Play is serious business!<\/p>\n
–<\/em>Caitlin ‘Cake’ Gateaux<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n I was asked by the US Play Coalition research committee to collect personal statements about ideas and beliefs that are connected to the question, what is play?<\/strong><\/p>\n How we define play and its value is shaped by many personal, historical, and cultural influences. Darell Hammond, in his recently published book, KaBOOM! How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play<\/em>, writes about the reality of a play deficit in our communities. He calls on those of us who recognize the value of play (and there aren\u2019t enough of us out there, he says) to take action steps that will lead to a greater recognition of play\u2019s value while brightening each child\u2019s life and create playful communities for all ages no matter where we live.<\/p>\n Two playful philosophies <\/em><\/strong>to share with you:<\/p>\n Play<\/strong> is the manifestation of the natural creative impulses that drive our imaginations – uninhibited by society in terms of what is practical and what is possible. Play constitutes a laboratory for discovery of self and discovery of the world – the epitome of active learning. What I mean by play is an integration of the inside and outside. Silly work and serious games. The freedom to trust ourselves, follow our intuition, create and define our own realities, and come alive to the infinite wisdom that is innate in our human bodies and spirits.<\/p>\n –<\/em><\/strong>Susan Mary Featro<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>What is play<\/strong>?\u00a0To me my best play is when I end up playing unexpectedly.\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday I was in a thrift store with a friend; I had a really fun time playing. It was like dress up all over again, except this time I could choose the style, the clothes, the table cloth, and even the tea cups. I ended up buying two cute long shorts very summer looking and two ice cream Sunday fancy dessert cups.\u00a0Play can be anything! Sometimes when I just sit for a bit and hug my dog and talk to her and pet her, I feel like some warm sunshine creeps into me and makes everything alright and that I had just played.<\/p>\n I am married to an opposite that does not know how to play at all.\u00a0Sometimes this is hard since play is something I love! So I have to remind myself that I can bring play to him and when I do, he laughs and we end up having a fun time together.\u00a0Simple things like saying lets scream together for a minute– you look so tense did you had a bad day?\u00a0Oh yes, he replies, so we sit there and take turns screaming just a min or two but it [helps us]let go of all that tight stuff and it even gets the bad day in the right place under his feet.\u00a0Just like walking down the street for a walk you can skip, look around at all of life’s beauty, you can wave to\u00a0someone in a car and maybe you were their only contact that day of love.<\/p>\n Life is too short to not play!\u00a0Stumbling into play is just the best!\u00a0Here I am painting a painting trying my hardest to do my best, it just is not working so I begin to scribble and then even use my hands. What about throwing the paint so it splatters and pretty soon my work of art has character much more than I had ever planned and it was play!\u00a0It was fun!\u00a0I love to play with my grand kids because they really love to play, and they know how to let go to just do it.\u00a0Let\u2019s go outside and swing on grandpa’s Tarzan rope and play ball and have a snack and dress the dogs, draw pictures, play store, create a fort.\u00a0All of this can take place within the same time span.\u00a0As an adult I see that I keep limiting myself.\u00a0Time comes into consideration as well. Do I really have the energy?\u00a0Then, the question comes, Is that really what I call play or fun?\u00a0Sometimes play for me now can even be taking deep breaths and hugging myself looking in the mirror and saying what I like about myself, singing a favorite song out loud, wears some crazy socks that show, putting a flower in my hair, sometimes it is just being still for as long as I can, and then enjoying the wonderful feeling after.\u00a0 That feels like play to me, because play is freeing! Loving yourself is freeing, play and love walk hand in hand.\u00a0I have tried to play like I used to as a kid. I recently tried to climb a tree and sit there like I used to love. First of all I almost fell numerous times while trying to climb it, then, once there, it was all scratchy and then came the ants.\u00a0I couldn’t wait to get down out of that tree but it did make me laugh.\u00a0Some things are just better as a kid! I don’t have to climb a tree to play! Instead I can even be comfy and play with soft plump pillows piled high in a corner with my favorite books and nice lamp and a tray full of cookies and milk.<\/p>\n -Deborah Wilden<\/em><\/p>\n Imagine that you find yourself at a playground, park, or natural setting. What ways do you find to play?<\/p>\n \u2026..you find yourself sitting on one of the swings with the kids, thrusting your legs you find yourself going higher and higher, what do you see? How do you feel?<\/p>\n Rachel Signer of Dowser.org, wrote about some of the take-aways she received as a result of reading Darell Hammond\u2019s book, KaBOOM! How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play:<\/em><\/p>\n Play is serious business! –Caitlin ‘Cake’ Gateaux I was asked by the US Play Coalition research committee to collect personal statements about ideas and beliefs that are connected to the question, what is play? How we define play and its value is shaped by many personal, historical, and cultural influences. Darell Hammond, in his recently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[31,21,51,334,25,27,41,47],"class_list":["post-8551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-child-and-adolescent-issues","tag-healthy-parenting","tag-play-therapy-psychotherapy-models","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-psychotherapy-models","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships","tag-self-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n