James Goodwyn Clonney – A Visit from Grandfather.c. 1850. Wikimedia Commons
Do you play? What does play even mean in relation to adults?
We can learn from children about play, in order to enhance our own lives, because children are totally in the present, enjoying the moment, lost in concentration. That is something that, as adults, we may have forgotten, and might sometimes need to regain from childhood.
Play, at any age, means having fun. It is not just for children and it is important for adults to make time for play, and not overlook it in favour of work, deadlines or responsibilities. It involves a letting go, of some fixed ways of thinking, not being too rule-bound, and having a relaxing, restorative and enjoyable experience, abandoning oneself to some carefree time-out, often with others. It can thus provide the adult with a much-needed escape from the rigours of daily life.
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
There are many different kinds of play. It can be in the form of beach and water-games, board-games, all kinds of sports, exploring nature, dancing, singing, acting, painting, going to a funfair, fooling around, and just being silly! Playing in these ways as an adult can relieve stress, releasing endorphins, helping us to feel energised and renewed.
- A touch of magic…
Árpád Cserépy. Children Playing 1897. Wikimedia Commons
“There are some people in this world who have magic in them, whose very presence makes you happier. Some of those people, it turns out, are children.”
Adam Gidwitz
The above quotation talks of magic, and, indeed, there can be a feeling of magic when we play and interact with children. Playing with children really can make us happier; there is a solid amount of research to back this up.
Such play releases the ‘happiness hormone,’ oxytocin, and can increase a sense of empathy and peacefulness, enhancing family bonds and connections. It can reduce stress and foster a sense of well-being in the playing adults.
Happy Baby. Author Weird Beard. 2006.Wikimedia Commons
“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Fairy Passage. Author: John Anster Fitzgerald. c. 1864. Wikimedia Commons
“It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children.”
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
The First Steps 1893. Georgios Jakobides. Wikimedia Commons
“Play isn’t something separate from the daily grind of life. It is not something to finally get to when work ends. Rather, play, like music, is a force that we feel in our bones and that whispers in our heart. As kids demonstrate, play is not over there, but forever here and now.”
Vince Gowmon
This quotation emphasises the fact that play needs to be regarded as an intrinsic part of our everyday life, not something set apart from it. If we follow children’s lead, and learn to let go and really be in the moment, we will discover that playing can also help us in our relationships, lightening up the atmosphere and helping to break tension.
Image: Pexels.com. Gustavo Fring
“The couples who sustain a sense of mutual playfulness with each other tend to work out the wrinkles in their relationships much better than those who are really serious.”
Sami Yenigun.
“Those who play rarely become brittle in the face of stress or lose the healing capacity for humour.”
Stuart Brown, MD
Playing with children is certainly a way of letting go of some of the often self-imposed strictures and rigidities of adult life.
“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.”
Charles Schaefer
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The true object of all human life is play.”
G. K. Chesterton
Fear of appearing silly, or childish, when playing with children at their level, can inhibit such play.
Yet it is a great gift, to both adult and child, to engage with children, entering the child’s make-believe world, crawling on the floor, laughing hysterically at nothing.
Image: Ron Lach, Pexels.
“Children don’t need more things. The best toys a child can have is a parent who gets down on the floor and plays with them.”
Anonymous
William-Adolphe Bouguereau. A Childhood Idyll (1900)Wikimedia Commons
“The soul is healed by being with children.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Playing with children reduces anxiety and stress in adults, helping them to let go and unwind. Children are genuine, living in the moment, free of pretension and the many self-protective masks that adults tend to wear. They have not developed false selves or defensive ways of thinking, as adults have.
Children help us to be ourselves, unguarded, loosened up, more at ease. Simply ‘being with’ children, without feeling pressured to ‘do’ anything, is a joyful and freeing experience. This is a time when we can be free of judgment, of criticism, of fears about performance. It is fun, pure fun, as we enter into a make-believe world without evaluation and without comparison. This can only be, as the great Dostoevsky reminds us, a healing experience for the soul.
Children Playing on the Beach. Mary Cassatt. 1884. Wikimedia Commons.
“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.”
G.K. Chesterton
Children can be so honest and disarming, becoming fascinated by the simplest of experiences, reminding us adults that life basically consists of the simple, the immediate, the humble and the good, if only we can allow ourselves to notice and appreciate the smallest details of life.
Immersed and completely absorbed in their own fantasy world, making castles out of sand, children can help us to lower our defences and move out of our daily concerns. It is hard to build a sandcastle whilst worrying about work or deadlines; this play will interrupt any anxious ruminations and deliver us from the internal into something outward, physical and joyful.
Charles Bertrand d’Entraygues – Children Playing (1884) Wikimedia Commons
Lost in their own imaginations, children can bring willing adults into their magical worlds, so that we become part of their fantastical universe, allowing ourselves to turn into lions, tigers, scary monsters or witches and wizards. We now have permission to join them in using our own imaginations to help create mutual play.
How liberating it can be to allow ourselves to be imaginative, exercising this part of our psyche, which we may not easily do in our daily lives! Something will be released inside us, a lack of self-consciousness and a more fluid ability to be imaginative, a skill that can be highly relevant to work and creativity in our daily adult life.
Play, creativity and imagination are at the root of invention. The imagination of a child knows no bounds, and life is exciting. As we engage in being with children, if we can allow ourselves to recapture and hold on to some of that childhood wonder, it can lead to all kinds of productive activity.
Einstein valued his imagination enormously and as he worked, he played with ideas in his head that he called ‘thought experiments.’
“Play is the highest form of research.”
Albert Einstein
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”
Einstein.
- Discovering our own ‘child’ aspects
Inner child. Author: Davidlohr Bueso. 2011. Wikimedia Commons
“We often tend to ignore how much of a child is still in all of us.”
The child that we once were remains inside us all, not in a literal sense, but in relation to our links with the past, in our memories, reactions, experiences.
“So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.”
Gaston Bachelard
Our sense of spontaneity, our playfulness, curiosity and wondering, our openness and our joy, are all connected to our child-like side. How important are these free, unfettered parts of our personality! As adults, we need to be able to recognise and respond empathically both to the more vulnerable, needy, child-like feelings we may sometimes have, whilst maintaining the child’s sense of happiness, authenticity and unbridled joy.
Painting by Children. International Peace Day 2009, Author: Yann. Geneva. Wikimedia Commons
“If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.”
Jean Piaget
Allowing ourselves to be childlike when joining children in play can release aspects of ourselves that we may have had to repress in everyday life. Playing with children strengthens bonds, fostering an ever-deepening a sense of trust and admiration.
“We nurture our creativity when we release our inner child. Let it run and roam free. It will take you on a brighter journey.”
Serina Hartwell
Pexels.com.Liudmyla Honcharova.
“No matter how old you get, may you always stop to fill your pockets with smooth stones, empty snail shells & other little treasures.”
Nicolette Sowder
© Linda Berman
Children in pre-school and kindergarten need more play than academics.
Yes they do. Academics also need to ‘play’ in their own way. 🤗