We know that play is fun, but there is so much more to it than that. Today, I’m talking about the importance of play-based childhoods, why our society has moved away from them and some strategies to bring play back into your family and create a play-based childhood for your kid.

You’ll Learn:

• The importance of play for our kids
• Why play is a challenge in our current society
• The key elements of play
• How to create a play-based childhood for your kid
• Ideas for child-led, open-ended games and toys

One of the most important things to understand is that learning happens through experience, not information. Play allows kids to struggle and learn in ways that feel fun, interesting and challenging.

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Kids want to play, and they need to play. They have a lot to learn before they become adults, and experience (i.e. play) is the key to emotional, psychological, physical and cultural development.

Why Play Is Important

The true purpose of play is for kids to learn how to be adults. They have to learn to move their bodies in a variety of ways, navigate a complex environment, develop fine motor skills, learn to interact with others and build lots of brain skills (both neurological and psychological). 

One of the most important things to understand is that learning happens through experience, not information. I like to joke that if lectures worked, I would not have a job. Kids don’t listen when we tell them how to act. They have to go through hard things, experience the impacts and figure it out for themselves. 

Play allows kids to struggle and learn in ways that feel fun, interesting and challenging. It works best when kids have unstructured time to explore their creativity, relationships, conflict, responsibility, and lots of other valuable skills. When we provide this open time, our kids learn faster and they start to understand how the world works. 

Play in our Society

As a society, we have moved away from play-based childhood and more toward structured, academic enrichment environments or screen-based childhoods. There are several reasons this has happened. 

Sometime around the early 90s, a lot more kids started applying to college and it became much more competitive. So, as a society, we started to work more to prepare kids for academic achievement and college admissions, even from a very young age. 

This led to more academic enrichment activities and a lot more structure. Don’t get me wrong - learning a foreign language, practicing an instrument, playing sports and taking art classes are cool, but when we fill kids’ schedules with more and more of these adult-led activities, there’s less time left over for unstructured play, curiosity and creativity. 

Sometimes, even families who want that unstructured time struggle because their kids’ friends are unavailable to come over to play or go to the park. So they end up enrolling their kids in more activities because that’s what their friends are doing. 

We are also living in a car-centric society. Many of us live in cities or areas where our kids can’t really get places on their own. There aren’t open spaces to explore, and they rely on parents to take them places. 

And many of us have lost some social connection. Maybe you don’t know your neighbors very well or your kids don’t go to the same school as other neighborhood kids. 

Finally, 24-hour news channels and constant alerts on our phones and social media feeds are putting negative news stories in our face that are meant to alarm us. Because of this, we don’t trust other adults as much, and we want to protect our kids.

I share this because I want you to see that you are parenting in a system that makes a play-based childhood hard to achieve. But there are ways that you can opt-out of some of this stuff and provide your child with more unstructured playtime. 

The Value of Risk in Play

In his book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt explains two different modes that we have as humans - discover and defend. 

Discover is about curiosity, learning and trying new things. This happens when your brain detects an opportunity - something interesting. You feel excited and motivated to do something. It activates behavior.

Defend inhibits behavior. When your body or brain detects a threat, you’re flooded with stress and negative thinking, so you pull back. When we are in this mode too much, it can create chronic anxiety. 

We want discover mode to be our kids’ default. Here, they come up with mini challenges. Can I climb that branch? How many blocks can I put on my tower before it falls? These experiences train their brain to what their body can or can’t do. It helps kids learn to judge risk for themselves (a skill you’ll definitely want them to have when they’re older). 

We want them to have real world experiences and make affordable mistakes that they learn from. This way, they learn their limitations and how to handle it when things go wrong. They develop the ability to process and get past frustrations, minor accidents, teasing, exclusions and normal conflicts without going into defend mode.

Ultimately, we want our kids to know that they can figure things out and handle whatever comes their way.

