One study found that kids who played with blocks scored higher on language tests than kids who had no blocks. Perhaps the children with blocks simply spent less time on unproductive activities such as watching TV--but the end result was good for them in any case.
Image: JUPITERIMAGES
In Brief
- Childhood play is crucial for social, emotional and cognitive development.
- Imaginative and rambunctious “free play,” as opposed to games or structured activities, is the most essential type.
- Kids and animals that do not play when they are young may grow into anxious, socially maladjusted adults.
On August 1, 1966, the day psychiatrist Stuart Brown started his assistant professorship at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, 25-year-old Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower on the Austin campus and shot 46 people. Whitman, an engineering student and a former U.S. Marine sharpshooter, was the last person anyone expected to go on a killing spree. After Brown was assigned as the state’s consulting psychiatrist to investigate the incident and later, when he interviewed 26 convicted Texas murderers for a small pilot study, he discovered that most of the killers, including Whitman, shared two things in common: they were from abusive families, and they never played as kids.
Brown did not know which factor was more important. But in the 42 years since, he has interviewed some 6,000 people about their childhoods, and his data suggest that a lack of opportunities for unstructured, imaginative play can keep children from growing into happy, well-adjusted adults. “Free play,” as scientists call it, is critical for becoming socially adept, coping with stress and building cognitive skills such as problem solving. Research into animal behavior confirms play’s benefits and establishes its evolutionary importance: ultimately, play may provide animals (including humans) with skills that will help them survive and reproduce.
This article was originally published with the title The Serious Need for Play.
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44 Comments
Add CommentThis article about the relationship between free play and creativity and socialization may be useful in understanding the psychology of Taiwanese college students. I teach in a university in Taiwan, and the major problem for education is the lack of curiosity and initiative among the students. Also, they are inordinately shy and reluctant to respond. The main change in Taiwanese education has been the increasing hours of education, even evenings and weekends, from age 10 or less. Children have almost no free or unstructured time. They are passive learners. I wish I knew how to motivate them!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOld movie clips of London during World War 2 bombing show children playing with toy bombers in the rubble. Play may reduce stress
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInterestingly old movie clips of London during World War 2 bombings show children playing with makeshift toy bombers in the rubble.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlay may reduce stress
Play also teaches one not surrender, infact without play how would anybody socialize, rules should be introduced to a child when that child is 5, but if rules are never introduced you end up with a whole lot of delinquents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExposure to media has an impact also. Children who spend time watching movies/tv tend to re-enact these stories when they play. Sometimes the media narratives dominate or limit the play (there is only one princess in that movie or only 4 Power Rangers) and interfere with more authentic and productive play that is based upon children's real life expereinces.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlay is important at all ages. It is literally a biological imperative. Check out this article, My Work is My Play, the Journey from Survival to Creativity discussing the very same issue from a different perspective - Remote Viewing i.e. expansion of consciousness: http://www.en8848.com.cn/Article/Others/Creativity/4640.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomething else to look at is the Applied Improvisation Network, an international group of actors, trainers and business people using play in the corporate world to further productivity, teamwork and development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.appliedimprov.ning.com
Why don't you take a look at the Applied Improvisation Network site I mentioned in my last post. I believe you'd find lots of support and ideas there. There is also a conference coming up in Japan in March. Perhaps you could contact the organizers through the AIN site. The focus is on business but I use it in therapy and others adapt this approach to the classroom.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a public school teacher of 18 years I have been dismayed at the reduction of recess time and by the pushing down of inappropriate curriculum into kindergarten and 1st grade. In a 6 hour full-time kindergarten day, they get a total of 40 minutes of unstructured play. Gone are most the kindergarten "house" corners where kids"pretended". You won't find a block corner in many classrooms either. I believe strongly in public edcuation...but couldn't bare to put my daughter in that setting. She is now in a Waldorf school, where play in nurtured, and childhood is protected.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in Israel, the antipode of Taiwan geographically and socially. People here do not accept others to tell them what to do, specially children. I can't get my 5 y.o. girl to get dressed in the morning because she sleeps with books and starts reading when she wakes up. I don't know if it's connected, but Israel has the first or second ammount of patents per capita in the world, and Israelies are the least shy people in the world (which is quite annoying sometimes). At work, when 2 people are talking, any Israeli will get in and interrupt with a question, even if they are much higher ranked in the organization. This is annoying but also efficient, since the person won't get stuck with his task until the opportunity to ask arises. I don't imagine a Japanese engineer interrupting his boss with a question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlay is behavioual experimentation, where the child finds out just how not too far to push the limits. Yet this is still part of the process of disciplining the brain. A person knowing no limits becomes psychopathic, just like the killer in the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthinfilms just made a short film about this very topic - a documentary about the game of Tag: http://thinfilms.net
