Free play is critical to health.

by Michele Ranard, M.Ed.
690 words

Don’t you love it when science confirms what we want it to? Like consuming more chocolate and red wine are good for us. Or that adding more play to our lives is critical for better emotional, social, and cognitive health.

Science indeed provides evidence that kids need a fair amount of unstructured chill out time. Perhaps even more than what they’re getting now due to rigid school and activity schedules. While academics, lessons, and organized sports are important, goof-off time is too. Children are hard-wired for play, and to stay healthy they need plenty of unstructured opportunities.



Why Play?

Dr. Stuart Brown, clinical researcher and author of Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (2009) studied the play behavior of animals and more than 6,000 people from all walks of life—serial killers to Nobel Prize winners. His research concluded that play time is critical to the emotional, social, and cognitive health of children.

Everyone understands play is pleasurable and a good distraction from stress, but science also teaches us that play “is a profound biological process” crucial to our survival. In rats, play reduces impulsivity, which is similar to ADHD in humans. We are simply hard-wired to play. Unfortunately, recess and P.E. are disappearing from the school day at a time kids need unstructured free-play more than ever.

Brown says making play a part of our daily lives is critical to feeling fulfilled as happy, successful human beings. What constitutes play? The retired psychiatrist says play is much more than games and sports. Play involves books, music, art, jokes, movies, drama, and daydreaming.

Play to Win

1. We’re built to play. Sometimes we trivialize play or fail to see its usefulness. But it’s more than fun. In addition to improving emotional health, it serves a biological purpose.

2. Emotional intelligence grows from play. When social mammals such as rats and monkeys are deprived of rough-and-tumble play, they enter adulthood emotionally fragile. Play builds resilience and helps them distinguish friend from foe, handle stress better, and form better skills to mate properly.

3. Play improves social competence. Play teaches people to master and adapt to changing circumstances. Even “dealing with or avoiding being excluded” from games like tag or dodge ball are helpful social skills to learn.

4. Play and physical activity improve symptoms of mild ADHD. Dr. Lara Honos-Webb, author of The Gift of ADHD (2005) says of the disorder “It is important to remember that nature is medicine and activity is medicine.” She suggests parents of children with ADHD make time for them to run around outside before school and be sure that recess is never taken away as a punishment for poor behavior.

5. Play can prevent a smoldering depression. Play is not simply a trivial escape. It provides a vehicle for learning to problem solve, and as Dr. Brown writes, “reshapes our rigid views of the world.”

6. Play burns calories. Trends for childhood obesity are staggering. According to the CDC, the prevalence of childhood obesity for 6-11 year-olds has increased from 6.5% (1976-80) to 17% (2003-2006). Obese kids have increased risk for cardiovascular disease, asthma, sleep apnea, and Type 2 diabetes.

7. Play deficiency may result in serious consequences. After analyzing thousands of “play histories,” Brown stresses that play deficiencies can lead to closed-mindedness, inflexibility, and unhappiness. Lifelong play is part of the antidote.

8. Rough and tumble play is developmentally critical. We knew it was helpful to development, but Dr. Brown discovered that for young homicidal males and drunk drivers, rough-and-tumble play was missing from their childhoods.

9. Play can lead to stronger academic performance. This may be especially relevant for boys. Anthony Pellegrini, educational psychologist and author of Recess (2005) discovered that successful peer interaction at recess was an excellent predictor of success on standardized tests. When boys established competence on the playground, they also did better in the classroom and paid attention better.

10. Successful people play A LOT. Playfulness sparks creativity and innovation. Brown’s analysis of the play histories of successful adults led him to discover “Highly successful people have a rich play life.”

Michele Ranard has a husband, two children, and a master’s in counseling. She has blogs at hellolovelychild.blogspot.com and hellolovelyinc.blogspot.com.

Resources:

Brown, Stuart. 2009. Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Avery.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov)

Honos-Webb, Lara. 2005. The Gift of ADHD. New Harbinger.

Pellegrini, Anthony. 2005. Recess: It’s Role in Education and Development. Laurence Erlbaum.