The
Importance of Free Play to Children's Development
Pei-San Brown,
John A. Sutterby, James A. Therrell, Candra
D. Thornton
Introduction
All
children have a right to play. Play
is a process by which children learn.
Good quality play opportunities have a significant
impact on child development. (Moore,
Goltsman, & Iacofano, 1992, p. ix)
Play
involves the whole child. Thinking, creative
expression of thoughts and feelings, and
physical demands all interact in the dynamic
process of play. Children learn about relationships
with peers, significant adults, and the
world around them. They experience the full
range of their senses and feelings, how
their bodies move through space, and how
their imaginations can create alternate
worlds of existence. When children build
with blocks or sand, romp through the modules
of a playground superstructure, learn limits
and bond through rough and tumble play,
or express themselves and represent the
world through hundreds of different materials,
they reap the benefits of play in thousands
of different ways. They are constantly
learning and developing, becoming healthy,
well-balanced individuals through play.
"Play
is fun!" This how children usually
respond when asked about play. But play
is more than just fun. Play is engaging,
voluntary and spontaneous. Free play is
a way for children to learn more about who
they are and what they can do. Play is a
way for children to test limits, engage
in fantasy, and learn about others. Researchers
and scientists disagree as to why play is
so important for children, but they all
agree that play occurs the world over, and
that children benefit in many ways from
free play.
Play
in the United States over the last century
has gone from being almost exclusively an
outdoor activity to one that is often situated
indoors in front of televisions and computers.
Schools, so often concerned with academic
development, have sacrificed outdoor play,
and administrators may not be aware of the
dire consequences for children. Outdoor
play is very different than indoor play,
and the specific skills developed during
outdoor play cannot be developed completely
through indoor play alone.
The
benefits of outdoor play accrue in many
ways. Obvious examples are improved cardiovascular
and gross motor benefits. Less obvious is
the role of outdoor play in children's cognitive,
emotional, and social development. Physical
activity promotes increased blood flow to
the brain, leading to cognitive development
(Shepard, 1997). In addition to this, children
are able to engage in risk taking behaviors
outdoors that would be impossible indoors,
challenging themselves in ways which lead
to improved self-esteem and self-confidence
(Ellis, 1973). Children can engage in rough
play and chase games, which are important
not only for their physical development,
but also for their social development.
Through social play, they learn the signals
needed for successful play with others,
as well as the rules for starting and stopping
play (Bateson, 1972; Pellegrini, 1995).
Such reasons demand that outdoor play remain
an integral part of children's schooling
in order to promote physically and psychologically
healthy children, who then have a much better
chance to become healthy adults.
Categories
of Play
Children
understand perfectly what free play is and
what it isn't--it is adults who need help
comprehending the phenomenon. In order
to provide a means of organizing all the
ways in which free play is engaged, categories
of play have been established.
The first category is "cognitive play,"
or types of play which primarily build thinking
and reasoning skills. This includes
repetitive muscle movements to explore the
environment (e.g., repeatedly hitting the
ground with a shovel, or repetitively going
up and down the steps), exploratory play,
pretend play, construction play (e.g., building
sand castles), and games with rules.
The second category is "social play."
This category encapsulates the various ways
children interact with peers during free
play opportunities. These include
solitary/independent play, parallel play
(children play beside each other but not
with each other), buddy play (2 children
play together), and group play.
The third category deals with children's
physical development. This includes
physical growth of the body and vital organs,
health-related fitness, and gross and fine
motor activities.
A fourth category deals with children's
emotional development, which includes affective
reactions during play. This category
includes behaviors such as aggression (intent
to hurt) and verbal signals (laughing, crying,
etc.).
These four categories, cognitive, social,
physical, and emotional, cover the spectrum
of behaviors children engage in during free
play, and they give adults words to use
to convey the significance and essential
functions of children's play.
Cognitive
Development during Free Play
Despite the manner in which Western culture
tends to minimize ("just playing"),
dislike ("get serious!"), and
trivialize ("burning excess energy")
the value of free play, research overwhelmingly
provides evidence of the benefits it offers
children. Engaging in free play behaviors
provides children with a means to explore,
interact with, and learn about their environments.
"Play contains all developmental tendencies...and
is itself a major source of development"
(Vygotsky, 1978, p. 102). Friedrich
Froebel, inventor of the kindergarten, observed
that "Play...is highly serious and
of deep significance" (Froebel, 1887,
p. 55).
Much of children's cognitive development
is triggered when they play. Jean
Piaget, one of the most highly regarded
early childhood theorists, believed that
play performs a major role in children's
expanding mental abilities (1962).
