My Connections to Play

“Play is a child’s work.” Play helps enhance a child’s readiness for more formalized learning.”

-Piaget-

“The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health.”

-Ashley Montagu-

            When I was a child the person who supported me the most during play in my childhood was my mother. A form of play that I liked as a child was imaginative play. I would play with baby dolls which I used for imaginative play and I would pretend that I was a mother taking care of my young baby by bathing, clothing, and nurturing my baby dolls. The support that I received from my mother encouraged my imaginative play and that one day I would become a nurturing mother and childcare provider.

Play for children today is much different from the play that I was engaged in as a child. Compared to my childhood the children of today they have a greater exposer to television, movies, computers and cell phones than I did when I was their age. When I was a child, the children in my neighborhood, we would play baseball on a dead-in street and play jump rope, hop scotch, and basketball at the neighborhood basketball court.

            When we become adults we sometimes forget how to play or we don’t make time to play. Play for adults were more of a leisure activity where our brains are free and we are not really making the connections to play as a young child will do during play.