The Lost Art of Play, on CBC with Stephen Quinn
An interview based on the presentation Lost Art of Play: Helping Children Become their Own Person for the Vancouver International Children’s Festival PEP series. It aired on May 13, 2013 and the interviewer was Stephen Quinn from CBC, On the Coast, Vancouver, BC.
Plugged In: Growing Up in a Digital World
I remember being overjoyed when my parents bought our first dishwasher. Overnight I was rescued from the drudgery of washing dinner plates. I was even more ecstatic when my parents bought our first colour television. I still laugh when I tell my children, “Mommy used to watch television in black and white”.
Board games, record players, paper books, air guitar with tennis rackets, and outdoor play were the substance of my weekends and summer vacations. I feel a sentimental attachment to these experiences, especially as I watch them being transformed by technology. My kids have their movies on demand and can find their way around an itunes library. When they are playing I overhear their Barbies talk on cell phones and their Polly Pockets invent devices that navigate a miniature terrain. In these moments I feel as if I am standing between two worlds. I am an immigrant to this new digital world but my children are its true digital natives. They have never known a world without internet, computers, handheld devices, and screens to navigate by.
We love our technology and who couldn’t − it has given us tools to do things we only once imagined. The fact is though, with every step forward there are losses left in its wake. As a parent raising children in a digital world I am left to contemplate whether all these technological devices are what my children really need? What is lost when screens and devices become part of their play? How do I make sense of these new tools and the role they serve in my 
children’s life?
David Suzuki suggests when a new tool is introduced, it takes one to two hundred years for new rituals and customs to form around its use. I don’t have two hundred years to figure this out and neither do my kids. Parents continuously face questions whether they should allow their kids to have a facebook page, cell phone, play video games, or post content and surf on the Internet. The problem is we will never find our answers if we keep asking these type of questions. We need to consider the heart of this issue, that is, how do these new tools help or hinder our children’s development?
The irreducible needs of children are very clear from a developmental perspective. First, our children need to become their own person and develop their own ideas. The way they start to develop this sense of agency and become an actor in their world is through play. It is here they play fight, play house, and play at figuring out the world around them – consequence free. This unscripted, unmitigated play is critical to eventually figuring out who they are. The question is whether technological devices foster this type of play in our children?
The type of devices our children have in their hands have the capacity to rob them of their expressive and exploratory play. Our children are often at the mercy of other people’s ideas, which only serves to limit theirs. What can possibly compare to the stories they can create and the adventures they go on with their trains or dolls? There is so much that needs to come out of them. We need to stay cognizant to what gets lost when they are bounded by a device, an algorithm or another person’s ideas. Their expressive and exploratory play is the vehicle for growth into personhood and without these spaces they cannot make their internal world emerge.
The other irreducible need of children is that they need rest in order to grow. As an adult I often feel overwhelmed with too much information bombarding me. My attentional systems are often overtaxed and I have taken multitasking to an all-new level. I don’t need any more information, I just need some time, space, and rest so I can process it. Our children need the same so they can find their own questions and develop their own meanings before being introduced to other people’s answers. Our children need spaces free of distractions, information, and entertainment so they can focus on what interests them. When the focus is on putting information into them, we lose sight of the questions that were meant to come out first.
The other irreducible need of children is to experience their world in a vulnerable way where the losses and lacks of life are truly felt. From the checker games they never win against their grandfather to the sports activities where winners and losers are clearly defined − these all serve to teach them something. These small losses are what prepare children for the big upsets that will be part of their life too. There will be jobs they don’t get, people that don’t love them back, and constant reminders of the unfairness of life. Does a videogame world with a reset button and endless lives prepare our children for the world they will live in? I fear not. We cannot possibly exchange the lessons learned in the real world, in real time, with the world that is created on our screens. There is too much lost and so little that is learned when the futilities of life come with a reset button.
I love my technology but this isn’t about love. It is about developmental readiness that needs to be considered when putting these tools into our children’s hands. Our children need to be full of their own ideas before we introduce them to the ideas of so many others. They need to have the space to attend to the questions inside of them instead of the distractions posed by too much information and entertainment. They need to be able to accept the futilities of life in the real world and with people that were meant to be their life teachers.
To keep this new world in perspective, I view my children’s new tools on the same level as all the other treats they desire. As Gordon Neufeld says, “there is nothing wrong with cookies but every parent knows there is a time and a place for them”. Cookies are treats and we ought to savour them − their sweetness need not blind us. Treats are just cheap substitutes for the real things that were meant to nourish and grow us. Parents have always been the ones to decide when cookies are in order. Treats shouldn’t be eaten on an empty stomach and before all of the other good stuff goes in.
Healthy development is always a matter of timing. Parents were meant to act as buffers against the outside world and determine when children are ready to experience it. Before we plug our children in, we need to consider what they will be unplugged from. Helping them become their own person is the goal and parents are still the best devices that help them get there.