How To Create a Play-Based Childhood

The best kinds of play share a few key features. This play involves:

• Free play that is unstructured and loosely supervised. You are available but not deciding and structuring every piece of the game or play. 
• An element of physical risk. Climbing low trees, turning over heavy rocks and jumping off swings help our kids learn how to be in their natural environment and test their physical limitations. They get to have experiences in real life with their bodies. This level of risk should not result in costly or permanent mistakes. 
• Outdoor settings. Being outside provides the opportunity to practice moving through the complex natural environment. Being in nature also supports our kids’ emotional health.
• Child-led play. When kids make up and enforce their own rules for a game or activity, it helps them deal with boundaries that exist in the natural world. Statistics actually show that the risk of injury is lower in child-led versus adult-guided sports and games.
• Being attuned to others' emotions. Once kids are involved in a game or activity, they have to figure out how to keep it going. They’re taking turns, resolving conflict and sharing emotions. 

Where to Play

Your own yard can be the perfect spot for this kind of play, if you have one. Some other great places to let kids experience free play are parks, open spaces, campgrounds, trails, beaches, lakes or community pools.

You don’t need to go somewhere with any kind of purpose. In fact, I want this to be purposeless. You’re just going, and you’ll see what happens when you get there.

Activities Kids Love

Some types of thrills and challenges that kids love are heights, high speeds, dangerous tools, natural elements (like fire and ice), rough and tumble play, disappearing and wandering away. 

So, we want them to climb trees and play structures, go on the swings and fast slides, use hammers, drills and kitchen appliances with supervision.

Ideas for child-led games include freeze tag, statue, sword fighting, hide and seek, rolling down hills, foursquare and hopscotch. These are embodied games where kids can decide and change the rules.

There are also toys that foster free play. These allow kids to move around and transform with their imaginations. Loose Lego bricks (not sets), Hot Wheels, stuffed animals, dolls made of natural materials, animal figurines, dress up items, art supplies, clay, sticks, buckets, bubbles and scoops, just to name a few. 

Challenges

If your child have not had a lot of opportunity for downtime and free play, they're not going to know what to do at first. Boredom is very uncomfortable, and your kid will resist it. 

But if you allow it long enough without interruption by screens, sweets or a solution, your kid will struggle through it and find play.

You can help initiate it if you want by offering little challenges like, “Let’s see how heavy this rock is,” or “I wonder if you can get your arms around this big tree,” or “How long do you think you can swim underwater?”

As a parent, free, risky play can feel scary or unsafe at times. Do what feels good to you and try to allow as much as you can. 

There is a place for both structured and unstructured time, and unstructured play doesn't mean that you don’t make plans. You might meet up with other families or schedule an outing. Or you might have your kids in camp during the week and block out unstructured time on the weekends. 

Do what works for you. If you value this idea of free play, you can find a way to make it happen.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

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Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. This is a podcast where you

learn how to parent your kids in

And

a

And today, I'm gonna talk about creating a play based

childhood. And we're going to talk about kind of

the the reason why play based

childhoods are important, and it's not just because it's fun, although

that is not a problem. Right? And we're gonna talk

about why why it's important, why

we have moved away from play based childhood,

and what kind of where we're at in as a society,

and then some strategies for you to bring play based

childhood back into your family. So for wherever

you are, when I go through this episode and I give you all of these

tips, I want you to just come to

this podcast episode from a place of curiosity

and openness and not self judgment or self criticism. A

as moms, we often will listen to something like this, and we'll be

like, oh my gosh. I'm doing it all wrong. And we will beat ourselves

up and not feel good about ourselves, and we'll criticize. And I really

don't want you to do that. I want you to see this as an invitation

to move towards something new. That's all it

is. And you don't need to look back at where you've been

in judgment or a, just in curiosity of like, oh, I

could see where the our pattern in our family

is more focused on screens or activities,

structured activities, and not so much on free play. And so you can

make a decision. I wanna move towards more free play. So be

gentle with yourself as we go through this

episode. Okay. So the first thing I

wanna frame for you is just that

play is very, very important

for your kids. They need time that's

unstructured, which means that there's not a

adult led activity that's just open

hours where they have time to explore

the environment, explore their creativity, explore

their social relationships, and conflict

a, and all of those things. It is vital

because the purpose of play is for

kids to learn how to be adults, how to be

grownups. They learn through play.

And so when we create time for

open, unstructured curiosity, a, play,

then our kids will learn faster,

actually, of how to be more responsible, understand how the

world works. Kids want to play. Kids need

to play. And when they don't have the opportunity

for free, unstructured, and loosely supervised

play, they are deprived cognitively,

socially, and emotionally. So don't get

nervous. Just realize like, oh, this is

very, very important. Now here's why. Okay?