It is through free play that children develop
language and manipulative skills, and enhance
their means of discovery and creativity
(Bodrova & Leong, 1996; Fromberg &
Gullo, 1992; Isaacs, 1933; Smilansky &
Shefatya, 1990). According to Frost
(1992), play is the primary means of development
of imagination, intelligence, language,
and perceptual-motor abilities in infants
and young children.
Intellectual processes such as problem solving,
reasoning, conceptual abilities and judgment
are also being rapidly built during free
play (Frost, 1992, 1997; Sylva, 1977, Vygotsky,
1978). Vygotsky (1978) proposed that
children have a "zone of proximal development"
(ZPD), or a range of tasks between those
that children can handle independently and
those that they can master with the help
of adults or more capable peers. Vygotsky
also proposed that: "Play also creates
the zone of proximal development of the
child. In play a child always behaves
beyond his average age, above his daily
behavior; in play it is as though he were
a head taller than himself" (p. 102).
While children are playing, they are building
complex abilities of investigation, questioning,
exploring, reasoning, testing, hypothesizing,
rationalizing, creating, and imagining.
Maria Montessori brilliantly captures the
role of play in children's cognitive development:
"His intelligence no longer develops
by existing: it needs a world of things
which provide him with motives for his activity.
It has been called 'the blessed age of play'"
(1967, p. 168).
Engagement in free play also affects a second
part of children's cognitive development--their
brains. Not only does play influence
thinking and reasoning, but it also influences
young human brain development. Recent
neurological research strongly supports
the link between play and cognitive development
(Frost, 1998) and that children who have
had no experience in play suffer cognitive
underdevelopment (Bodrova & Leong, 1996).
Sutton-Smith (1998), when commenting on
the drop in the number of synaptic connections
from the age 10 months to age 10 years,
from 1,000 trillion to 500 trillion stated,
"As the brain begins in a state of
high potentiality, so does play....Play's
function at early stages might...be to assist
the actualization of brain potentiality...to
save in both brain and behavior more of
the variability that is potentially there
than would otherwise be saved if there was
no play" (p. 333). Due to advances
in technology, specifically positron-emission
tomography (PET) scans, there is scientific
evidence that play experiences exert a dramatic
and precise impact on development, physically
determining how the intricate neural circuits
of the brain are wired (Begley, 1997).
Social
Development during Free Play
Play
is older than culture…Civilization
arises and unfolds in and as play.
(Johann
Huizinga, 1938)
The
ideas of Huizinga are profound indeed.
He believes that play is the root of our
cultural and social development. Play
is a foundation of human history as well
as a system of transformation. As
we play, we imitate and reflect the games
and activities of the historical world around
us, and we are transformed. He also
believes that through play we transform
our culture into something new. As
children take games and change them to fit
new sets of playmates and new play materials,
the transformed activities become a part
of a new generation’s culture.
The
games and activities that changed us as
children are different than the games and
activities that are transforming our own
children's culture. The Daniel Boone
play of the 1950's has given way to the
Barbie play of the 1960's, the He-Man and
the Masters of the Universe play of the
1980's, and the Ninja Turtles and PokÈmon
play of our current generation. There
is no doubt that the play of today is similar
in some ways to the play that occurred 50
years ago. However it is often different
and often strange to the adults watching
culture transform before their eyes, as
Charmander and Pikachu replace more familiar
names and faces. At the same time,
today's child, collapsing at the end of
"Ring around the Rosy" has no
sense that the game's roots reach all the
way back to the Black Plague during the
middle ages.
The
games we play create a common cultural link
that ties children to previous generations.
It also creates a cultural link between
the children themselves. The idea
of "peer culture" (Corsaro, 1985),
that the culture of children is different
than adult culture, rings true. As
Peter and Iona Opie (1959) have shown, children
have a language all their own and a method
of transmission that reaches only the ears
of children.
Free play is very much a social event because
children tend to play together in groups.
Even when they play alone, they often play
the roles of people they see around them
(i.e. parents, siblings, caregivers). Normally,
infants’ first play partners are parents
who teach them simple games like “peek-a-boo!”
Gradually, siblings and peers begin to take
more active roles. Without social play,
children run the risk of not learning these
important skills during childhood.
This omission may lead to difficulties in
relating to others throughout adulthood
(Kemple, 1992).
Social play is essential because children
cannot simply do as they please but must
take into consideration the feelings and
ideas of others. Vygotsky (1978) suggests
that play has rules that children must follow
to continue the play. These rules take into
account the characteristics of the role
that the child plays as well as those of
the children around him. In essence,
a child is a constant method actor, taking
on the role of the Teacher, the Parent,
the Superhero, and immersing himself into
the character until he becomes that someone
else.
Although
Piaget (1962) saw children as egocentric,
the empathy that children show one another
through play signals of their awareness
of others. Through play, children
learn to take turns, cooperate and share.
