Play for RW

Albert Einstein once said "Play is the highest form of research."
Mr Rogers said "Play is the work of childhood"


Growing up in a single parent household my only outlet for play was at my daycare.  At daycare my outlet was the play scape, the centers, and field trips. I can look back in retrospect and see that the teachers never really engaged with us during play time. Play for us  was making up our own games.  Every now and then we had a teacher directed activity but it wasn't very often. However at home, family time was our time. It wasn't necessarily a playtime. Anything I did that play related was by myself. My mother being a single working mother going through a change of life, didn't have time to instill play or engage in it with me. The daycare center that I was at facilitated a lot of that. Our family time consisted of doing activities together. For example we would do a 100 piece puzzle together, work on a coloring book together etc. Any aspect of play at home was centered around being calm and soothing.

Today's play is different in a lot of ways then the play days of old. When I was a child, play was self directed and based on whatever resources you had round.  Play wasn't based on the adult because a child had their place and a adult had there's. However, there was a time and space for everything including adults and children playing together. I can remember a time where we were all at my great uncles house and we were all playing kickball. As a child kickball was my game of choice. I loved the game. That was the first time as a whole family, that we played that game in the front yard at my uncles house. Of course as a kid, they accused me of cheating but that's my one greatest memory of everyone engaging in play together. Play of old didn't have technology and if it was, it really wasn't  practical. So children were "forced" to engage and play with each other.  Play now involves technology, Play now involves less talking and more texting. For us play involved games, rules, structure, imagination, creativity. Once technology introduced it's self into the homes, centers etc, it opened a door. Without the true fundamentals of play, children are left to find their own entertainment and if it doesn't involve and on switch, and the rapid moving of fingers, then we've(in my opinion) has lost a whole generation to technology.