If you think about our species, like a human species,

our offspring are with us for

a very long period of time. Right? They

don't they don't launch into the world and be

independent for a long time. Like, we say

18 years old. And now, you know, with fight you

know, they're not able to drink alcohol or do a bunch of things until

21, and then they can't really, you know, do financial stuff

a lot times until they're 25. And so even

we've learned that the brain isn't even fully formed until the prefrontal

cortex isn't fully formed until 25.

So we have this very long period of time where our

species is dependent. Like, I'm just thinking about,

say, you're 25, 50, a. Right? I don't know what the lifespan

is, but it's probably, you know, around 75, 78, something like that. So

it's like a third of your life, you're sort of dependent, which

is insane. Most of it after 18 is, like, financial

dependency, but it doesn't have a

be. Your kids can become independent earlier. Even if we look at it, like, 0

to 18, it's a huge chunk of life, 20%.

So your kids, the reason why it's like that is because that there's a

lot to learn in order to be a human. We have

to of course, our our environment is a very complex

natural environment. So kids have to learn how to move their bodies in

a variety of ways. We're not just birds, or we're not

just swim animals that's, you know, like, live in the sea. We're

animals that go in trees and that climb and go through all sorts of

different climates and, you know, water and

all of this. Right? So our kids have to be learning

a lot of gross motor development and fine motor development.

So they have to learn to run and jump and swim and climb climb and

drive and all of these things with their bodies. They also need to learn

how to do fine motor development, writing, using tools,

typing, swiping, cleaning, cooking, dressing, putting buttons on,

tying shoes. You know, we need the

ability to use our big muscles and our fine a.

And that takes a long time as a species to

get good at. We also have to learn a lot of

things cognitively. Our brains are really active as a

species. We need to learn how to read and do math and cook and

understand science and follow rules and, you know, use a

computer and understand how governments work. So

we have to have a whole bunch of brain

skills. We have to have physical skills. We have to have psychological skills,

like like, neurological skills in terms of being able to understand and

think. Like, what I'm trying to say, cognitive skills. And then we also need to

have a bunch of social skills. So the social learning

is very, very important for our species. You have to understand history

and storytelling and self governance and sportsmanship and

cooperation, know how to read nonverbal clues, know how to

resolve conflict. So as a species, the kids have a

lot to learn. And a lot of the physical learning

is from 0 to a, and then a lot of the social and cultural

learning is 9 to 14 a then beyond that.

So we really need to see that our kids have a lot to

learn, and learning as a

species happens through experience, not information.

Our the way that we learn best is by experiencing.

The value of all the play is that your

kids will learn all of these things in ways that feels really fun and

interesting and challenging, and they can struggle a

little bit, and they like it. So we want to really

activate as much play as we can in our kids' lives.

I wanna repeat that really quickly that experience, not

information, is the key to emotional,

psychological, physical, cultural development. And

I like to joke that if lectures worked, I would not

have a job. Right? Like, we all wanna tell our

kids how to act, and we want to tell them what will happen,

especially when you have teenagers. And they don't listen. They have to

go through the hard things. They have to say the wrong thing to the teacher.

They have to be late. They have to kind of experience some of this stuff

in order for their neurons to fire and wire for

that learning to happen. So experience is so important.

And so the more we can access that for our kids, the more important

the more valuable it will be. Now

okay. So we're saying here that play is really important

in children's children's natural way of learning this play a that it's

vital. So why would I need to have an episode on it? Like,

isn't it obvious? Right? But the truth is

that as a society, we have moved away from play

based childhood and more in terms

of structured academic enrichment

environments or phone based Childress, screen based

childhoods. I'm not gonna go super far into the screen thing.

I'm gonna talk a lot about that in the next couple of episodes. But,

essentially, at one point in

time, like, in the early nineties, getting

into college became more competitive.

More a school's a changed their focus so that

every kid who a from high school would be able

to apply for college. And so then that meant that there are a lot more

people qualified to apply for college, which meant

there were a lot more people applying. So then that made

college admission more competitive. And so because of

that, we all, like, as a society, sort of was like,

oh, shoot. We've gotta give our kids a leg up. We've gotta prepare

them. We've gotta make sure they have really good grades. We have to make sure

they have really good test scores and are good test takers. And this ramp

up towards academic achievement really

became more important than some of those other things I talked

about, around gross motor development, fine

motor development, social learning, even cognitive

function in terms of science or, you know, creativity

or, you know, cooking or any of those other things that

you need your brain for. It just became

about being, you know, a good reader and good at math

almost. You know, we just over focused on those things.

