Time for Play, Every Day: It’s Fun—and Fundamental

Child’s play is more than just fun and games. It is closely linked to children’s intellectual, social, emotional, and physical progress. Decades of research clearly demonstrate that active childhood play—especially the social, “let’s pretend” play children do with others—boosts healthy development across a broad spectrum of critical areas. The benefits are so impressive that every day of childhood should be a day for play.

But play is at serious risk today. Many children lack the time, space, and encouragement at home and school to create their own child-powered fun. Video games and other electronic toys threaten to undermine the whole process of play, with grim implications for the intellectual and emotional health of children.

Several trends in education and family life are combining to rob childhood of healthy, creative play:

• Pressures on 3-to-6-year-olds to sit still for academic lessons and standardized testing.
• Too many sedentary hours—often alone—spent looking at screens: televisions, computers, and video games, with their prepackaged scripts that stunt imagination.
• Loss of school recess and safe green spaces for children to freely explore nature.
• Rushed and overscheduled lives, full of adult-organized or adult-oriented activities.
• A glut of toys that take control of play away from children and channel them into violent behavior modeled on popular TV, movie, and video game characters.

THE BENEFITS OF PLAY

Child-initiated play lays the foundations of learning. Through play, children learn to interact with others, to recognize and solve problems, and to feel the sense of mastery that results. In short, play helps children make sense of and find their own place in the physical and social world.

• Physical development: The rough and tumble of active play, outdoors as much as possible, is a natural preventive for the current epidemic of childhood obesity. Such play also spurs and helps to coordinate children’s sensorimotor development.[1]
• Academics: A host of studies demonstrate the close link between play—especially social make-believe play—and cognitive growth. Play is tied to creativity, imagination, and out-of-the-box problem-solving skills. It also helps lay the groundwork for later academic success in reading, writing, mathematics, and science. Play provides language-rich, hands-on experiences with the real-life physics—earth, water, wind, and gravity—that help children later comprehend the scientific and mathematical expressions of these physical realities. Research also suggests that recess boosts schoolchildren’s academic performance.[2]
• Social and emotional learning: Research suggests that social make-believe play is related to increases in collaboration, cooperation, empathy, and impulse control, reduced aggression, and better overall emotional and social adjustment.[3]
• Sheer joy: The evidence is clear—healthy children of all ages love to play. Experts in child development say that plenty of time for childhood play is one of the key factors leading to happiness in adulthood.[4]

TIPS TO REVIVE PLAY

1. Reduce or eliminate screen time: Children may be bored or anxious at first, unsure how to entertain themselves. Be prepared with simple playthings, good storybooks, and suggestions for make-believe play to inspire their inner creativity.
2. Choose simple toys: The child’s imagination is the engine of healthy play. Simple toys and natural materials, like wood, boxes, balls, sand and shovels, beeswax, clay, stuffed animals, and generic dolls invite children to create their own scenes—and then knock them down and start over. Battery-driven gadgets distract them from real play.
3. Encourage outdoor adventures: Sticks, mud, water, rocks, wind—even bugs and weeds—make a paradise for play. Reserve time every day, when possible, for outdoor play where children can run, climb, find secret hiding places, and dream up dramas. If safety is a concern, organize with other parents to take turns monitoring urban playgrounds or streetside play, or to help clean up and maintain local open spaces.
4. Let your work inspire play: When adults are deeply engaged in work—like cooking, raking, cleaning, or washing the car —their example inspires children to deeply immerse themselves in their play. Children like to help for short periods and then go off and play. Avoid interrupting or taking over play, but be available as needed. Let children know their play is important.
5. Become an advocate for pro-play policies: Share the evidence about the importance of imaginative play in preschool and kindergarten, and of recess for older children with other parents, teachers, and school officials. Lobby for safe, well-maintained parks in your community. Start an annual local Play Day. (For how-to tips, see www.ipausa.org.)

The Alliance for Childhood is a partnership of educators, health professionals, parents, and other advocates for children working to foster a broad public commitment to each child’s right to a healthy and developmentally sound childhood. This fact sheet is the first in a series the Alliance is publishing on the healthy essentials of childhood. (For more information contact the Alliance for Childhood: P.O. Box 444, College Park, MD 20741, Tel: 301-779-1033)

OTHER RESOURCES:

International Association for the Child’s Right to Play (Play Day kits): 516-463-5176; www.ipausa.org
Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (Annual Toy Guide): 617-879-2167; www.truceteachers.org
The Lion and Lamb Project (Nonviolent play ideas): 301-654-3091 or 301-537-8193; www.lionlamb.org
TV Turnoff Network (Take Action page for limiting TV time): 202-333-9220; www.tvturnoff.org
Playing for Keeps (Play ideas and resources for parents and educators): 877-755-5347; www.playingforkeeps.org

NOTES:

1. Anthony D. Pellegrini and P.K. Smith, “Physical Activity Play: The Nature and Function of a Neglected Aspect of Play,” Child Development (vol. 69, no. 3), June 1998, pp. 577-598.
2. Doris Bergen, “The Role of Pretend Play in Children’s Cognitive Development,” Early Childhood Research and Practice, 4(1), Spring, 2002; Jerome L. Singer, “Cognitive and Affective Implications of Imaginative Play in Childhood,” in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Textbook, Melvin Lewis, ed., 2002, pp. 252-263; Susan J. Oliver and Edgar Klugman, “What We Know About Play,” Child Care Information Exchange, Richmond, WA, September,.2002; Edgar Klugman and Sara Smilansky, Children’s Play and Learning: Perspectives and Policy Implications, New York: Teachers College Press, 1990; Pellegrini and Smith, op. cit.
3. Robert J. Coplan and K.H. Rubin, “Social Play,” Play from Birth to Twelve and Beyond, Garland Press, 1998; Klugman and Smilansky, op.cit.; Singer, op. cit.
4. Edward Hallowell, The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, New York: Ballantine, 2002.