"My Connections to Play"

Quotes that represent play represented for me in childhood

When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero.

Fred Rogers
American children’s television host
1928–2003

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

 “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul.” – Friedrich Froebel (founder of the concept of kindergarten)

The pictures of essential play items for my younger self.

         Woods                                                        Sand 

      

Tree house                                              Dolls

How people supported play when I was younger

            The adults around me were always encouraging us (my sister, brothers and my cousins) to play. My parents made sure that we had toys to play with. The toys were not always the fancy toys. I can remember building wooden block houses with my siblings and my parents. We used the same blocks as trucks and cars. I am not sure why we used the blocks for cars and trucks because we had them. My dad worked for the board of education in DC, so during the summer he  would bring different toys home that the schools were no longer using. He would bring clothes home for “dress up”. He would even help us put some of them on because my brothers and sister were so young. Once we moved to Georgia, my mother would help us with our homework; we would then change clothes and allowed to go outside in our back yard to play. She would watch from the window while she cooked dinner. There were many days that my dad came home from work and the six of us would eat dinner then go outside and play baseball, basketball and kick ball. My mom would allow up to play different games in the house. She made sure that we cleaned up our mess when we finished playing with the toys. When I wanted to play school she showed me how to wrap a piece of plastic around card board. She then showed me how to use a marker to write on the board then erase it with a piece of tissue (we did not have dry erase boards then).

            The weekends were time to spend with my extended family. We would drive down to my maternal grandmother’s house. My cousins and my siblings would immediately run outside to play. The adults would sit outside when it was warmer and watched us play. We had built a tree house in two of the trees in my grandmother’s backyard. Would play house and our grocery store was the fruit trees, the wild berries and my grandmother’s garden. My adults would make sure there were not any snakes around. We would pick tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden and wash them off the garden hose. The grandmother will yell out to us telling us not to make sure not to waste food. As long as she seen that we were eating the vegetables from the garden, my grandmother would allow it to be out grocery store. We had no idea that our play was teaching us to eat healthy. Sundays after church my mom, most of her sisters and the children would go to Grandma’s house for dinner. The adults would cook while the children change clothes and go play in the sand. Once dinner was over we would sit around for a while. During the summer when it started to cool off, everyone would gather outside to play ball. Everyone except my grandmother would play ball in the yard. We were always encouraged to play. In fact, my aunt taught us how to play hopscotch and Jax. The adults in my life allowed us to play. They did not just tell us to go play, but they played with us.

            Play for children today is different today than it was for me. I was able to play outside safely. Many children today do not have that advantage. Many parents are afraid to let children play outside. The park is not safe for many children. Many schools remove playgrounds because it is not safe for children to play. Many of the schools have even taken physical education out, so children just sit hour after hour doing class work. I have noticed that many of the children that I have encountered to not have the desire to play anymore.

            We need to find more ways to incorporate play into curriculum. Play should be incorporated from birth through graduation.  Play is important in every stage of development. It helps children in so many ways. It helps with everything from self-esteem to conflict resolution.