Copyright Deborah MacNamara, PhD, Kid’s Best Bet – Dr. Deborah MacNamara is a counsellor in private practice and on faculty at the Neufeld Institute. She works with parents, educators, child-care and mental health professionals in making sense of kids from the inside out. See www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.com for more information.
The Delicate Dance of Work and Play
Children typically associate summertime with rest and play whereas September can bring groans in returning to schoolwork. While play and work are opposite they are still connected and mutually beneficial. In fact, the research is very clear that both play and work activities have a role in the growth and development of a child. It is through play that the problem solving and neural networks in the brain grow, allowing a child to benefit from the stimulation and instruction of a school environment. Research studies from neuroscience demonstrate that children who lack conditions that foster play actually have brains that are 20 to 30% less developed in capacity. Play is not empty time; it is how children build the brains that are required for work and learning.
Many would argue that we have become increasingly preoccupied with work and outcomes in the 21st century at the sacrifice of play. In universities this is evident in the increasing number of research projects that are focused on producing products or knowledge with a marketable application. This is done at the expense of research that pursues creative interests and discovery, regardless of application. In many ways, the need to produce serves to handcuff creativity. Some progressive workplaces have caught onto this and have carved time into their employee’s workday for playing and creating, free of the constraints and pressure to produce. When we turn our gaze to children we see increasing pressure to produce and work even in their free time from school. We turn them into workers through extracurricular activities. From sports to music you hear the language of outcome, of doing better, of building skills, and of advancing to the next level. The focus of the activity shifts from having fun in the moment to the end goal.
Nonetheless, if the pendulum were swung in the opposite direction and it was only about playing and creating with little work, we would struggle to survive. The functioning of our society and its’ very fabric necessitate work and sacrifice among its members. The children’s story, The Three Little Pigs tells the cautionary tale that sometimes play needs to be sacrificed for the purpose of building a strong foundation that can withstand adversity. It was with this belief that I persevered through many years of formal education, valuing the work and sacrifice required to earn degrees and build a foundation for my future.
Perhaps the answer is never found in pendulum swings but in the movement between the two. We need both work and play and to unbalance our children in either regard puts them at a disadvantage. The cost of all work and no play is the loss of creativity and in discovering one’s unique fingerprint in this world. I have taught university students who are capable of hard work but lack creativity and creative students who struggle to work. It is a delight to find students who can be creative as well as work hard. In fact, I used to plead with my first year university students to stop looking to academia for the answers and to bring their questions to school instead. I encouraged them to leave the land of “is this going to be on the test?” to “my brain feels on fire with a million possibilities and permutations.” My desire for each of them was to find time to play with the ideas they were working to learn.
The reality is that work is a part of life and our goals necessitate sacrifice. We need at some point to engage our children to value that nothing worthwhile ever comes without a little effort. However, it is not until around the age of 5 to 7 that this capacity for understanding work becomes developmentally appropriate. Changes in the prefrontal cortex will allow them for the first time ever to hang onto two thoughts simultaneously. Work requires this conflictual relationship, of being able to sacrifice and manage frustration because on the other side is a desired outcome. Indeed, this was my daughter’s experience of her first week in grade one where the curriculum is shifting away from play and into skill acquisition and mastery. When asked how her first week went she gave it a thumbs up and a thumbs down. She said that part of grade one was fun but the other part of it was work. I acknowledged her new found realization, that both play and work are part of life and what interesting dance partners they make indeed.
Copyright Deborah MacNamara, PhD, Kid’s Best Bet – Dr. Deborah MacNamara is a counsellor in private practice and on faculty at the Neufeld Institute. She works with parents, educators, child-care and mental health professionals in making sense of kids from the inside out. See www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.com for more information.
Building Attachment Communities and The Lost Art of Play, on CFAX 1070 with Shirley Broback
Real Parenting Radio Show with Shirley Broback on CFAX 1070, on April 23, 2011.
TOPICS:
Building Attachment Communities: Childcare providers are the supporting cast required by many families today and there is much that can be done to foster a successful relay team. We need to cultivate attachment between our children and their child care providers so they feel home away from home.
The Lost of Art of Play: Play – at least the kind that builds brains and forwards development – is becoming an endangered activity among those who need to engage in it most. Part of the problem is the premature pressure on children to learn and to become socialized. The importance of play is discussed along with strategies for helping kids get there.
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The Role of Desire in Learning
My husband is an avid downhill mountain biker and would love nothing more than to share this love of bikes with our two daughters. The problem is that my 4-year old daughter doesn’t share his love of bikes. She has a nice new bike that she even picked out, but alas, she is more in love with the accessories that go with it – like the blue water bottle in the nap sack. She will ride 10 feet and then proclaim she is thirsty and get off to have a sip of water and graciously share with her sister. I can tell my husband is disappointed that my daughter would rather walk her bike and play with it than ride. Although he doesn’t say so, I know it also bothers him that some of her friends LOVE riding their bikes and are doing so WITHOUT training wheels! What is a Dad to do?
