My Connections to Play

You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a years’ worth of conversation 

~Plato

The opposite of play is not work-it’s depression

 ~Brian Sutton-Smith

 

I love the topic of this weeks blog because it takes me back to my childhood and makes me smile. I was fortunate to grow up in a safe neighborhood where there were lots of children. My sister and I would get up in the morning, have breakfast, and take off to play. The mothers in the neighborhood would feed lunch to all of the children who were at her house at noon, and then everyone would go home for dinner…often re-emerging after dinner to play a game of kick-soccer or hide-and-seek.  We got to know each other very well through, and when we couldn’t go out and play it was awful! My favorite toys were my Mrs. Beasley doll, my costume box, and my swing set. All of these things required my imagination, and none of these items had an “on” switch or batteries. Children today are surrounded by electronics and closed-ended toys that only have one purpose. However, when young children are given the chance to have unstructured play using items that are open-ended, their creativity does emerge. My hope for young children today is that they are given opportunities by their parents and caregivers to experience long periods of child-directed play, especially outside, with no toys that plug in or turn on.

I love to play and that is a HUGE reason why I was drawn to the field of early childhood! I am in administration now, but I never pass up the chance to go into a classroom and play with the playdough or dig in the sandbox. I am still very playful, and it sometimes gets me into trouble with colleagues that have forgotten that learning/producing and playing do go hand in hand. I think that my early experiences of hour upon hour of creative play have made me a more innovative adult and a better advocate for the early childhood field.