"My Connections to Play"

Play for young children is not recreation activity,...It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity...Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met. 

--James L. Hymes, Jr., child development specialist, author

 Play is work that you enjoy doing for nothing.  
Evan Esar, humorist

The quote below doesn’t ascribe to the assignment, but I had to add this one. I am 55 years old and I am more energetic than many of my co-workers in their mid 20s. I believe the reason is that I have not abandoned play.

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

-- George Bernard Shaw, playright 

 My family was very supportive of my play. Being the oldest among three other siblings, growing up we had a play room. My father and mother made a kitchen set out of wood for us. My father did the carpentry work and my mother painted it silver and added the final touches. A rectangular cake pan was used for the sink and for the stove she painted on red burners and used pop bottle tops for the knobs.  Also my father used a real faucet and my mother ran a tube from a plastic enema bag that she hung above the sink on the wall. The tube had a clip on it. When we released the clip, the water ran down and out through the faucet. I also had a piano, dolls, table and chairs and dishes. Our play was supported in the public school as well as we were given 30 minutes of recess everyday. Play was very important to me as a child. I could be anyone I wanted to be. From pretending to be Aretha Franklin wrapped in my bedspread with fringe around the edges, singing in the mirror of my bedroom to pretending I was on the Johnny Carson show, I was happy when I played. For me, play was very safe. 

How Play Today is Different From the Play I Experienced as a Child

Play for children today is very different from how we played in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. First and most importantly, it was common to have both parents in the home and we were part of a close knit community as many people on our block were relatives. Children were told to go outside and play. We only had a few simple rules. Be home before the street lights came, do not eat at your neighbor's house and do not talk to strangers. It was also common for each family on the block to have at least four children. So there was always some sort of group activity going on. We were very physical and played all sorts of gross motor games such as Red Light Green Light and Mother May I. We governed our own play and followed game rules. However, children today are kept inside, and the only physical play they get is from some sort of instructional program such as karate, or T ball. Due to advances in technology, children spend hours sitting in front of a television, computer and or video game screen entertaining themselves, developing fast reaction skills. As a result, children are becoming more anti-social lacking conflict resolution and problem solving skills.  Also, other than a school or instructional group setting, children seldom get to interact and or play with the neighbors due to parents fearing for their child's safety. We were athletic and physically fit too. We had better body coordination and were able to govern our own play. Many children today however, have become sedimentary and are overweight.Although the differences are profound, there are activities that children still do, and that is engages in pretend play. 


The role of play in my life invigorates me to where I feel a sense of well being. When I was a child care director, sometimes doing paperwork would become tedious and monotonous. To relieve stress and relax, I would take a break and visit one of the classrooms to play with the children. I have also continued to incorporate play into my adult life. Often times when I am on my lunch break, I may teach a game I learned from the YMCA (the cup game) to my co-workers. The next thing you know, we are all laughing, and having fun. The laughter puts us in a good mood and we are ready to go back into the classroom for the second half of the day.