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article really highlights what we try to communicate to parents constantly in our Museum. We even have put together a free resource that highlights additional research on the topic. If anyone's interested, we have made it accessible on the Web: http://www.dupagechildrensmuseum.org/The%20Importance%20of%20Play%2010.08.pdf
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see many friends of mine, who are very good at communicating their current feelings threw movie line scripts, but have the hardest time simply voicing their emotions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGazooks! My son was always a "bench warmer" on his soccer teams. I noticed at the time that he and his fellow bench warmers seemed to have much more fun goofing around together than the kids who were in the game, all stressed out trying to "win". Years later, my kid is now a sophmore at a top engineering school, with many friends of all stripes. On the other hand, some of the starts of those soccer games are depressed college dropouts or even in jail. One of the stars played the meanest trick at a high school soccer camp. He defecated in a potato chip package cardboard tube and hid it in another room. The poor kids in that room suffered with the stench for days, while the trickster and his friends snickered amongst them selves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust some anectdodal data for you all.
One important form of play is make-believe. This develops the imagination and needs no obligatory play partner. A book will help as a support.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThough we all "grow up" there is still an inner child lurking in each one of us. As Dr. Play I am summoned to many corporate retreats and team-building sessions to give adults permission to "play" on their jobs. As the article acknowledges the importance of play as a stress reducer and a creative tool for kids it has the same effect during my "playshops." Adults get the chance to express themselves freely during the games and the final effect is that the participants are more relaxed and more connected to each other. Hopefully this article will not be read simply as instruction for parents to provide their kids with more playtime but also to see that the need to play does not diminish when we grow up. For more info visit www.doctorplay.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the director of an early childhood care and education center and an instructor for adults entering the ece field, I applaud this article. If you read studies, such as Neurons to Neighborhoods you would find futher support for the absolute necessity of play for the development of social skills as well as foundational learning skills. With the push for standardized testing moving down to younger ages, we have to take a very firm stand for children and childhood.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've always enjoyed my work because I felt it was actually the opportunity to play & share my skills with others... and as long as I find opportunity to play, work isn't a chore or something I dread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI feel people become a ticking time-bomb after they lose their ability to play... it's only a matter of years before stress builds and they have a heart-attack, stroke or aneurysm.
I can't stress enough to my friends that even in the most stressful of times, play is important.. whether it's riding a motorcycle, going to a "toy" show (car, motorcycle, electronics, etc)... or sitting down and playing blocks with the grandkids... play keeps us from becoming grumpy and maladjusted.
This is a great overview of a lot of reasons I knew for what we're doing with refugee kids in the West Bank (Palestine), as well as some compelling new data that I hadn't heard yet. It hits home the tragedy of kids growing up in conflict: not only do they have to deal with more violence, tension and uncertainty than any human should have to, but they are also robbed of this natural facility for coping and healthy intellectual and social development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe're trying to provide the safe space and skilled guidance for kids to do just what they do best, in the hopes of enabling them to rise above their circumstances. If you're interested, check out www.tomorrowsyouth.org and let us know what you think! Or if you want to help - play is not very well-established as an approach here, so we're always happy to have interns / visiting trainers / etc...
behavioral psychology is just something invented so that people can explain away the sin nature of mankind and excuse it. Somethings n childhood may affect an adult, but going on a killing spree has nothing to do with what happened in their childhood. It has everything to do with the fact they have a sinful nature, and they are sinners!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love this article. As a preschool teacher of children with severe special needs and disabilities, I am very happy to provide many opportunities and situations for my students to play and develop social skills.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for your thorough article stressing the importance of play for children. I am a speech language pathologist with lots of activities, good toy and book suggestions to stimulate play, and a blog on my website at www.playonwords.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSherry Artemenko
Melinda,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article on the importance of play in developing minds. However, I have to take issue with the case of Charles Whitman. Whitman may have come from an an unstable, abusive family environment which played a large role in his spree killing at the Texas Tower but he had a brain tumor which likely affected his behavior (a small but significant point which should have been revealed in research on his life).