And because of that, there was a lot more enrichment, which meant a

lot more structure. So we've got our kids in tutoring. We've got them in

foreign language instruction. We've got them in, you know,

like, not a arts and sports

and art class and music class. And they're all those

things are cool, but they're structured

environments. They are adult led, and

so it's not necessarily play. It's like going to class.

They're called classes. Right? They have they're meant to learn a

specific thing and not follow their own

interest or creativity or unstructured curiosity.

So that's a big reason why kids don't have a lot

of free unstructured time. And then what happens as a

as a community is that you may want your

kids to not have unstructured time, and you wanna have them be

available for play dates and park, you know, hanging out at the park and all

that all that in their neighborhood. But because everyone else is

focused on this kind of lifestyle of academic achievement and

enrichment, no one is available. Everyone is so busy. So then you

put them in classes with their friends so that they're with their friends and they

get to socialize, and it's still structured.

So that is one of the reasons why it's very difficult to create a

play based childhood. The others is that we've created cities that are very

car centric. So kids can't really get places

or explore open spaces with because

we've kind of destroyed open space and also made a car centric

a. So kids can't really get around it very easily. They need a

parent taxi in order to get to things, and that

greatly decreases their free and unstructured play.

Other reasons that we've moved away from play based childhood is

that we don't know our neighbors very well. We've kind of lost some of that

social connection. Our kids don't go to the

same neighborhood school as some of their neighbors because of school of choice,

which school of choice is great if your school district offers that where you can

go to a any elementary school or middle school or high school

within your school district, that is a cool option.

But at the same time, it does pull kids off

of the streets and and off the streets, but, like, pulls

them away. So they're having to be driven to school, driven away from

their neighborhood. They make relationships with people who don't live

in their neighborhood, so then kids will live on the same street and not know

each other. They'll be the same age and not know each other and not

play with each other Become they don't go to school a, and their lives are

separate. So, again, good intention,

making sure kids have access to education that is a best fit for

them, and it's pulled kids away from the play based childhood.

The other bigger reason is a

the 24 hour news channels, and now we have, like, alerts on our

phone. We don't even have to watch the a, and people are like, I don't

watch the news. And it's like, well, how many things are popping up in

your feed that are, like, newsworthy? Right? And a lot of that news

is negative because they wanna get you to

stop the scroll or to pay attention. So the notifications

and things like that that come through on your phone are, like, you know, a.

And that they're supposed to be alarming, so then you go, oh, what's happening? And

then you take action and pay attention to the news

channel. Right? Or whatever it is. You click the article. Right?

Clickbait. That kind of thing. So because of that, we don't

have as much trust of other adults, and we are now

parenting often in silos, which is really

hard. It's very hard to raise kids. So

the reasons that we are in a place that we're in is not be

like, you as a family. It's not because you're like, oh,

I'm overstructured and over, you know, you know,

activity in my kid and, like, something's wrong with me. It's like, no. You are

parenting in a system, in a society the way it is now.

And I wanna help you see that you can opt

out of some of it, and you can get some friends to say,

hey, instead of doing this basketball enrichment class,

what if we all just like hung out at the park? What

if we all just, like, let them, you know, roam around

roam around in our backyards even? What if we

just made a commitment that we're gonna play, you know, every Wednesday or every

Friday or whatever it is? Because your kids, they need to

have unstructured, loosely supervised playtime. Okay.

So I'm gonna get into that. Let me give you one more

like, a one big picture of the why play is

so important. And some of the things that

I'm sharing right now, this part is from Jonathan A

new book, a generation. I highly recommend you read it,

and read it with a lot of love for yourself and,

you know, regulate your nervous system Become it might make you a. Because it is

literally called anxious generation, and then it's about the mental health crisis

