My Connections to Play

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” Kay Redfield Jamison (professor of psychiatry)

It is in playing, and only in playing, that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.” ~ D.W. Winnicott (British pediatrician)

 

As I searched to find pictures of my childhood games, I got a feeling of nostalgia. What great memories I had playing hopscotch and double dutch (jump rope) in the summer. I remember getting up really early so that I would have time to go outside and play all day during the summer. Both my parents encouraged me to play and all of the games shown above were taught to me by my older siblings.

Today, children are more absorbed in television, video, iPods, iPhones, laptops, etc. Children of today’s society do not play as much as the children when I was growing up. When I grew up, we played games that were traditional but we also created our own games. What children of today don’t realize is that play doesn’t cost anything. Play is free of charge; therefore parents don’t always have to find extra curricular activities that cost for their children to play. When I was younger my friends and I would collect our few coins put it together, gather blankets, and have a picnic. Now children have to be entertained by movies, electronics, and high tech technology resulting in their brains not free to create. Play, played a large role in shaping who I am today and those memories are imbedded in me forever. Even as an adult, I still love to play, I play with my children, I play cards with friends, I go skating etc. Play keeps adults vibrant and allows us to not take life so seriously all the time.