"MY CONNECTIONS TO PLAY"



“Culture arises and unfolds in and as play”

-Johan Huizinga-

Dutch Historian

1872-1945

“Play keeps us fit physically and mentally”

-Stuart Brown, MD-

Contempory American Psychiatrist

The people who supported me the most during play in my childhood were my mother and older sister. My favorite form of play as a child was imaginative play. I had a collection of baby dolls, baby doll clothes, and baby doll clothes which I used for imaginative play. I often pretended that I was a mother caring for my young child by bathing, clothing, and nurturing my baby dolls. I would often reenact the typical duties and responsibilities of a mother. My older sister and mother were most supportive of my imaginative play by providing me with the necessities I requested to nurture my baby dolls. My mother would purchase all of my baby doll accessories such as baby doll crib, stroller, play pin, car seat, food, feeding utensils, and bath items. My older sister never questioned times in which I insisted on taking my baby doll along for family outings in her car seat and stroller. When I would take my baby doll out in public in her stroller and became tired of walking, my mother never hesitated to take over carrying my baby doll and stroller nor discouraged me from taking my baby doll out in public in the future. This support that I receive from my mother and older sister encouraged my imaginative play and ultimate fantasy of becoming a nurturing mother.

Play for children today is extremely different from play that I engaged in as a child. Compared to my childhood children today have a greater exposed to television, movies, computers, and cell phone. This increased exposed to various multimedia sources can be a gift and a curse to say the least. These sources can be a gift in the sense that children today have a greater opportunity than when I was a child to enhance their learning of the world around them as well as ways to use various technology resources that will prove to be beneficial in the future. These resources can also be a curse in the senses that an over exposure to these multimedia sources hinders children’s ability to engage in other forms of play that will promote overall physical and mental wellness such outside activities, group activities,  and arts and crafts. I would hope that educational institutions will reincorporate specific times each daily to focus on physical well being of children through activities such as recess, gym, arts and music, and imaginative play.