Last year my husband faced the same issue but with ice-skating instead. He signed her up for lessons only to find she wasn’t interested and refused to go on the ice. I don’t think these types of situations are uncommon in families as it is natural to want to share one’s interests with our children. Some children aren’t interested – does it mean they never will be? Can a parent encourage or move a child in this direction?
Understanding the difference between form and spirit is critical. Does a child want to ride a bike? Learn to ice skate? Play a musical instrument? Is there a bias in the child to try these new things? If not, then we put the form or the learning before the spirit or desire. Why is this a problem? Because the desire for the learning is the parents and not the child’s. It will serve to diminishes the spirit for learning in the child.
In talking to my husband about this he equates it to the difference between hockey players in North America vs. countries that start to train athletic children from a young age to play sports because of their physical prowess. The spirit for the game of hockey is very evident in North American players by comparison and he attributes this to putting spirit before form. I also think of one of my dearest friends who learned to play the piano at age 3 and achieved a high degree of success. I have never heard her play because she just doesn’t enjoy it. She says it was her Mother’s dream and not her desire. In the end it became an exercise to perform to meet other people’s needs but she takes no nourishment or joy from playing.
So if you want your child to play music or even be toilet trained then you have to ask yourself whether or not they want to be. If they don’t, then work at exposing them but not pushing and set the stage for their initiative to emerge. Letting their desire take the lead in the learning process can do much to propel them forward. Spirit is what needs to come first. When a child has a desire to learn then it is easy to teach them the form, in fact, this will be effortless in comparison. When we try to teach them when there is little desire then we are putting the cart before the horse.
My daughter isn’t the fastest swimmer nor the most athletic in the water, in fact her leg kicks remind me of a ‘Friends’ TV episode of Phoebe running in the park. The thing I will say about her is that she has spirit, she loves the water, can’t wait for her next lesson and her teacher often remarks on her enthusiasm. On top of it all, her wild leg kicks has fondly earned the nickname ‘mermaid’ which suits her just fine. I just have to keep reminding my husband that she will get there and when she does, it will be hers to cherish and relish in.
Copyright Deborah MacNamara, PhD, Kid’s Best Bet – Dr. Deborah MacNamara is a counsellor in private practice and on faculty at the Neufeld Institute. She works with parents, educators, child-care and mental health professionals in making sense of kids from the inside out. See www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.com for more information.
From Play to Personhood
“All work and no play make Jack a very dull boy”
(James Howell, Proverbs in English)
What is the role of play in children’s lives and why would we want to make room for it? Play is often seen as free time that is spent without care and work. They formed some of my happiest memories as a child and I can still see my swing-set that took me on journeys beyond my backyard.
Moments spent in play are a luxury and are only present when the relational needs of a child are being met. These times are critical for brain development as it is when children form neural networks that are involved in later problem solving and creativity. Research on children who lack environments that foster play, have brains that are 20 to 30% less developed in capacity. Play is not empty time; it is how children build the brains that are required for work and learning.
All play is not created equal; it’s not about the toys, the stimulation, and the 
entertainment. The type of play children need is where there is expression and exploration coming from within them to construct, build, create – it is not a passive activity. This type of play is called emergent play and in this state you see curiosity, imagination and sense of discovery in full action.
My husband would often groan coming home from work to find the bathroom transformed into a swimming pool for dolls, craft sparkles that defied capture from one end of the house to the other, and an overall mess created from hours of play. I would remind him that he shouldn’t look at it purely as a mess but rather the imaginings of the teacher, designer, and scientist that lurked within my children. The force of their play continues to this day to outmatch our need to walk on a clean floor.
Emergent play does not typically unfold from activities with a lot of structure and rules, as this tends to confine and take the lead in terms of play. This is not to suggest that we stop these activities but it does mean that we need to stay cognizant that structured activities are not equal to free play. In grade one my daughter informed her gym teacher that she wasn’t interested in joining his running club because she simply had enough activities and just wanted to play.
Children who have a lot of stimulation from the TV or computer may report being bored away from these sources because their emergent play and energy has been stifled, subdued or overpowered. For these golden play times to emerge we need to do our part and ensure their relational needs are taken care of, provide the necessary materials, and a space free of stimulation. When these conditions are met, we can sit back and watch their imaginings take hold. We can be rest assured that it is not just child’s play; it is creating the brains that will solve the problems of tomorrow.
Copyright Deborah MacNamara, PhD, Kid’s Best Bet – Dr. Deborah MacNamara is a counsellor in private practice and on faculty at the Neufeld Institute. She works with parents, educators, child-care and mental health professionals in making sense of kids from the inside out. See www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.com for more information.