The Importance of Play in a Child’s Life
Written by Tessa Reynolds
October 30, 2017
The sayings “times have changed” and “back in my day” become all too relevant the older we get. Children used to be allowed the time to simply be children; to play with no direction, to have the free time to day dream and play out childish fantasies. However, over the years children’s play time has become something of a rare commodity. Children today rarely get to just play and be carefree children. Today children are overscheduled, shuffled from one activity to the next, constantly told what to do and how to think, and left with very little time for themselves. Today’s children are not given the time to be creative and exploratory. However, as many advocates for play therapy often highlight, play is an important part of a child’s life. As Garry Landreth, author of Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship, states children “are not miniature adults.” Landreth thoroughly discusses the importance of non-directive play for children as well as the benefits of Child Centered Play Therapy. Landreth discusses the idea that play is a natural and necessary part of childhood. Landreth further highlights that play is meant to be “spontaneous, usually enjoyable, voluntary and not goal directed,” (pg. 7-8, 2012). When children are given goals for their play it no longer serves its true purpose of allowing for self-expression, exploration, processing, and understanding of the world that surrounds and interacts with them. Traditional forms of therapy are not as effective when working with children, because children naturally do not express themselves verbally. That is a skill they learn over time and with maturation. Children’s play is “their natural medium of communication. Children express themselves more fully and more directly through self-initiated, spontaneous play than they do verbally, because they are more comfortable with play,” (Landreth, 2012). It is often said throughout the play therapy theories and in the many lectures I have attended that toys are children’s words and play is how they express their experiences and relay their inner subjective worlds. Landreth further discusses the fact that children often have little to no control in their lives; therefore, play is one of the few things they can exert control over and through play “they live out at the moment of play past experiences and associated feelings,” (pg. 15, 2012). This is equivalent to an adult processing through talk therapy how their life is going and their past experiences and feelings.
By using play therapy children can process through their past experiences or current struggles in life through their play in a safe, supportive, and caring environment in which they have complete control. Originally Sigmund Freud was the first to use a form of play therapy when working with a 5-year-old boy who suffered from a great phobia and later Freud’s daughter Anna used play with children to build rapport and strengthen the relationship with the child during therapy (Liles & Brandt, 2010). Many forms of play therapy developed over the years including Relationship Play Therapy, Release Play Therapy, and Structured Play Therapy; all of which had different approaches to working with children (Liles & Brandt, 2010). The most empirically supported play therapy is Child Centered Play Therapy, which is non-directive and was adapted by Virginia Axline from Carl Roger’s Person Centered Therapy (Liles & Brandt, 2010). Over the years play therapy has worked its way into schools and is even being used by school counselors to work with children. Child Centered Play Therapy highlights the importance of non-directive play for children. Non-directive play is important to allow the child the freedom to play out what they need to in that moment. Children move at their own pace; they will bring up what they are ready to work through or bring up what they feel comfortable doing so. It is not effective for an adult to attempt to push the child in a direction the child is not willing or ready to go in. Sometimes children go to therapy to work on a specific issue identified by the parent or maybe due to a recent trauma; however, even though there is an identified issue or recent emotional trauma the child may not ready to work through it. Forcing them to address it will not be of benefit to the child or the child’s healing process. Child centered play therapy allows the child to move at a pace the child is ready for and Landreth believed that a child will bring up an issue when they are ready to address it.
I also want to discuss the importance of not overscheduling and over dictating children’s lives; while allowing them some form of self-direction, control and decision making within their lives that is age appropriate. Children are losing more and more of their childhood and although they are actively involved in extra circular activities it still may be to their own detriment as these activities are goal directed. “According to the literature, many parents equate children’s success in school with numerous extracurricular adult-directed activities (e.g., music lessons, Kumon Jr., adult directed sports teams, etc.),” (Housley Juster, 2013). As hypothesized, “children may now be over-scheduled in these activities, further limiting opportunities for intrinsically motivated, self-directed play outside of the classroom,” (Housley Juster, 2013). It’s not to say that team sports, music lessons, dance and other similar activities are not of value; however, it is still important to allow time for children to be children, for them to have free, unscheduled time and to be non-directed and self-expressive. Extra-circular activities do not allow for any of that to occur. “The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children spend 1 h a day engaged in free or unstructured play –“the spontaneous activity in which children engage to amuse and occupy themselves,” (Bishop, 2013). This time is critical for children; children need to free play.