of our youth. So one of

the strategies that he talks about in that book is, you

know, bringing back play and unstructured more

risky, you know, playtime for kids so that they

are having more fun in the real world than they are in the

virtual world. So that's what I want to help you kind

of see how to do that today. Now one of the the things

he talks about in that book is these two modes that we have

as humans. Okay? So we have this discover and

defend mode. So with let me define

them. Discover is a

behavioral activation mode. It's when you're motivated

to do something, and it it's when

your brain detects an opportunity, something exciting,

something cool, a a good idea, and then you get kind

of positive emotion and excitement. And if

your friend is around, that feels even better. And so we have

this feeling of like, oh, that's fun. Let me go see what

that's about. Let me check that out. Let me try that. Let me see. Let

me, you know, you know, get into that. I

have watched this with my kids in terms of discover mode where

they discover, like, the guitar. They both have discovered the

guitar throughout their lives and get really into it

and have taught themselves how to play the guitar. And Lincoln is you know, then

took lessons, and he's really good at it. And they love playing the guitar.

That's not it's just for fun. It's for creativity. It's an

outlet, and it's not on their screens. Right? It's not it's just

fun. So discover mode is like my brain reading

anxious generation. It's like, oh, what can I talk about and learn? Right? I just

love it. It's that curiosity, that

desire to learn. Defend mode

is behavioral inhibition. It's when your

body detects a threat or something wrong,

and it gets flooded with stress and cortisol and negative thinking, and it retracts,

and it pulls back. So if we if

you are in defend mode too much, it can

create chronic anxiety. Discover mode is

really what we want our kids' default to be. Can I climb that

branch? Can I swim the length of the pool without coming up for a breath?

Can I build a tower on the edge of the table? How many blocks can

I put up here before it falls? Can I jump off the swing when it's

this high? Those little mini challenges that you

put on yourself in your kit, that's discover

mode. And when you are in discover mode and you

do something and it doesn't work out, like, you jump

off from a height and you skin your knee

or, you know, you bust up your your, you know, your arm or a,

you're like, oh, you can't jump from that high. And now you have this experience,

and your neurons are firing a. And they're like, list you're training

your brain of what your body can do and what it can't do.

So when you're in discover mode, it's it helps your

kids learn to judge risk for themselves,

which I promise you're gonna want them to be able to do when they're in

high school. We want them to have real world

experiences and real world failures that

are affordable, like a broken calm,

is an affordable mistake. Right? Not obviously severing

your arm. That would be terrible. But we're not giving them power tools.

We're just giving them the opportunity to find the

limits of of the body a the of of

physics, given these thing these real world

experiences. They we want them to take

appropriate action when faced with risk. We want them to be able to

cognitively process a and effect, and they're not gonna be able to do that

unless they fail. We want them to learn that

when things go wrong, even if they get hurt, they can handle it.

And what that's called is that's called the the developing the

psychological immune system. So we want our kids to have the

ability to handle and process and get past frustrations,

minor accidents, teasing, exclusions,

normal conflicts without going into

defend mode. Or if they go into defend mode and

they feel, you know, inhibited, like, I don't wanna go

outside. I don't want bees. Oh my god. Bees. Right? I've had a lot of

clients with kids who are afraid of bees. And Sawyer too.

Sawyer was definitely afraid of bees and would scream and freak out, which is funny

because Lincoln was the one who was allergic to bees. It didn't even make any

sense to me. But for whatever reason, Sawyer got, you know, very afraid of

bees. And so we had to keep him in

discover mode. How close are you willing to go to a bee? What, you

know, what do you think bees are all about? Let's study bees. Let's learn

more about bees. Let's figure out where bees live. What do

what attracts bees? What repels bees? Let's discover

more so that we feel more resilient rather than

defend against bees and get small and

and stay inside. Right? So we

want our kids to be willing to go into, I can handle

it. I can figure this out. That's discover mode.

Now when you are thinking about play for your

kids a also for you adults

who need to learn to play. This is a really

important thing too. But, really, for kids,

the best kinds of play have a few features. Okay?

A, it's free play. So it's unstructured and

loosely supervised. When I say loosely

supervised, I mean that we are nearby,

we're around, we're available, but we're

not deciding and structuring every piece of the

game or putting the boundaries so small that our

kids aren't taking any risks. I was thinking about this,

like, both of my kids like to climb up really high things,

A, especially. And and moms would look at me like I was insane Become he

would climb these giant poles that were,

like, really not meant to be climbed at the playground. They were just holding

up the, you know, the shade structure covers and stuff like that. A

he climbed all the way to the top, and the moms would just look at

me like I was insane. And I was like, well, he can climb down. Like,

he got up there, and that I would be nearby. Or, like, Lincoln, he would

always go too far up a tree and then need to

be kind of hoisted down, you know, with his a, and I'm standing

nearby. So I'm loosely supervising, but I'm

not standing there going, don't climb that. Don't climb that. Don't climb that. Okay?

