Did you know that one thing most serial killers and mass murderers have in common is that they didn't get to really play when they were children?
Someone recently alerted me to the work of Dr Stuart Brown and the National Institute for Play he founded. The institute's mission is to make people aware of the vital importance of play throughout our lives and to promote initiatives to provide opportunities for play to everyone in society.
I played outside a lot as a child year-round. Here I am in the winter of 1956 playing outside with my friend MaryJane
Here are 5 things I learned by reading about Dr. Brown's work and the work of the National Play Institute.
Playing dress up with my cousins on our grandparents' farmyard. We've all gone on to have productive lives.
1. After interviews with more than 5000 people, Dr. Brown discovered that your play experiences have a tremendous impact on your life. Accomplished happy people had been allowed to embrace play and were able to enjoy it.
Those who displayed unhealthy, inflexible and unproductive behaviours had often been seriously play-deprived. Dr Brown documented severe childhood play deprivation among most young men imprisoned for homicides.
My husband is a competitor always ready to take up a new sport- his latest is pickleball.
2. Dr. Brown has identified eight kinds of play personalities.
Competitors who enjoy things like team sports, creators who love making art or music, directors who take pleasure in planning and organizing things like parties, explorers who thrive on investigating and trying new experiences, and jokers who may be the class clowns. Kinestheses like to move in activities like dance or yoga and collectors find joy in amassing and playing with objects like coins or stamps.
I use the kinesthetic elements of my play personality to dance with women in Shangri La in Yunnan Province China
Your play personality is as unique as your fingerprint and is probably built from elements of all or many of the different personalities listed above.
Girls in one of my grade four classes pretending to be ancient Egyptian women in costumes they made themselves
3. Very few of the neurons in our brain cortex are connected at birth. Connections need to be activated by the environment. Play is a way to do that.
The more often children are in a play state the better their neural pathways connect and develop, giving them good physical agility, social confidence, emotional regulation, creativity, cognitive abilities and resilience.
A child in one of my school classes pretending to fly a plane
That's why it is so important that in school kids get lots of playtime at recess, in art and music classes, and in hands-on imaginative and creative activities in the classroom.
Play improves kids' academic performance!
Parents can start to help activate their children's play neurons from an early age
4. We are born with a natural instinct to play. All mammals, including people, have a biological drive to play that has evolved over millennia. We have play circuits buried deep in our brains just waiting to be activated by playful elements in our environments. Parents can start activating those play neurons from the time their child is born.
Doing the limbo on the golf course in a playful family tournament with my nephews in Leamington Ontario
5. Decades of research have shown play reduces stress, facilitates brain growth, makes it easier to learn new things, kick-starts our creativity, enriches our relationships, and overall makes us healthier and happier people.
I encourage you to check out the National Institute for Play website and to watch some of Dr. Stuart Brown's Ted Talks.
Other posts...........
Grandma and Grandpa Are Being Children
The Amazing Race Driedger Style
A New Game to Sharpen My Brain
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