057: What is the value of play?

Does play really matter? Do children get anything out of it? Or is it just messing around; time that could be better spent preparing our children for success in life? Today we talk with Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, about the benefits of play for both children and – I was surprised to find – adults. This is the first in a series of episodes on play – lots more to come on outdoor play (and how to raise kids who love being outdoors), risky play, and imaginative play.   Dr. Stuart Brown's Book Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul - Affiliate link   References Bjorklund, D.F., & Brown, R.D. (1998). Physical play and cognitive development: Integrating activity, cognition, and education. Child Development, 69, 604-606. Brown, S. (2009). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. New York, NY: Penguin. Christakis, D. A., F. J. Zimmerman, and M. Garrison. (2007). Effect of block play on language acquisition and attention in toddlers a pilot randomized controlled trial. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine,161 (10), 967-971. Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row. Duckworth, A.L. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. New York, NY: Scribner. Elkind, D. (2003). Thanks for the memory: The lasting value of true play. Young Children 58(3), 46-51. Lancy, D.F. (2015). The anthropology of childhood: Cherubs, chattel, changelings (2nd Ed.). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen:  [00:40] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We’re kicking off a series of episodes today on the topic of play. Now I hear you wondering: play? There’s enough research about play to be able to do one episode, never mind a series of episodes?! And my response to that would be, Oh yes, there is just you. Wait, so we’re going to kick off today with an overview of the topic and then we’ll delve into various aspects of play with a particular focus on outdoor play because it’s important to me and just sometimes that’s how we pick topics around here. So today we have is our very special guest Dr. Stuart Brown, MD. I first learned of his work when I heard the National Institute for Play mentioned during a show on NPR. I thought to myself, there is a national institute for play. I have to talk to somebody from there, and so Dr. Brown, who’s the founder and director of the National Institute for Play is here to share his research and work. I was fascinated to read his book play, how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul because I was expecting it to tell me how important play is to my daughter’s development, but I wasn’t expecting it to tell me how important play is to my own wellbeing as well. So we’ll get into that to welcome Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown: [01:51] Glad to be here Jen. Jen:    [01:53] So let’s start with something that seems kind of obvious, but then you think about it a bit and you realize that you’re actually not quite sure what it is. So I’m wondering, can you please define play for us? Dr. Brown: [02:04] Well, it’s very hard to define; it’s a little like love in that play is an experience and it is often prompted by pre-verbal sorts of impulses. But having said that, we always like to think of it as something that is definable, although I think most of us, if we see a puppy or kitty playing in front of us, we know that what they’re doing is play, but it’s voluntary; it’s done for its own sake. It appears purposeless. It takes one out of a sense of time. There is a diminished sense of self importance. You’re just engaged in what you’re doing. It’s fun and pleasurable. It can be interrupted. It’s not driven like addictive or other kinds of activities in general. Like to go back to it and experience it again and it is something that’s deeply instinctively embedded in the humans. So that’s a start anyhow. Jen:   [03:11] And I’m wondering if you can talk us through, Scott Eberle, I think is how you say his name. He has a six step process of play that you describe in your book. Can you walk us through those six steps? Dr. Brown:  [03:22] I don’t know if I can go through all six steps butt Scott Eberle was the distinguished editor of the American Journal of Play from its start until just recently when he retired and he has established what he considers the elements of play, kind of like the periodic table of elements define the atomic structure. Then he goes from anticipation to poise and describes there’s anticipation, surprise, increased strength, agility, curiosity, and takes these elements, and if I had them listed in front of me. I could read them off, but he has a whole array of gradations that go from, as you anticipate, for example, an experience of play, whether it’s playing a sport or reading a novel that you’re looking forward to. There is that heightened sense of anticipation. Then once you get into the various elements of play, they establish a kind of a “state of play.” Then he and I have gone back and forth. It had lots of really sort of discussions about his play elements fit very well into the burgeoning neuroscience of play. Jen:     [04:46] Mmmm. And I’m also wondering as you were reading, as you were talking through some of the elements of play, I was thinking about Czikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow, but it seems to me as though that might be more applicable to when people are working more than playing because they have goal-directed behavior and you said that the play doesn’t have goal-directed behavior. Can you help us to tease out what are the connections between play and flow? Dr. Brown:   [05:11] I don’t know that it’s correct to say that it doesn’t have goal direction. It is at the time one is experiencing it, the outcome of the experience is less important than the experience itself. That doesn’t mean that the experience doesn’t have purpose. I think one can enjoy a hike or a job and say, oh, well, you know, I’m just doing this for its own sake, and yet it increases physical fitness and personal health, so there is an outcome. Dr. Brown:   [05:45] So this is not to say that the experience of play itself doesn’t have outcome and deep purpose. It’s just that at the moment, if you’re terribly anxious about performing, you’re probably not playing as much as if you’re just doing something for its own sake. Jen:   [06:04] And so you alluded to something there that I wanted to get into a bit more deeply and that is about the purpose of play and specifically how that differs for children from different cultures. Dr. Brown:  [06:16] Well, I don’t know that it differs; I think there are cultures that foster and cultures that suppress it, but I think particularly developmentally that the value of play and the necessity of play for wholeness and wellbeing at a full use of curiosity and engagement in the world, those are universals and they apply both to the human experience cross-culturally and they apply to social mammals at play, and so you see the necessity of particularly early developmental play, whether you’re a coyote or a dolphin or a horse or a human. Jen:   [07:03]