What comes to mind when you hear the word “play?” I go straight to children, laughter, squealing, exuberance, energy, movement, fun, timelessness, presence. At this time of year, more than any other, I am reminded of my resistance to growing up, and of the old adage, “All work and no play makes ___ a dull girl/boy.”

Nothing brings out the playfulness and child in me more than late spring and summer. I relish the mornings that greet me with warmth, fresh, clean air, birds chirping and the promise of many more days of the same. I am exhilarated by the feeling of freedom and excitement–freedom from indoors, schedules, and work obligations and excitement for all-day bike rides, hiking, walks, back-packing, outdoor parties, picnics, and just hanging out with friends on the porch with nothing to do.

My childhood was filled with free, unstructured play. Parents of the Sixties and Seventies considered play to be the child’s “job.” It’s what kids were supposed to do while parents did “grown-up” things. I would head outside in the morning and come back only for food or sports equipment or supplies for the next fort, spook house, or dress-up party.

What I learned while playing with my siblings and the neighborhood kids was that the whole world was not centered around just me. I learned that, yes, my needs and desires mattered but so did the needs and desires of my friends. If I wanted to get my way sometimes, I somehow figured out that I had to let others have their way, too. Sure, conflict arose, but I got ample practice working through it.

It turns out that research in the last few decades has confirmed that my parents were doing a really good thing by leaving me to my own devices, forcing me to use my imagination to run in the Olympics, build the Taj Mahal, dig a tunnel to China. Play experts such as Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder of The National Institute for Play, believe that play is instrumental in our human development, that it “shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul,” as the title of Brown’s seminal book notes.

Sadly, over the last few decades (just as the research was piling up about its value), play has been put on a back burner. In schools, our obsession with high achievement standards has led to cuts in gym and recess time. (Active kids must feel like they are in jail, without the outlet of movement!) At home, we are afraid of “strangers” outside, so our kids stay inside being influenced by an infinite number of strangers on TV and computers, most of whom are delivering negative messages that impact our kids’ mental health. (Their waistlines are showing the impact of this shift as well!)

Another notable change in children’s play is that it has moved from being child driven to parent driven. Perhaps to streamline our time schedules, perhaps to keep up with the Joneses, perhaps because we just really think we’re doing the right thing by our children–we now arrange play dates, sign up our kids for sports teams, pay for them to have music lessons, and schedule tutors to help them enhance their grades. We have “institutionalized” play. Even in the summer, the norm now around here is to send our kids to day camp or overnight camp. We cringe to think what they would do if we left the summer open ended.

The outcome? Our kids are overscheduled and overwhelmed, and they are missing out on learning invaluable life skills that will prepare them for productive, creative, well-balanced adult lives. Isn’t that what we really want for them?

How Will This Impact Their Future?
Not having plans for what you are going to do for the day opens up the imagination to infinite possibilities. What our children MUST HAVE to thrive in their future jobs and families is adaptability, resiliency, creative thinking, flexibility–because we are speeding exponentially toward more and more rapid changes. Solutions will have to come from the unconscious, creative mind to cope with it all. And play can help with that!

Creativity guru Kevin Carroll, author of The Red Rubber Ball at Work and other gems of inspiration, helps people harness the power of sport and play as a vehicle for chasing and achieving their dreams. In The Red Rubber Ball at Work, he shares words of wisdom from thought leaders, change agents, and business leaders to explain how to bring a sense of play into the workplace to stimulate creativity, encourage risk-taking, achieve goals–and have a great time doing it. His books are definitely worth a look!

His premise, based on play research, is that “role-playing prepares us for real-life situations, allowing us to practice making decisions under pressure, lead a group, and think abstractly. Group play teaches us to socialize and to cooperate. Play also gives us a chance to better know ourselves through self-evaluation and self-reflection. . . . Play also encourages creativity. . . .”

In truth, all of us are biologically wired to need play. Unstructured, spontaneous play helps us learn about the world, figure out how to deal with life’s challenges, and process emotions such as frustration, anger, embarrassment, and impatience. Dr. Brown explains the research thus: “The evidence continues to accumulate that the learning of emotional control, social competency, personal resiliency and continuing curiosity plus other life benefits accrue largely through rich developmentally appropriate play experiences. . . . From an evolutionary point of view, research suggests . . . the forces that initiate play lie in the ancient survival centers of the brain. . . . In other words, play is a basic biological necessity that has survived through the evolution of the brain.”

What Can We Do?
If we were really tapped into what we have allowed to happen, we would be passing emergency bills in Congress to:

• Require a minimum of one gym class and three recess breaks/day (Brown says that “adequate recess time leads to increased long-term academic accomplishments.”)
• Mandate no homework weekends and holidays (See Race to Nowhere’s “Take the Homework Pledge” webpage.)
• Prioritize messages that encourage parents to allow their kids to play outside again, to undo the damage we have done with “stranger danger.” (See the Children and Nature Network and the web site for the inspirational film, Play Again.)

Finally, at home, let children play freely (of course, with light supervision), skin their knees, get bored, learn from the stickiness of life! In doing so, you’ll be giving them the opportunity to build a repertoire of positive strategies for facing life’s challenges and building health relationships.

Wishing you joy!

Dr. Kathy

P.S. Play is so endangered and so critical to the well being of our children that we at Family Empowerment Network are making it one of the six touchstones or major “calls to attention” in our upcoming book, Kids’ Social Lives: How We Can Help Our Kids Master the Art of Connection. Watch our website for announcements about our new book, which will include even more information about the amazing, spectacular,
extraordinary, miraculous power of play.