children often bombard parents for more screen time as the lure of well-crafted video games and online programs capture their attention. Video gaming often diminishes interest in reading, conversation and the outdoor recreation that once kept kids engaged in physical activities that stimulate mind and body in healthy balance.

Today, many children are engrossed in whatever is happening on their iPad, tablet or phone instead of observing what’s going on around them or engaging in conversation. Where parents and children used to talk about their day and shared life experiences together on the drive to school or during family meals, such opportunities have been replaced with screen time.

The effect of this video game and screen time craze is showing up in children in many harmful ways, including shortened attention span, loss of interest in reading books, increased irritability, depression, anxiety, weight gain, eye problems, sleep disturbance and decreased social and conversational skills. Images on video screens change rapidly, programming the child’s brain to become bored with activities requiring sustained concentration and focus, such as schoolwork, chores, reading or conversation.

When a child is engrossed in highly intense action video games, the limbic system is responding as if the one playing is actually the character in the chase or fight. The child’s limbic system responds to the game’s stimulation by flooding the child with adrenalin, increasing their heart rate and plunging the child into a hyper-arousal state of fight or flight.

This flood of adrenalin gears up the entire mind and body to prepare for intense physical action. But the only muscles that actually expend energy and dispel that adrenalin are the little thumbs working like crazy to win and avoid fantasized death or danger. The body has amped the child up for vigorous large muscle activity but only little thumbs frantically pushing the game controller are actually doing any work.

This creates tension and results in a buildup of frustration that increases irritability, anxiety, depression, anger outbursts and sleep disturbance. The child’s temper flares up more quickly than it otherwise would and interaction with siblings and parents is often more conflictual than thoughtful, calm and caring.

As summer approaches and school hours aren’t occupying our children’s time and attention, many parents face increased conflict and arguments over screen time. Often parents take the easy way out and give in, avoiding immediate conflict while unwittingly creating lasting problems and harmful habits that will only grow larger if not curtailed.

Heart and Hand Center Summer Camps offer an ideal solution to this problem, offering three weeks of summer day camps at their mountaintop ranch this summer. At the ranch kids engage in healthy, structured outdoor activities that provide balanced stimulation for their minds, emotions and growing bodies. Kids experience expansive views in nature, playing and learning outside, as their brains are producing natural chemicals that reduce anxiety and depression while increasing joy, peaceful feelings and connectivity to others.

Whether learning horsemanship skills, expressing themselves with art and music or sharing together in small groups, kids will grow and develop positive self-esteem and identity at Heart and Hand Center Summer Camps, while learning essential character building skills.

Carefully planned and structured camp programming provides kids with activities designed to increase focus and communication skills while reducing depression, anxiety, anger and reactivity.

Day Camps offer safe spaces where campers talk with one another and staff throughout the day and enjoy a balanced combination of quiet time and interactive time with each other, the Heart and Hand Center horses, therapy dogs and kitties. Campers will hike to high places at the ranch where they breathe deeply the fresh clean air and expand their minds with views of the distant aweinspiring Montana mountain ranges.

Horse time is always a favorite and is tailor made to help your child understand him or herself better while learning to improve communication and relationship skills. As kids master leadership in the horse/human relationship, they find new dimensions of their own inner strength, confidence and power.

Far away from the lure of screen time and video games, kids play with horses, express feelings with art and crafts, enjoy invigorating hikes, make bead and leather crafts in the tipi, roast marshmallows, paint and eat lunch beneath the pines, relax in hammocks and go on imaginary journeys with child-centered guided meditations.

At the end of every day, we hear, “Really, is it already time to go? That went so fast!!!” So, join the Heart and Hand Center and make this summer the best for the rest of your child’s life!