They also learn the signals that others
give that indicate that play is going on,
and most importantly, they learn to create
a space for play called the play frame,
a tool children use to leap together from
reality into fantasy (Bateson, 1972).
Positive experiences during play are important
in later school success (Smilansky and Shefatya,
1990).
Physical
Development during Free Play
Children
gain numerous physical benefits from
outdoor free play (Frost, Wortham, &
Reifel, 2001). As they walk, run,
skip, gallop, jump, hop, climb, and hang,
they unconsciously strengthen the large
muscle groups in their bodies and learn
about locomotion, or how to move through
space (Gallahue, 1993). As they throw, catch,
roll, and kick balls, swing from rung to
rung on overhead ladders, climb up or down
ladders and stairs, stand up as they reach
the bottom of a slide, and walk along landscape
timbers or balance beams, they improve hand-to-eye
and foot-to-eye coordination. As they
walk on sand or pea gravel or mulch, slide
down straight and twisting slides, swing
on seats or barrels, and try the balance
beam, they refine various balancing skills
and gain an increase in control over their
muscles by resisting gravity (Gallahue,
1993). As they dig in and build with
sand, play with toy trucks, animals, and
other outdoor objects, pour water between
containers, and gently handle caterpillars
or other insects, they cultivate their fine
motor skills, also known as object manipulation
skills (Gallahue, 1993). All of these free
play activities and a multitude of others
greatly enhance children's physical and
perceptual-motor development:
Perceptual-motor development
results from the interaction between sensory
perception and motor actions in increasingly
complex and skillful behaviors….
More specifically, visual, auditory, and
tactile sensory abilities are combined with
emerging motor skills to develop perceptual-motor
abilities. (Frost, Wortham, and Reifel,
2001, p. 164)
According to Frost et al., perceptual-motor
skills include:
Body
awareness--understanding about the different
parts of the body, how they move, what they
can do, and how to make movements more efficient.
Spatial
awareness--understanding about how the
body and objects occupy space and how to
move them within that space.
Directional
awareness--understanding about the location
and direction of the body and objects in
space.
Temporal
awareness--understanding about the relationship
between movement and time (i.e. rhythm,
sequencing).
Perceptual-motor
development helps children become aware
of their own bodies and the relationship
of their bodies to others and the world
around them.
Children's
physical development also includes health-related
benefits, such as aerobic and muscular endurance,
strength, flexibility, improvement in the
function of vital organs (Ignico, 1994).
Outdoor free play provides essential stimulation
for children's bodies by increasing blood
flow and therefore oxygen to all vital organs,
improving aerobic and muscular functioning.
Experience in all types of movement, including
both gross and fine motor activities, increases
muscular responses by strengthening synaptic
connections (Gabbard, 1998). Repetition
of a variety of movements builds muscle
strength and flexibility. Through
free play outdoors, children repeat, adapt,
and refine all types of movement in various
combinations, thereby cultivating their
physical skills, development, and health.
Emotional
Development during Free Play
Healthy play
and healthy emotional development go hand-in-hand.
For children, free play is a time for unbounded
expression of their feelings, and in many
ways children are their feelings.
The more access children have to free play,
the greater opportunity they have for expressing
themselves during role play, construction
play, rough 'n' tumble, and other forms
of play. Children often use superstructures
and other play elements to engage actively
in chase or other role play where expression
of feelings are supported in a safe environment
(Frost, Kim, Therrell, Thornton, 2000).
Also, the more enclosed elements of superstructures
are used by children to rest, regain emotional
composure, socialize, and make plans for
their next role play (Frost, Brown, Sutterby,
Therrell, 2000).
During
pretend play children experiment with different
roles that afford opportunities to explore
a wide range of emotions (Smilansky, 1990).
In a safe and supportive environment, these
emotions are "played out." Over
time, children are able to make unfamiliar
emotions more familiar and less scary (Singer
& Singer, 1977), and they are able to
exercise greater control over their life
than during other, more adult-structured
times (Landreth & Hoymeyer, 1998). For
example, when children play doctor, parent,
baby, or other roles, they develop a wider
sense of perspective, increase their understanding
or appreciation of other roles, and adapt
to difficult, challenging situations. Such
adaptations are often therapeutic for children
(Landreth, 1991), helping them to heal their
immediate emotional wounds and to deal with
the powerful, omnipresent pictures of virtual
media and real violence in our society (Webb,
1991). Expressing feelings through play
permits children to make their own path
toward healthy emotional development, along
with the support of parents and other significant
adults.
Conclusion
Each
one of these four categories, cognitive,
social, physical, and emotional, plays an
important part in the development of the
whole child. We need to insure that
children’s free play activities include
opportunities for all these elements that
are essential to their growth and success.
Providing ample, healthy play opportunities
fosters the unique potential of each child
to learn and develop skills, concepts, and
character in a way that only play can provide.
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