So that's a part of play is having there be some degree of

physical risk. We want our kids to learn how to be in their

natural environment. Skinned knees, wrestling

too hard, pillow fights where your brain a. You know?

Climbing low trees, turning over heavy rocks, pretending to

have a sword fight, jumping off the swings. So the key feature

to this is that mistakes are generally not costly, but

there is some risk. So the best kinds of play are free play,

some degree of risk embodied. So that means that they

are in real life in real time in their body.

I think it's a, parenthetically, that we've had to use this word embodied

now because so much of our life is spent virtually

or sedentary, and we're not in

our bodies. Right? So our kids are also not

embodied a lot of times. We want them to have experiences in real

life with their bodies. And,

best kinds of play also outdoors. Opportunity to practice moving through that

complex natural environment is very good. Dealing with the elements,

dealing with nature, being in the dirt, being in the a. These are things that

are super important for our children's really their emotional

health. The other parts that

need to a need, but are really good is if the if it's child

led. If the game that they come up with,

they come up with the game and they enforce the rules. Because

adult games in sports, they have predetermined

rules and boundaries. It's this number of innings and this number of outs

and this number of, you know, times you can bounce a ball after you

touch it. Like, whatever the rules are, there are specifics.

But with kids, they often make up their own rules

and their own boundaries, and that helps them discover

the physics of the world and their environment and dealing with the boundaries that

exist in the natural world. I'm thinking of this story. I didn't

plan a to share this, but I have an older brother. He's 6 years

older than me. And I was very mature, and he was immature, so we kinda

met in the middle. And, we played a lot

together, and we would have races all the time up and down the driveway with

our bikes. And he of course, he's 6 years physically older than me,

and he would beat me all the time. And I remember

whispering to my mom that this

time, the person who came in last

was the winner. That we weren't basing this on speed

of, like, fast, but who could go the a? So

my brother takes off, and he goes to the top of the driveway, and he

flips it, you know, whips around and goes back down. And I'm just taking my

sweet time, biking really slow, thinking I've won for

sure. I even get off my bike at the top of the

driveway, walk it, get back on, slowly

go, and I am thinking I'm gonna come into the finish

line glorious. Right? And then my brother goes,

you lost. You lost. And I was

like, no. I didn't. It's the slowest that wins this one.

And he goes, oh, yeah. But you're disqualified because you got off your

bike. And I was so mad because

we a defined the rules. And I had changed the game without

telling him, and now I had got caught. And this is all part

of child led games. Right? Just

2 people figuring out how to play together.

And I have multiple experiences of this with my kids,

with them figuring out the rules of a game a with my

own life. You could probably think of this too, and that's

what we want. We want our kids to be out there struggling to figure

out what the rules are. Like, my kids used to do this game in the

pool called pirate pirate a. I don't know what they called it.

A it was super complicated and complex a involved

multiple floaties and toys and things like that, and you could only

go on somebody else's, you know, raft a in certain a.

And there was a whole a very complex set of rules.

That is child led play. I didn't make a pirate. I

didn't come up with it. They come up with it. Part of play

that's free play, physical risk,

embodied, outdoors, child led,

and then with others is really a. And when there's

an attuned play. So you're

figuring out how to keep the game going.

Right? You're reading each other's emotions. You're taking turns.

You're resolving conflict. You're sharing emotion.

You're mutually reinforcing feedback loops of joy

or pleasure. Those are the best kinds of

play. Isn't that does that sound fun?

It sounds fun to me. So let me give you some examples

of places to play, types of thrills, types

of games so that you can a have a little toolkit in your head.

So, oh, I wanted to tell you guys this crazy stat that

research shows that the risk of injury per

hour of physical play is lower

when kids are when the games are child led

versus adult guided sports. If your kid is playing

adult guided sports, they're more likely to get hurt than in

their own child game because they're they know their

risk. They know their bodies. They're figuring it out. They go just

outside of risk, but adults don't always know that. And this is from

an article in in sports medicine from 2014.

So I just thought that was a really cool crazy stat.

