Wellbeing Insights

What we can’t do is get our childhoods back.  Childhood isn’t a time to prepare to be an adult.  Childhood is a time to be a child.  Childhood is a special time where imaginative play feels richer, where friendships are formed over a shared love of digging for worms, and where building a tree house can feel like the most important thing in the world.  Yet we often cut into that time to get them to sit still, learn ‘important things’, and prepare for their futures. The problem is that the more time that they are engaged in adult-led, structured, future-oriented activities, the less time they have available to engage in the real work of childhood – play.

Play teaches our kids everything that they really need to learn. It fosters physical and motor development. Play requires socio-emotional skills. It strengthens the imagination and creativity. It builds STEM skills and deductive reasoning. Play can not be substituted with other activities and still achieve the same outcomes. Children need the opportunity to play.

Let’s allow our kids to have days to choose their own activities, to play without direction, to engage in the work of childhood without limits.  And if you can, go even further. Start a 30 day play challenge, making sure your kids have at least 45 minutes every day to engage in activities of their own choice. If it’s been a while since they had the opportunity for free play, they might not know where to begin. To avoid those calls of “I’m bored”, try setting the stage with these play prompts:

• Pull out the bicycles
• Visit a new playground
• Set up a play dough or clay station
• Get out the chalk
• Turn the hose into a sprinkler
• Go to the beach
• Take a few different balls to a park
• Dust off some board games
• Go to the swimming pool
• Get out the paints and paint brushes
• Go out to a nature reserve
• Visit some rock pools

Then get out of the way. True play is self-directed, intrinsically motivated, and creative.

Let’s safeguard childhood, value play, and let our kids be kids.

Author:  Dr Justin Coulson is a psychologist and dad to 6 daughters. He is the parenting expert and co-host of Channel 9’s Parental Guidance, and he and his wife host Australia’s #1 podcast for parents and family: The Happy Families podcast. He has written 9 books about families and parenting. For further details visit www.happyfamilies.com.au.