Children are often over directed, and all the decisions made for them by the significant adults in the child’s life. However, doing this does not assist the child in learning to be independent and free thinking, it does not allow for the development of self-soothing skills, problem solving skills, self-control, or effective decision-making skills. These skills are valuable for any child or adult to have; however, the child must be presented with opportunities that allow them to develop these skills. Returning responsibility and appropriate limit-setting are methods for allowing children opportunities to make decisions; which helps foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well as self-control. Simple decisions that are within reason, feasible, and age appropriate should when possible be given to the child to decide for themselves. As an example, the child comes home from school and house rules dictate that the child must complete their chores, their homework, shower, etc. However, unless necessary does it matter what order? Would it really hurt to ask the child: do you want to do your homework first or do you want to do your chores first? Another example that is common is the child does not want to do their homework right away and they would rather watch TV. Giving them a choice within the accepted limits helps them develop a sense of control and responsibility. The choices for the child could be: does the child want to watch an hour of TV and then do their homework or do their homework and then watch the hour of TV? Either way they must complete their homework and either way they are only getting an hour of TV time. However, simple decisions like this give a sense of control in the child’s life, and allows for so many beneficial skills to develop as they age. Appropriate limit-setting also is highly beneficial to fostering healthy boundaries, relaying expectations of the child, and fostering a sense of control over one’s life. “Provide the child opportunities to learn self-control by responding with appropriate therapeutic limit-setting,” (Landreth, 2012). With appropriate limit-setting the adult is still in charge and chooses the limit; however, the child is still given a boundary and a choice. An example of appropriate limit-setting would be: the sodas are not for children to drink; however, you may have a glass of juice, a Capri Sun, or a glass of milk. One example of limit-setting that illustrates allowing the child to make decisions about their behavior and ensuing consequences is a great example Landreth presented to his own children. Landreth told his son that his pajamas were not to be strewn about the house, that they needed to be put away after he changed his clothes. The choice he gave the child was he could choose to not put his pajamas away and choose to not watch his favorite morning TV show each day he chose not to put his pajamas away or he could choose to put his pajamas where they belong and therefore choose to watch is favorite morning show. Each morning the child chose to leave his pajamas on the ground was the morning he did not watch the TV show. However, each morning he chose to put his pajamas away he also got to watch his favorite TV show. The key to successful integration of limit-setting is to be consistent and to follow through. Inconsistent limit-setting, consequences, or lack of follow through is as detrimental to the learning process as simply not even correcting the negative behavior in the first place. With inconsistency the child learns to harass the parents long enough that the parent will eventually give in and this is the las thing any parent wants to cope with.
Returning responsibility to the child is also important as this teaches the child to be self-reliant and boosts confidence instead of teaching the child to rely on the caregiver. Landreth often discusses the fact that adults should not do for children what they can do for themselves and to never fully do something for a child if all they need to complete the task is a little help or guidance. The goal would then be to provide the limited assistance or guidance necessary for the child to accomplish the task mostly on their own. Examples of returning responsibility to the child could include hanging up a picture on the wall. Perhaps due to the child’s age and development the child cannot quite yet handle holding the picture up to the wall with one hand and coordinate the other to tape the picture to the wall without the picture falling. The adult could hold one corner of the picture while the child holds the other corner and uses their other hand to tape the picture to the wall. Eventually the child will learn to do it by herself. One example that Landreth used in one of his play therapy sessions was when a painting paper fell off the isle. The child asked him to hang the paper back on the isle with the clips. He told the child you can try to o that yourself. The child tried a few times to maneuver the clips and eventually got one. Once the child knew how to maneuver the clip she easily clipped up the paper to the isle all by herself. Instead of him doing the task for her, he returned the responsibility to the child and allowed her to do it for herself; which she did successfully. Although returning responsibility and limit-setting seem to require much patience on the part of the parent it is a worthwhile investment for both the child and the parent as it fosters a sense of control, personal responsibility and builds confidence and self-esteem in the child. There are many amazing community resources that can help support parents. Such as First 5 Sacramento. Their website is http://www.first5sacramento.net/Pages/default.aspx. First 5 assists with parent education. Birth and Beyond is an amazing resource that also offers parent education and support. They have workers that will come out to your house and work with you and your child. They also offer classes at their different locations across the Sacramento area. Terra Nova Counseling located at 5750 Sunrise Blvd, Citrus Heights, CA 95610 offers Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) in which they work with the parent and child in a therapeutic manner to learn better skills for interacting together and work as a team on target behaviors.
References
Bishop, R. (2013). Go out and play, but mean it: Using frame analysis to explore recent news
media coverage of the rediscovery of unstructured play. The Social Science Journal. 50 (510-520). Retrieved from https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.lib.csus.edu/science/article/pii/S0362331913001110
Housley Juster, A. (2013). Child-directed play and the over-scheduling hypothesis:
Relationships among mothers’ expectations for children’s learning, parenting practices, and 3-year olds’ time use (Order No. 3567281). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection. (1417775939). Retrieved from http://proxy.lib.csus.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest- com.proxy.lib.csus.edu/docview/1417775939?accountid=10358
Landreth, G. (2012). Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship. 3rd Ed. New York, NY.
Liles, E & Brandt, M. (2010). EDC 242: Play and Art Therapy Theory Packet.
Watchman, T.. & Spencer-Cavaliere, N. (2017). Times have changed: Parent perspectives on
children’s free play and sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. 32 (102-112). Retrieved from https://ac-els-cdn-com.proxy.lib.csus.edu/S1469029216303107/1-s2.0-S1469029216303107-main.pdf?_tid=229192fe-bd14-11e7-a36d-00000aab0f27&acdnat=1509328163_0cc5e10775c293eb605f79cfc36cf31b