Now places to play. Kind of already went in through some of this. We've

got parks. Like, you know, there's lots of parks in town,

hopefully, for your community. Open spaces and

trails. Those are huge. You don't have to go hiking. You

just go into the open space. You bring a chair, you bring a

book, and you sit down. You have a blanket.

You have some snacks, and they're just in this natural environment playing

with twigs and sticks and rocks and, you know,

looking around. Now if your kids have not had a lot

of opportunity to play with they have not had a lot of downtime

a they have not been a you know, they have a lot of screens in

their lives. When they have downtime, they have screens, They're gonna

know what to do, which is just so sad. So next couple weeks,

I'm gonna talk about boredom and how to create more and

more opportunities to for these kinds of play. But I want you

to trust that boredom is very uncomfortable, and your

kids will resist it. It it feels like death to them. But if

you allow it long enough without interruption with screen

or sweets or a solution, your kids

will struggle through it and find play.

They will. They love play. They will find it. Now if you have an

only child or they're you're playing with just the one, you might need to initiate

a little bit by saying, you know, hey. Let's see how heavy this

rock is, or let's see how far we can throw this thing, or, you

know, what how big is this tree? Can you get your arms around

it? So you're just a creating little challenges in nature

to engage them with the environment. Parks, open spaces, and

trails, community pools. Those are really great if you have a community

pool. And allowing your kids to be in

the pool, if they're swim safe, and letting the lifeguards

do their job a you're paying attention a they're challenging

themselves. How long can I hold a my breath underwater? Can I swim

across the pool? Can I get back to, you know,

can I trip water for this much time, or can I dive down to the

bottom? How deep can I go? All those little challenges are so, so

important. Obviously, your backyard

can become a wonderland. Your front yard, your neighbor's yard,

the beach, if you near live near the beach or lakes and

ponds and creeks. Again, you don't have to go hiking.

That's really almost like a a purpose. I want this to be

purposeless. You're just going. There's like creeks around our

house that sometimes run, sometimes don't. And we just they just be

mucking in the mud and the gross water, and

I just a. Like, I don't know. I've got wipes. We'll take a shower,

and they're not gonna drink it. I'm paying attention. I don't know. The

risk is not that you don't have to worry about that much. So there's

places to play. Now the types of thrills

that kids like, the challenges that they're seeking

are heights, high speeds,

dangerous tools, elements, rough and

tumble play, disappearing, and

wandering away. These are actually very thrilling

to kids. So we want them to climb trees and play structures.

We want them to go on the swings and go on fast slides.

We want them to use hammers and drills and kitchen appliances

with supervision. One thing we did with Lincoln no. He would

sir wasn't interested in it, but Lincoln loved rocks and stuff. And so

we he would collect all these rocks, and then, I'd give

him a hammer. I'm not kidding. And then he would lay a

towel down, and then he would put the rocks

down. And then he would put a towel on top. And then he would just

bang them as hard as he could. And then he would open up the towel

and see how much he smashed. And I don't know if I did safety goggles

or not, you guys. I'm not sure. Sometimes we just get swim goggles, and he'd

put them on, to protect his eyes. But like I said, the towel was on

top. Sometimes I would just give them walnuts and, like, a walnut cracker. That

could be hours a on the driveway just trying to crack the walnuts.

And while they're doing it, I'm I was literally just reading my book,

just sitting there, drinking tea, sometimes talking to

my neighbor if she happened to be outside. It was great. Kitchen appliances are also

really interesting for kids. Elements like, you know,

ice and and, you know, learning how to use the stove and

understanding if you're camping. Campgrounds are hugely

great for kids. Talking to them about fire. I have so

many stories about my kids, oh, going outside of the boundaries,

learning a big lesson, and then, you know, overcoming

that lesson. And so that I think is partly why I trust them

as young adults Become they have had so much practice.

Wrestling, playing with sticks, hiding, getting

lost, allowing them to wander a little bit in a,

in a in Target or in a Walmart type of situation.

You know, 3 3 aisles over, go in the go, you know, go

back in the grammy a. I'm in line. Like, let them do those

little challenges. I know it feels scary. I know it

feels unsafe. Do what feels good to you and

try to allow as much as you can.

