How did you play as a child?
This is a question I often like to ask parents and caregivers, or those who work with child’s play. I want to support you to be reflective of how you played as a child. Consider what brought you joy, and think about what consumed your time during childhood.
Child’s play has changed in many ways – but the way in which it can capture you and pull you into a magical world away from the everyday hustle and bustle has not changed. It releases endless joy and creativity and inspires onlookers. We see this when we cannot help but smile as a child ducks and weaves under the bannisters at an airport. Or at a shopping centre, when they are bouncing down the hallway like a rabbit. We cannot help but smile because it is deeply familiar. It is ingrained within our own systems, from our own inner child. It doesn’t even have to be a child, it could be the way kittens tumble and chase a string, or dogs bow and pounce. Play is familiar, across all living things.
So now I ask, how do you play currently?
This is a harder question for so many adults. The usual response is ‘when joining in on your child’s play’. Whilst this is wonderful, I wonder when you last initiated play for yourself or others? Child’s play can take many forms, it may be a more civilised or structured game like sports or recreational activities – or it may be a dance around the house, making up moves to the lyrics of the song. It might be trying out something new or making space for your hobbies.
I want to remind you that play can be anywhere, anytime, and anyway you imagine. As we ‘grow up’, we lose sight of our playful inhibitions, because we’re told time and time again to ‘focus’, to ‘listen’, to ‘stay still’, ‘be quiet’, to ‘learn’. But why have we separated learning and play? We know for a fact, that we learn best when tasks are meaningful, and that play allows us to explore different outcomes of an experience, whether we have lived this experience or not. Exploring these experiences allows one to make sense of them, to enhance social interaction and relationships, and to learn.
Make more room for child’s play
I am suggesting that we make more room for child’s play – because it is what our bodies crave, what our mind needs, and what supports us to connect, learn, and experience joy. Importantly, we know that when we have more of these play experiences, we are more able to regulate, respond and adapt in the face of adversity. We are more understanding of others, and we can problem solve and apply our creativity and knowledge to various settings and contexts.
Here are some tips for you to consider on how you can return to play, and increase opportunities for playful connections in your everyday life:
- Reflect on what kind of play you enjoy best: what kind of player are you? Do you like to joke? To move? To explore? To compete? To tell stories? To create? Or to collect? I recommend you get to know how you and others in your close circle like to play, or what Stuart Brown, in his book “Play: how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul”, refers to as play personalities.
- Smile, and laugh more. Practice laughing at yourself when you make mistakes to let them slide away, and pass smiles on to strangers.
- Let your child lead the play, let them be the director and put away your devices so you can truly be with them in the play.
- Transitional activities: consider how to integrate play into everyday tasks. Whenever you need to get from one place to another, and perhaps you don’t really want to (or your child doesn’t), what little goofy and/or challenging activity can you do to bring joy and connection to the situation? Consider different types of walks? Such as wheelbarrows, hopping, bear walks, crab walks etc.
- At mealtimes, you might like to consider allowing children to ‘feed’ each other to guess ‘what food is what’, or to describe to each other what you’re eating and allowing others to guess.
- At bed times, you may like to consider massages/back rubs of the daily weather report. Try different hand movements/pressures that the receiver is comfortable with and listen to their feedback.
- Collect and use recycled goods in your child’s play. Encourage creativity and imagination when you don’t have items available, and make them instead!
- Set up appropriately for messy play so you can really delve in and not feel concerned about the spills/clean up. Use hands and feet freely to feel and have good touch for example with paints, food materials (such as rice, lentils, pasta), sand (wet and dry).
- Slow down, notice new and unfamiliar things in your environment. When you’re out in nature, you might like to collect items to use in creative ways at home (e.g. flower presses, potions, gluing, crafts) to engage manipulation and curiosity in child’s play.
- Make space for rough and tumble play e.g. pillow fights, sword fights.
- Plan social play dates, for your children as well as yourself. Opportunities for friendships and belonging.
- Reading and storytelling – create stories together with family, take turns reading books out loud, take on roles of characters (from books/movies) and act these out considering various voices, movements and actions of those characters.
References
- Brown, S. L., & Vaughan, C. C. (2009). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. New York: Avery.
- Jernberg, A. M., & Booth, P. B. (1999). Theraplay: Helping parents and children build better relationships through attachment-based play. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