Great article! As a child, we ran the neighborhood and mothers from one house to the next watched over us. Unfortunately that no longer exists in most neighborhoods in the US for safety reasons. Now children sit in front of the TV and the game boys.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe learned social skills, bargaining skills, were imaginative in the games we played and got tons of exercising by runny around. We learned about how things grow by catching tadpoles and growing them into frogs... we are growing a generation of obese, unmotivated, non-thinkers in this system.
Parents, you should be concerned about what your kids are NOT doing! And do some of it with them, they want your attention more than that playstation they just had to have!
Here's to parenting about!
Christine Hiebel
www.PassionParent.com
Great article! As a child, we ran the neighborhood and mothers from one house to the next watched over us. Unfortunately that no longer exists in most neighborhoods in the US for safety reasons. Now children sit in front of the TV and the game boys.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe learned social skills, bargaining skills, were imaginative in the games we played and got tons of exercising by runny around. We learned about how things grow by catching tadpoles and growing them into frogs... we are growing a generation of obese, unmotivated, non-thinkers in this system.
Parents, you should be concerned about what your kids are NOT doing! And do some of it with them, they want your attention more than that playstation they just had to have!
Here's to parenting about!
Christine Hiebel
www.PassionParent.com
As a kid, we ran the neighborhood and were watched over by mother to mother. Unfortunately children do not get to run in safety like we did as kids. Instead, the children are either in front of the TV or playstation, or they are rushed from one activity to another.... stressed for time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs is a proven fact that children learn better when they are playing... we learn the ABCs by singing them, we learn to count by hopscotch.... make it fun and the kid is all over it... homework in Pre-school? What happened to nap time and play dough? All kids left behind! I choose Unschooling!
Just parenting about!
Christine Hiebel
www.PassionParent.com
The lack of imagination, curiosity, experimentation, problem solving and general joy of learning in our students today is a huge concern. These are the very skills that we need to be nurturing if our children are to successfully negotiate the pressures of the 21st century. Instead the focus on literacy and numeracy is gradually squeezing opportunity for student directed learning out of the curriculum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn New Zealand, the new education curriculum has allowed schools more freedom to design programmes that meet the social emotional, physical as well as the cognitive needs of todays learners. In response to this many schools are adopting Discovery Time. A child directed opportunity to play, experiment, develop social and discovery the joy of learning.
Check out www.discoverytime.blogspot.com
Wonderful article. We're sharing it with many at talks and workshops and on our web site, www.allianceforchildhood.org. The Alliance works to restore play to children's lives. We've been introduing the profession of playwork, as it's known in the UK, so that there can be people in parks districts and other recreational places who know about free play and how to support it without directing it. We're also releasing a report in March on the need to restore play and experiential learning in kindergartens. It is full of new research and commentary on why current approaches that over-emphasize litercy, numeracy and standardized testing are not working. Thanks so much for this great article. Play used to be considered a "four letter word" but it's definitely making a comeback.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJoan Almon, Alliance for Childhood
We have long believed in the importance of play and founded www.gamesforeducators.com as a site for educators to find games for the classroom and share with other teachers their experiences with games.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMary Couzin
Many children throughout the last few decades have been deprived of play by the automobile. As a child in a city without cars we were safe to roam and play highly sportive games with little need for parental supervision... we were safe. Nowadays in most cities you cannot walk far without seeing the ultimate kill-joy ' No Ball Games'! And cars allow criminals to escape where before neighbours could run after and often catch them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe information in this article is so valuable. As a teacher and a tutor, with PDX Tutors, this is an issue that we see affecting our learners. Yet, it isn't just with our younger students, but our older ones and adults too. By being able to make the learning more interesting, diverse, and varied - it really does lead to a higher retention of information. Plus, come on - it's just fun to play.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you so much for creating research and data that backs up what so many educators have believed for years.