Okay. Types of games. Freeze tag is

fun. So, what is it? Statue? Like, you yell

out an animal or you yell out, you know, a place,

like, pretend you're water, and then they have to, like, freeze as a statue of

water. It's not easy, and it requires a lot of cognitive functions.

Funny. Freeze tag, sword fighting, hide

and seek, rolling down hills, playing Foursquare, playing

hopscotch. These are embodied games

that can change the rules. You can decide how high

you count, where the hiding places are,

what's allowed, what's not allowed. Let them figure that stuff out. Do you have

a 2 story home? Can you hire hide upstairs? Now if you're a and you're

like, I don't wanna go to my room. She'll be like, you guys can play

this game as long as you don't hide in my room. Set a boundary.

That's fine. I'm gonna give you some other

ideas about, like, toys themselves that foster

free play. I want you to think about things that

kids can move around and transform with their imagination.

So toys that can become things or toys that they can

use to make things. For example, Legos.

Right? Not sets. I know you guys love to buy the sets, and the

kids love to buy the sets, but I want you to have free Legos around

so that your kids can build freely from that.

Blocks of different sizes, because those help

build up towers and, you know,

structures and, like, places where your kids can play with figurines.

Hot Wheels, tracks, stuffed animals,

dolls made of natural materials, wooden or high

quality plastic animals, a play mobile, a big dress

up bin, dinosaurs, art

supplies, spy gear, bean bags,

smooth pebbles, clay, tea

sets, a sticks, crafts and

sewing like beadwork or glue or feathers.

All those are open ended items.

Outdoor items that foster free play are buckets and

nets, shovels, scoops, bubbles,

baskets, containers, calm. All of those things,

they can become something. They can design a playground for themselves.

Okay. I did go through those kind of quick, so you can go back and

listen to the podcast episode, or we can put together a list of

these and just put them we're gonna put this list on the

blog page of the podcast. So if

you are a regular listener and you are

on my newsletter and you've got this in your email, just click

on the podcast link, and it'll take you to the website, which

has this list. And then, also, if you're not, please do that. Get on

the newsletter. Go to mama a, click

podcast, and you'll see this episode, and it'll be right there, the

list of all the fun things I just mentioned. Okay.

So unscheduled and free play, just a little

note, doesn't mean that you don't make plans. Like like I said, you need to

probably coordinate with other parents and figure out

when they're free and what kind of what can that look like? I

know that I had some very dear friends throughout the time I was

raising my kids, and we sort of talked about it. And we made some

commitments to each other to be available for our kids to play Become

we didn't wanna one person be in swimming lessons and the other person

do day camp and all this stuff all summer a then not have anyone for

our kids to play with. So we a of coordinated a little bit to figure

out when we would be free a then said, like, let's plan to do that

together. Right? And, that was a good thing. So I

think find a couple gals or moms and dads that

are around in the summer and just be like, hey. Can we hook up for

play? I wanna bring more play into my kid's life. Now, obviously,

if you work and you send your kids to camp or other enrichments,

and you that's great. Like, your kids also need structure. Don't

get me wrong. They need both. They need defend and discover. They need

structure and unstructure. They need, you know, big move

body movement and fine motor movement. They need rest, and

they need work. They need all the balance. So just looking

at your life, if you're like, I can't really build anything in on the

weekdays, but I can on the weekends to create more a,

unstructured playtime, that's great. Do what you

can. If you value

this free play, you will make space and time for

it. That's just how our values end up working. When it's

important, we figure out ways to make it happen.

Okay. I love this topic. I like I

said, there is the factor of how much time

your kids are spending on screens will make it

harder for them to be motivated to do play, and

it'll be that they don't have a good habit. So I'm gonna talk more

about boredom and screen free time in the next couple of

weeks so that you can, you know, learn how to overcome the

obstacles. This episode is all about the value and how to you

know, what what we're talking about when we talk about open and free play.

And then the obstacles are kids not overcoming boredom

or overreliance on screens. So then I'm gonna give you a couple episodes on that

too. Okay. If you like this episode,

please let me know Become I'm always curious. And if you've read Jonathan Hite's

book, a generation, please, you know,

contact me on Instagram at Darlynn Childress or

reply to the email you got. If you're on the newsletter, just reach out to

me because I am I my brain is on fire with the book.

So highly, highly recommend it. Alright. Long

episode, but I hope it was really valuable, and I will talk to

you guys next time.