Dawn Images

To play is every child’s right, and given its importance, the United Nations declared June 11 as International Play Day. But while play is both important and necessary, how much time do our kids get to play each day? Play here implies unstructured, physical activity because while playing online games could be beneficial, being behind a screen for prolonged hours has negative repercussions.

In a special report by The Genius of Play, experts made an argument for the importance of play in children’s lives. Emotional dynamics expert Dr Erik Fisher said, “I often work with kids with a number of emotional, communication, social, and educational issues whose parents don’t see the value of play. We learn much more when we interact and play with kids on their terms.”

In his paper titled Can Play Diminish ADHD and Facilitate the Construction of the Social Brain, researcher Jaak Panksepp asserts, “Play activates the whole neocortex. Of the 1,200 genes that we measured, about one-third significantly changed simply by having a half-hour of play.”

School-going kids in Pakistan are back in school after their summer vacations. This should have meant more playtime, family time and a break from worrying about homework. But this doesn’t seem to have been the case for a lot of kids, given the recent popularity of summer camps in Pakistan.

Summer camps became popular during the Industrial Revolution. Earlier, schools were all year round until school administrators agreed to implement summer vacations. What to do with the kids became a challenge for parents and summer camps were introduced as an outlet to keep kids busy. This respite was believed to be an antidote for ‘moral deterioration’ caused by summer vacations.

Today, they have evolved into supervised programmes for school-going kids and provide various activities and curricula to help children gain valuable skills. Robotics, coding, chess, and AI — if you can think of it, there’s a summer camp offering a class for it. These skills, we are primed to believe, could pave the way for a more secure future for kids, and are therefore a promising investment for any parent. Who doesn’t want their kids to succeed in life?

An average learning-based summer camp for teenagers can cost anywhere from Rs10,000 to Rs20,000. AI, robotics, basic coding and academic enrichment programmes are the most well known, although the most pricey.

But are these summer camps really that important or are they just another product of capitalism branded as a necessity, charging hefty sums and being deemed an investment in childcare by parents?

Ideally, childhood should be about playing, laid-back behaviour and focusing on the present rather than the future. But many of the parents of today are in a race to equip their kids with all the skills they might need in their future professional years. Their focus on what eventual job their children will have and how prepared they are for it perpetuates a hustle culture in children from a young age.

“This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most,” writes Lebanese-American essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.

Preparing a crop of employable individuals, parents sometimes seem to miss the memo that play is equally important for a child’s holistic development and that these summer camps can rob children of their playtime as well as invaluable family time.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek,, co-author of Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorise Less, writes, “Parents feel compelled to give their kids every advantage they can afford. So they cram their days with art, music, sports, and even weekend enrichment programmes.” Is it any wonder then that when youngsters have a free moment, they often complain that they’re bored? Most likely, they simply don’t know what to do with themselves.

While these camps have merits, what most parents don’t seem to realise is that kids are bartering their playtime for extra learning. Parents who are aware of this regard it as farsightedness. One of example of that is Wajiha Ahmed, mother to a 14-year-old daughter. “I wanted productive vacations for my daughter, where she could spend her time wisely with less screen time and I’m impressed by the confidence and skills she has developed after completing Python Programming Fundamentals.”

Paras Abbas, the parent of a 12-year-old, commented, “Summer camps are very effective but they should be for a short time so kids don’t get annoyed and [also] get some time at home with family”. Hina Malik, a mother of three under 10, added, “Summer camp is good for children to build their confidence, but only if it’s within your budget and you can’t offer an activity at home. Because it’s an additional cost on top of school and transport fees, so do not think about [what anyone else is doing]. Just look at your own financial situation and then decide.”

But not all parents are pro-summer camps. Madiha Adnan, a school teacher and mother of two teenagers, isn’t a fan. “Being a parent, I want my kids to explore, travel and have some sports activities throughout the year and not just in the summer. I like spending time with them and enjoy and when they’re home — we talk about how they view the world as teenagers.”

Mother of three Arshiya Yasir believes that summer camps are a waste of money, time and effort. “I haven’t come across any that’s worth it. Kids are so tangled up in academic life that during the summer I want them to relax, just be themselves and enjoy time with their siblings.”

Hira Sajid has two teenagers and shares Yasir’s views. “Summer camps are useless, a waste of money and expensive. My girls prefer helping with home chores and in the evening they enjoy time with their friends.”

Komal Sikandar, the mother of a teenager, has a unique perspective. Instead of forcing her kids into extra learning during their vacations, she’s letting them rest and using this time to learn something for herself — cycling.

Huda Garib runs e-Magine, a Karachi-based company that boasts specialised summer classes teaching design thinking through robotics for children from ages four to 16. The classes aim to help kids tap into their innate ability to improvise using DIY models and robotics. She believes skill-based summer camps are important, otherwise they’re just a fad. “Depending on the focus, if it delivers what it promises then it isn’t a bad deal.”

When asked if camps rob kids of their playtime and family time, Garib said, “Not at all, ideally they should engage kids for two to three hours max so their me time and playtime isn’t compromised.” She also agreed that these camps do promote a hustle culture in kids to some extent. “Unfortunately, we have to prepare the kids for the future, as much as we dislike the fact, we have to start thinking about their future at some point.”

Arsalan Ajmal runs the Karachi-based Chottay Sikkay, whose courses aim to inculcate entrepreneurial mindsets in children from an early age as well as build resilience and teach them how to make new products and deal with failures. He believes the importance of summer camps is subjective and varies from case to case, depending on parents and their priorities.

When it comes to reduced family time, he is of the view that it isn’t a tradeoff — most camps are in the day when parents are already busy. He believes that it is in fact technology that is robbing kids of their family time. Ajmal said we are all surviving in a hustling environment, which has trickled down to parenting as well.

It’s important for kids to get downtime too, instead of keeping them active all the time. It’s easy to forget to live in the moment in a society where we are always focusing on the future and how to equip our kids with the best tools to thrive. The future is important too, but when kids look back on their childhoods, they should remember a time of joy. Your early years of life should be about genuine enjoyment, not just achievements.