Come Out & Play!

Dr. Stuart Brown came to research play through research on murderers – unlikely as that seems – after he found a stunning common thread in killers’ stories: lack of play in childhood. Since then, he’s interviewed thousands of people to catalog their relationships with play, noting a strong correlation between success and playful activity. His book Play describes the impact play can have on one’s life. With the support of the National Geographic Society and Jane Goodall, he has observed… #TED

We invite you to read articles from experts on play on the importance of play in learning. One of our favorite articles this month is from Playing with Parents Increases Academic Success: “How parents play with their children matters. In a study that spanned 15 years, researchers at Utah State University have demonstrated a positive connection between how parents play with toddlers and the children’s future academic success. They started in 1996 with the U.S. Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, which looked at 229 low-income families with kids at age 2 and again at 3, before circling back to see how they did in reading and math in fifth grade. They found a correlation between the early parent-child interactions and later academic achievement.

The results, says Gina Cook, research assistant professor in the Family Consumer and Human Development Department at USU, document the particular importance of two things: how crucial certain kinds of play are to a child’s future and playtime with both mom and dad. Most research has focused on interactions with moms. They found dads are very important, too, she says.”

A play initiative we love and support! SERIOUSLY! The future depends on play is a creative documentary that turns the work ethic on its head and reveals how vital play is to our health, happiness, and the future of life.

As play scholar Brian Sutton-Smith wrote, ‘The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.’ And the statistics on depression are astonishing! Over 18 million people in the U.S. alone are suffering from it. The rate of increase of depression in children is over 23%, and in 2007, suicide was the third leading cause of death in young people. In the meantime, schools are slashing funds for arts programs and eliminating recesses while adults are working longer hours with shorter vacations than ever before.

Overwork and depression are really just the tip of the ice berg. The cost of chronic play-deprivation also includes an obesity epidemic, increased violence, disparities between rich and poor, lack of innovation and creativity, even our ecological crisis. We stop playing at our peril.

But when we do play, all the research indicates that our health, happiness, intelligence, creativity, adaptability, resilience, our relationships, work, test scores, our sex lives…let’s just say EVERYTHING improves. Why? Because spontaneous, free play goes with the grain of the whole universe.

If you are looking for an organization active in schools and that hosts workshops for young inventors and game play, we highly recommend Sharp As A Tack. Through playing with board games, Sharp As A Tack’s main mission is to help students improve academic achievement by developing their cognitive abilities and to help them develop important life skills that will lead to a lifetime of successes in the classroom, in the community and within their families. A secondary mission of Sharp As A Tack is to foster an environment that will help improve students’ self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence, as well as to provide a venue to develop interpersonal skills such as communication, cooperation, teamwork and leadership.