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The Play Really is the Thing
I would like to share a few brief thoughts with you about the value and importance of play. Play, like love or happiness, is easy to recognize but hard to define. Although we recognize play when we see it, the problem for both children and adults is that we don’t play nearly enough.
Now that the school year is underway, all the “doing” has begun. There is the race to the bus stop in the morning, a busy day at school that doesn’t end till 4:00 p.m., and then there are all those after school and weekend activities! Children clamor to join this group or go to that party. Parents selflessly commit to hours in the car in order to help their children pursue their interests, develop their talents, and realize that the family vehicle actually is a fast food restaurant on wheels! Suddenly and without fair warning, family life can become “run, run, run.”
But it is “play, play, play” that offers some of childhood’s greatest gifts. Here are six of them:
1) The most fundamental aspect of play is that children enjoy it. They don’t need incentives to play. Children play because it is fun.
2) Play is a powerful antidote to the stresses of living. In a book entitled, “The Therapeutic Powers of Play,” Dr. Charles Schaefer writes, “The more stress and tension in our lives, the more we need the refuge afforded by play. Play is free from external demands or obligations. Play is uplifting and restores the spirit when we are weighed down with feelings of anxiety, bleakness, or boredom.”
3) Research indicates that “children do better work under the influence of strong positive emotion, that enjoyment of a task enhances persistence at it, and joy provides motivation even in unrelated activities.”
4) Playing games is a primary way for children to become socialized. Players must agree on a set of pre-arranged rules. The rules of games prepare children for the rules of life: fair play, taking turns, and gracious winning and losing. The meaning of a rule becomes clear in a game – that a rule must be followed by all players or else the game doesn’t work.
5) Play allows a child to change a scary or unmanageable situation in real life into one that feels less scary and more manageable in play. A child who has “played through” a life scenario in the role of an empowered character feels more at ease because he/she has exerted some control over what is happening. Alternatively, children may act out parts of themselves that they are uncomfortable with … because, after all, it is just pretend. “Cops and Robbers” is still being played on our playground (as late as yesterday) and good still wins out over evil most of the time. Burning houses are still saved by brave firefighters (male and female); monsters are subdued or killed by unbelievably strong heroes or heroines. Lost or weeping children are still found by caring Mommies, Daddies, or brothers or sisters. Fairies still fly about the playground granting wishes and drying tears. Fortunately for us, someone saves the day – dozens of times a day – through play.
6) Children’s play can open a secret door to the inside of their souls. Parents and loved ones who can be fully present to a child’s play can learn a lot about what that child can’t tell you directly or what they fear. Their “hearts unfold like flowers” before us, as the words of the hymn say. All we need are eyes to see and ears to hear.
If play is so essential to the lives of children and adults what can we do to preserve, protect and defend it? Here are six suggestions:
1) Ruthlessly carve out and then defend to the death some time each day for your child to “just play.” (Wasn’t it fun, when we were kids, to just go out and play?)
2) Play with your children sometimes. Pop popcorn in an air popper with the top off. Play flashlight tag in your yard. Build towers constructed of family members. Draw a family portrait with liquid soap on the shower wall or with chalk on the sidewalk.
3) Let your children see you – their parents – play (at least some of the time)! Dance together. Turn the hose on each other. Let your children see you laugh. Teach them that play can help even grown-ups take life a little less seriously sometimes.
4) Buy your children some toys that were designed for pure play and pretend: not necessarily “educational toys” or the latest electronic gizmo. Think of the toys in Andy’s room in Toy Story: a cowboy, a space robot, Mr. Potato Head, a piggy bank, a slinky dachshund, and a bucket of soldiers. None of them came with elaborate directions, or anything to “click on,” or an academic skill to teach. Play is what brought the toys to life and made them important to Andy and to each other. The Randy Newman song, You’ve Got a Friend in Me, played in the background, as Buzz Lightyear and Woody became friends. It is hard to imagine such music playing behind a developing relationship between a Gameboy and an Ipod.
5) Guard against the “tweening” of young children – particularly 8-to-10-year olds. They are not teenagers. They need to play in a young child’s way, not a teenager’s way. Sometimes we need to invite them – and give them permission – to act their own age. We need to create some safety for that kind of play.
6) Celebrate the fact that you are part of an educational institution whose mission and philosophy statement begins this way: “McDonogh School is a community that finds joy in work, in play, and in the discovery and realization of personal potential.”
Now, it gives me great pleasure to share with you some pictures of your gleeful children at play last Friday afternoon. They put the j-o-y in my j-o-b every day of the year, but I was unexpectedly touched by the sight of their sheer delight at something so simple. The only ingredients were bathing suits, a fire truck, water, and a blue sky, but their message to all of us was as clear as the water raining down on them: “Let’s play!”
Special thanks to McDonogh psychologist Marie Allee and psychotherapist Carol Halpin for their wise counsel as I prepared these remarks.
September 22, 2005
I would like to share a few brief thoughts with you about the value and importance of play. Play, like love or happiness, is easy to recognize but hard to define. Although we recognize play when we see it, the problem for both children and adults is that we don’t play nearly enough.
Now that the school year is underway, all the “doing” has begun. There is the race to the bus stop in the morning, a busy day at school that doesn’t end till 4:00 p.m., and then there are all those after school and weekend activities! Children clamor to join this group or go to that party. Parents selflessly commit to hours in the car in order to help their children pursue their interests, develop their talents, and realize that the family vehicle actually is a fast food restaurant on wheels! Suddenly and without fair warning, family life can become “run, run, run.”
But it is “play, play, play” that offers some of childhood’s greatest gifts. Here are six of them:
If play is so essential to the lives of children and adults what can we do to preserve, protect and defend it? Here are six suggestions:
Now, it gives me great pleasure to share with you some pictures of your gleeful children at play last Friday afternoon. They put the j-o-y in my j-o-b every day of the year, but I was unexpectedly touched by the sight of their sheer delight at something so simple. The only ingredients were bathing suits, a fire truck, water, and a blue sky, but their message to all of us was as clear as the water raining down on them: “Let’s play!”
Special thanks to McDonogh psychologist Marie Allee and psychotherapist Carol Halpin for their wise counsel as I prepared these remarks.
September 22, 2005