My Connections to Play

Children have always learned and created places for themselves through play. – Donna R. Barnes, Contemporary American psychologist. This quote speaks to my childhood play because I lived in the country with few neighbors. So, for about 5 miles, it was just me and the children who live in the house down from mine. The created place we inhabited was the creek running below the underpass of a highway. We loved it especially on hot summer days. There was a lot of creative play as we built forts, fished (no fish in the creek), and made a lot of mud pies.

 

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity. – Kay Redfield Jamison, Contemporary American professor of psychiatry. During my childhood, as I had a small neighborhood, we were always riding our bikes through the street. I have spent countless hours riding by myself or with my friends. Of course, we also pretended we were either going somewhere, in a race, or the mailman. There was an elderly couple who sat on their porch each day and humored our games.

 

The biggest difference in play in my neighborhood is that there are a lot more houses, so therefore, more pets and traffic. I do not let my niece and nephew ride bikes on the road like I did when I was a child because, unfortunately, it is not a peaceful haven where we had the roadway to ourselves most of the time.  Another difference is children would rather play with their tablets, game systems, and computers. I think technology is great but I also feel that play is getting less and less time in our children’s life. My nephew is one of the worst. We have to make him go outside and for the next hour he will ask us a million times to come in to play on his IPad. So, my brother set up a schedule for him to play in his playroom or outside and when he can play with his IPad. I think it is sad because we used to live outside and our parents had to threaten us to come in. I always stayed outside until dusk and even then I still did not want to go in.

I think play taught me a lot as a child. I learned to make friends, play games and pretend not only with my imagination but my friends as well. Actually, I guess playing in my neighborhood taught me how to deal with the social aspect of relationships.