Jasmine’s Reviews > Until the Streetlights Come On: How a Return to Play Brightens Our Present and Prepares Kids for an Uncertain Future > Status Update

“hould be chasing after isn’t the way to go. Instead, we seek the unmeasurable: youthful exuberance, long attention spans, a quest for further learning, depth of relationship—the types of things that come only through suspended time. Kim John Payne says, “Loving something for its own sake—not for its potential in fame, glory, or music scholarships—is far from ordinary. It’s an exceptional blessing”

“There is something to be said about intrinsic motivation—that is, learning not for the stars or the accolades but for the sheer joy of newfound knowledge. The things we learn as adults remind us there is time to learn new things, and when we are learning for the fun of it, a timeline isn’t attached for mastery. Just like us, kids desire to pull away from the abstract and do something real.”

“There is something about the speed of everyday life, which swirls around us in a frenetic, sometimes hard-to-catch-your-breath pace, that seems to be changing how we parent. It was less than two centuries ago that information could travel only at the speed of people. …. (A) transfer of information for most of human history had a limit of about thirty-five miles per hour.”

“Relationships are central to a rich life. Tom Hobson writes in Teacher Tom’s Second Book, “Getting along with our fellow humans is the real secret to future employment, not to mention happiness.”24 Kim John Payne writes something similar in Simplicity Parenting: “The primary predictor of success and happiness in life is our ability to get along with others.””

“We’ve been enrolled in a competition for our own attention and that of our children—and yet it’s a competition we didn’t sign up for. It’s also one without fair rules and is lacking a lot of transparency. How is one household supposed to win against giant technology companies? We can clearly see the results of this unfair game. Both kids and adults have become stimulation dependent.”