PLAY

by Linda Shekerdemian

With ever increasing pressures on children today, such as information overload from the internet, over-stimulating video games and too many scheduled extra curricular activities, it is important to take the time to examine how we can best support children through the joys and challenges of growing up. How as a community can we become more aware of the needs of children and what can we do to enhance and support children's emotional well being and future mental health? I believe one simple answer to this question, that we may have lost sight of, is to provide children with more opportunities for expressive free play and to recognize the important healing aspects of play.

Play is the language of children. It is their most natural activity. Through play children express themselves, explore their world and learn. Even though play looks as if it is only amusing, fun and joyful, it is an extremely important activity for children, and even for adults. We find ways of playing throughout our lives whether it is through art, sewing, cooking, building projects, kayaking or rollerblading. Play is an activity that benefits us in so many ways and contributes to our overall sense of well being.

Through pretend or fantasy play children are able to set up and resolve emotional conflicts, e.g. how they will share their mom with a new baby. They also learn about the world in a safe, predictable environment that they have control over. They do this by acting out important scenarios, these might include, visiting the doctor or hospital, being the mommy or daddy, or being the police officer. Play gives children the opportunity to try out many different roles and develop their social skills.

For parents, observing a child’s pretend play provides a window into their world. Feelings and thoughts that might be too difficult or painful for them to communicate become accessible. This is especially useful when children are in the early stages of speech and language development.

Play can also be an important therapeutic intervention for children experiencing adjustment problems. Play therapy offers children a safe, natural and non-intrusive method of recovering from distressing life events, such as a divorce in the family, and healing from major trauma. It can be a useful intervention for children exhibiting a range of problematic behaviors such as regression, anxiety, extreme anger, aggression and fears. Play therapy can also help children who are experiencing difficulties at school due to learning disabilities. In play therapy children can have dolls, animals or other figures relive their problematic experiences and gain a sense of mastery over the world that, in real life, is difficult for them to do. In the playroom children can create a world that they can understand, overcome frightening feelings and symbolically triumph over upsets and traumas, e.g. having superhero figures defeat the "bad guys". An expressive emotional outlet and stable therapeutic relationship, such as play therapy provides, greatly enhances a child’s emotional health, self esteem as well as increasing their ability to experience success at school and form positive relationships.

I would like to share a personal experience that illustrates the power of play and how anyone can help a child by providing them with an expressive outlet through play. Last December I had the opportunity to witness the powerful impact of play with a very young child. I was not acting in the capacity of play therapist but just as a friend sharing some important toys. Friends of mine from up north in B.C. had been medevaced from Smithers to Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Their little boy, Bobby (not his real name), was in the midst of a hemolytic crisis, with his hemoglobin levels dropping dangerously low. Bewildered and overwhelmed they set up camp in their little hospital room. Over the course of their 4-day stay at Children’s and prior to being transported to Vancouver, Bobby was subjected to many painful tests and procedures. His parents were concerned that he was being repeatedly traumatized and was becoming fearful of all strangers, believing that anyone he didn’t know was going to hurt him. Only nursing and being in constant physical contact with his mom or dad provided him any comfort.

During my visit on his second day in the hospital I brought along my play medical kit. After assuring Bobby that I had come to visit and play with him and was not going to hurt him I took the medical kit out and spread its contents out on the bed where Bobby and his mom were sitting. I started out talking to Bobby’s teddy bear and explaining that he (the bear) was going to have a few medical procedures. I first started by taking his blood pressure, assuring him that this would not hurt him. Bobby watched very attentively and then repeated what I had done, taking teddy’s blood pressure himself. We then listened to teddy’s heart. Bobby’s mom joined in the play as we took her blood pressure and listened to her heart. Then Bobby began to attempt to listen to his own heart and take his own blood pressure, we helped him through each of these activities. Once Bobby seemed relaxed and engaged in this play I took out the play syringe and talked to teddy and Bobby about having a blood test and that this would hurt for a short time. Bobby was immediately drawn to the syringe and used it to take teddy’s blood and then began poking his own arm with it. He then took the syringe and began pushing it near where he had an I.V. needle bandaged around his hand. He looked at me and pointed to his I.V. again then started to cry as he crumpled forward on the bed. He then sat up and continued his play. I repeated in words what Bobby had shown us through his play and thanked him for telling us that having the I.V. needle put in had hurt him.

This was a profound and deeply touching experience for both Bobby’s mother and myself. Bobby at 17months old, with no verbal language, was able through play to express and communicate to us his feelings of hurt, fear and sadness. The toys had acted as his words.

Did having this outlet lessen the impact of the trauma this young child experienced? We can't know for sure what the long-term impact of such an experience will be for this particular child but providing him with a means to express his distress through play seemed to empower him and make his world a little less confusing. I hope this story of little Bobby illustrates how we can all use play to help children through difficult times, to enrich their every day lives and enhance their sense of well being.

FAMILIES TODAY By T. Berry Brazelton
Play, not reading, should be focus of early childhood. In the pressured world of families today, many parents of preschool-aged children wonder when to begin teaching them to read and write. My response: Don’t, until they demand it. It’s all too easy to overdo teaching letters and numbers. To me, the timing is not as important as the child’s own desire to learn. It’s so easy to push early learning on a child who is compliant at this age. But it does more harm than good. We’ve known this for some time. In the 1960s there was a movement toward early teaching, led by a professor at Yale, Dr. O.K. Moore. He felt that if children could be taught early to read and write, they’d be more competitive when they entered school. This was true – up to a point. In order to please adults around them, 3-year-olds could learn to read and write successfully. They didn’t seem to know what they were reading, but they could do it. When they reached first grade, they were ahead of other children, and they received the adult approval they needed. But many of these “precocious” children hadn’t learned the skills they needed to get along with peers. They were adult oriented. In the second and third grades, these children began to slip. The rote learning processes they’d used to learn earlier didn’t generalize to the more complex learning they needed in later grades. They seemed stuck with more primitive learning methods. These unfortunate children then hit bottom. They were not the stars any longer, other children had deserted them and adults were disappointed. This left them feeling sad and deserted. Despite this and later evidence that such precocious early training is costly, many parents are still eager to give children a “head start.” Books and programs promising ways to “teach your baby to read” continue to proliferate. I strongly urge parents to stay away from them. A child learns best who learns for herself, not others. Play is her way of learning. When she learns by play, she tries different techniques to find out what works for her. When she can’t achieve something she is interested in doing,she gets frustrated. Frustration drives her to find out how to do it.
When she finally does it, she gets a wonderful feeling: “I did it myself!”, that is the most rewarding fuel for future learning there is. Ambitious parents must learn to watch the child, to stay in the background and let her learn for herself. It’s difficult but necessary. A parent’s job is to admire, approve and even encourage, but not to push. Choosing a preschool can be done with the same philosophy in mind. Play is the powerful way
children learn their most important tasks at this
age – how to play with other children, how to
handle other adults and how to learn about
themselves as social people. The tasks of this
age group are enormous:

 experiencing socialization

 learning about aggression

 learning how to identify with everyone around them
Learning about oneself and about one’s peers is
the best learning that parents can provide in
these preschool years. The one thing I’d like for all the children to feel about themselves at this age is, “I’m important! Everyone likes me!”
Reprinted with permission
STAR BULLETIN – Tuesday, November 10, 1998