Many parents find it hard to make decisions about screen time for their kids because advice comes from different directions and often conflicts. In the field of child development, there are decades of theory and research that can be very helpful as a guide for screen and digital device use with young kids. These ideas can be a resource for parents…

This paper describes several practical activities that reveal how complex and nonlinear pedagogies might underpin primary physical education and school sport lessons. These sample activities, involving track and field, tennis and netball components, are designed to incorporate states of stability and instability through the modification of task…

It cannot be denied that urban youths are underserved in almost every way one could imagine, especially in health care and education funding. Furthermore, the lack of these cornerstones is likely to be perpetuated unless everyone chips in what they can to stymie poverty's impact. As a profession, we claim to be able to make a difference in the…

That competences may emerge given appropriate environmental and behavioral context is a long-standing theme in developmental research. Work in the motor domain, but also in cognitive development, has made it possible to transform this idea into a mechanistic account closely linked to empirical evidence. In dynamic systems thinking, such capacities…

Joe L. Frost is Parker Centennial Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of America's leading experts on play and playgrounds. In addition to having taught child development and early childhood education at Texas and several other universities, he has written or edited fifteen university-level textbooks and more than one…

In this interview, Council member William Greenough discusses the need for rich, complex experiences combined with physical activity in early childhood to help build a strong foundation for learning. He explains how rich, complex experiences are necessary for the development of sound brain architecture, particularly during early childhood, but…