Play is Essential in Pandemic Healing

11/23/2021

Play is Essential in Pandemic Healing

If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: Be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.
John Holt

“As the world re-opens, it is more important than ever to help children disconnect from the virtual world and reconnect with the real one. In addition, children need an opportunity to heal from a year of collective loss and grief. For children, play is vital to social and emotional wellbeing,” wrote Konstantin Lukin, PhD in an article in Psychology Today.

Karen Stephens, in an article that provides the basis for an Out of the Box Training, “Sparking Imaginations,” explains how important it is to understand authentic play:

“It’s very important to distinguish the type of play that nurtures…positive development. It’s not just any type of child activity that does it. For instance, some may call it ‘play’ when a child follows a teacher’s step by step directions during a craft project. It might be a hands-on learning experience, but different from the types of authentic play researchers have concluded is most critical to early development.”

Stephens offers eleven characteristics of authentic play. Here is a sampling:

“Authentic, beneficial children’s play is:

pleasurable and enjoyable, voluntary, and self-initiated;
self-sustaining without needing rewards, coercion, or reinforcement from others;
spontaneous and flexible, involving fluid problem-solving that doesn’t have one right answer and may include multiple or changing solutions;
not directed, dictated, regulated, formatted, or structured by a parent, supervising adult or teacher.”

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.