A great article that came along at a great time. Having taught for the past 19 years, I have noted the alarming trend in the disappearance of imaginative play and its harmful effects on children. I have joined the growing movement to bring play back into the lives of children. Imaginative play is still on my "endagered list", and it is good to find allies in the fight to bring it back. I have used this article in my work with families and teachers, and wrote about it in my blog
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://empoweredbyplay.blogspot.com/
Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin
Empowered By Play
There is no sin but religion makes it so. Nothing in human life is beyond the reach of play; all life is play, and much more than Shakespeare's sound and fury. Excellent article. Viva Homo ludens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisvery intersting but i wonder how computer games will affect kids later on?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe study on kids who are at a high risk schools do better in 'play centered schools' was an eye opener. We are living in a society where learning ABC's at an early age is a must. Parents are demanding it so their kids can be on top of the class. I wonder if more parents had resources to these kind of articles if they would rethink what is best for their children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIve quite literally fallen into play .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA year ago I had a problem. I wanted to communicate with an audience about my passion for sustainability. I prepared my information and readied myself at a small local event for an onslaught of eager, receptive people I thought would receive my message and basically they walked right past without a look.
Four months later, I had a similar opportunity; different event but the same message. Given the first events dismal results, I was not ready for a repeat so I asked myself, What do people like to do today? Play , was the answer so I organized a game for people to play. I Had 3 year olds to 80 year old playing, laughing and you guessed it, learning about my passion for sustainability.
What was interesting was that some teachers saw what I had done. They could see the use of these games and others of a similar ilk to help them teach.
Since that event now 13 months ago, teachers have kept asking me for different games, encouraging me and guiding with each step of the way. Ive been to kindergartens and primary schools both to show, teach and learn how the games Ive created work in the hands of student and teachers.
Reading this article on play I kept agreeing, of seeing how and why my resources work within the context of the articles information.
You can see a lot of what I do at www.educate.giant-games.biz and my totally new www.giantdice.net . Now, after only a few short months Im making giant games for children, play mats and giant educational dice.
Ill be sending the link of this article to all my teacher friends because it just makes plain damn good sense.
Well done and I hope the children of this world have time to play&
Roger Carthew,
Master player and eco-preneur
I am a college proffesor in india, the instinct for imagenative play is shrunk because of urbanisation, small family, single child norm, parente are achivement driven. schools are more oriented to showing achivement which has killed the natural instinct of play. so as a result children in college are only reproducer of facts taught not inclined for challenge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi how could we educate the public on the need and importance of play in young children.the time children reach their adolesence the are dead and life is not a challenge. they are not even reactive in a class room. only bouthered about achivement in the end exam.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article was one of the most interesting articles I have read. I completely enjoyed the reasearch and facts that are being ignored in today's educational system. As parents and communities race to teach and instruct their young children thia information must be brodcasted much or effectively. I have known this for a long time, but how does all this change with regards to the indigo children?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBravo! Bravo!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecently, I published a book about the games we played in the 1970s and 80s when I was growing up in New York. Sometimes, the best thing that a parent can do is just open the door to let their children get outside. Today, parents (with the best of intentions) become over involved in the organization and structure of childhood play. The problem is, the children don't need our help. As a matter of fact, we hinder more than help when we get too involved.
Read my recent article, <a href="http://gamesweplayed.com/2010/01/19/the-shift-from-unstructured-childhood-play-to-organized-activity/">The Shift from Unstructured Childhood Play to Organized Activity</a>
Sorry, that link should be http://www.gamesweplayed.com/2010/01/19/the-shift-from-unstructured-childhood-play-to-organized-activity/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost of your list could likely be seduced with "Hey I pulled this muscle, could you rub it for me?" Coulter is frigid and mean. Nothing sexy about a malfunctioning Fridgidaire. Solar energy and our lives, recommend a good solar water heater business: http://www.ejaisolar.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is sad when kids play computer games or electronic games and spend all the time inside because they are not allowed outside. That is what is wrong with world today. There is something wrong with the world when children are not free to go outside to play. It is usually because they live in apartment, there is danger around them or parents expect them to do other things, or are busy, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat I believe is why they take drugs, turn to criminals or engage in self destructive behaviour because they don't know any other way to have fun only what they learnt in a video game or even worse, in real life.
My heart aches for these children.