Articles written by: Ben Kingston-Hughes (Managing Director of Inspired Children)
Play Helps Children Survive As Adults.
The neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp posed an interesting question. “If play is frivolous and serves no purpose, why has that behaviour not died out over thousands of years of evolution? Presumably a playing child would be more inattentive to predators and consequently more vulnerable? Why then do all mammals “play” despite this behaviour being potentially life threatening?”
The answer is fascinating. The only reason Play has survived in the primitive mammalian brain is that it must somehow be so vital to the survival of mammals that it has remained as an ingrained behaviour across countless generations despite its obvious draw-backs.
Every time a child (or kitten, puppy etc) jumps, runs or skips they minutely increase the bone density in their limbs meaning they will have stronger bones in adult life. For primitive humans (and all mammals), stronger bones equated to an increased chance of survival in adult life. Every time a child has a tickle fight, rolls around the floor or climbs trees (or furniture) they build their physical strength, their balance and their dexterity, all vital survival traits for a prehistoric world. Every aspect of a child’s physical survival potential is trained for and developed through play, from their cardiovascular health and three dimensional spatial awareness to their adrenal response systems and immune system. But we don’t live in a prehistoric world so surely these physical survival traits have less value? True, we are no longer evading rampaging cave bears (sounds like a Saturday night in town?) but those same behaviours that prepared children to become strong healthy adults 200,000 years ago will help them become strong, healthy adults today and help prevent conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.
The frightening fact is that we believe the current generation of children will be the first generation in recent history for whom life expectancy will decrease rather than increase as a direct result of the decline in these essential play behaviours and negative nutrition trends.
For play deprived children the lack of these fundamental, instinctive play behaviours can cause health issues into adulthood and crucially lower their life expectancy. The average screen time in this country is now over 6 hrs per day for children. These children do not always have opportunities for simple play activities at home meaning that school, nursery, or out of school provision could potentially be the only environments in a child’s entire life where they are supported to simply play. There is compelling evidence to suggest that these moments of play do more for a child’s development and well-being than anything else they ever do.
As a final bit of evidence – Jaak Panksepp’s experiments with rats have demonstrated that rats who engage in lots of play thrive and survive, whereas rats who have been prevented from playing simply don’t!
Play Is The Key Criterion For Healthy Brain Growth.
What do we all want for our children in primary school? We want reading, writing and maths right? (Sigh!)
What most people don’t know is that the neurological structures a child needs for those tasks are not “hard-wired” into the brain. By that I mean they are not present at birth. The child has to build the structures in their brain to accomplish these higher academic tasks (including communication and language).
The irony is that sitting at a desk listening to an adult speak is not the way a child develops these essential structures and is in fact a very ineffective method of learning altogether. The times when a child is moving freely, testing their limits and using their imagination are the times when this fundamental brain growth takes place at its best.
You can all imagine the adult who shouts, “Daniel! Stop being a pirate and come and do your homework.”, never once realising that being a pirate is the very thing that will give Daniel the fundamental structure in his brain to do the homework in the first place!
Neuroscientists seem to be moving towards an activity dependent model of brain growth which simply means that what we do in childhood is what grows our brains. And the activity that builds the brain more than any other? Play! We can now see simple, freely chosen play as underpinning every academic discipline a child needs throughout their life.
When Daniel is being a pirate he is using his imagination. A study in 2015 showed that when using the imagination the brain lights up like a Christmas tree creating a neural network across the entire upper brain. This research makes a compelling argument that imaginative play is one of the most powerful brain development activities a child can ever experience. What else do we need a neural network for? Only every academic task a child needs in school from problem solving to communication to mathematical thinking. In a very real sense being a pirate is much more important than the homework could ever be. (Try telling that to your child’s teacher!)
What many adults also do not see is the inter-relationship between the types of play and a whole array of learning and development. For instance in almost every case of physical delay (or neuro-motor immaturity) in a child there is a corresponding delay in their communication and language. The physical movements a child undertakes do not just develop the parts of the brain associated with movement but parts of the brain associated with almost every aspect of their development. And when do children make these essential spontaneous movements? When they are playing of course. Not when an adult lines them up and tries to find out who is fastest but when children joyfully engage in a whole range of movements purely for their own enjoyment. The problem once again is that if one does not recognise the link between spontaneous, joyful movement and neurological development then it is easy to misunderstand, restrict, or dismiss it as frivolous. Far from being frivolous these playful movements are a key criteria for healthy brain growth.
Studies in Play Deprivation indicate that as part of a spectrum of multiple deprivation lack of play can cause the brain of a child to be up to 30% smaller and malformed. This has been born out by studies in other mammals.
Bob Hughes describes Locomotor Play (one of 16 essential play types) as… “Movement in any or every direction for its own sake….”
One interesting link is the correlation between physical development and communication and language acquisition. There are many reasons for this link between movement and communication one of which is that physical movement uses a neural network that overlaps areas for communication and language in the brain. Another is quite simply that children learn fine and gross motor skills through play and gross motor skills help children develop fine motor skills. The finest and most complex motor skill a child ever uses is the intricate movements of the tongue to form words.
We also know that symbolic play (another of Bob Hughes play types) underpins communication and language and helps activate many of the same areas of the brain. Language is itself symbolic and so every time a child pretends a stick is a wand or creates an internal voice for their action figures they are building essential structures for communication.
If you can convince parents that far from being frivolous, the playful experiences of children underpin high level thinking and neurological growth then hopefully they will understand that when you send them home covered in mud, paint, glitter and grass stains you are actually helping them to read, write and problem solve. (Good luck with that though!)
Play Supports Emotional Well-Being And Has Life-Changing Therapeutic Properties
In previous articles we have already acknowledged Play as a key-criteria for healthy brain growth and as a crucial evolutionary survival trait that helps our children to become strong healthy adults.
Play performs another function though. Thanks to the work of Jaak Panksepp we know that play sits in the primitive limbic system of the child’s brain. Many of the functions of this area of the brain, when activated, create a powerful biochemical response. Positive pro-social functions such as play produce a cocktail of several biochemicals that have potent anti-depressant and anti-anxiety properties. In-fact these chemicals are used for just this purpose by medical professionals. If we were to squeeze a child’s brain and remove the chemicals (please don’t try this!) the biochemicals from play would be potent narcotics with an actual street value.
So, in essence, when a child plays they produce a series of “feel good” chemicals as powerful as prescription medication. We have all witnessed children so happy and engaged in play that they are quite literally “stoned” on play. This has a huge positive impact on the child’s emotional well-being.
The problem is that we are not sure how much (if any) of these chemicals a child produces when they are watching a screen or sitting still in a classroom. We know that mental health in children in this country is declining. We know that more and more children of younger and younger age are being prescribed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. We also know that play is declining massively. The evidence does seem to suggest that in addition to its developmental role, play also has a vital biochemical role for the emotional well-being and mental health of our children. This is born out by the incredible benefits of play I have witnessed first-hand when working with vulnerable children and the huge success of play therapy as a treatment for children who have been through trauma.
To add to this, we know that negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and anger (also based in the limbic system) have their own biochemical response that is not so positive. Bio-chemicals associated with these emotions can be considered toxic and can, if left in the brain for too long, cause actual physical damage. In many ways the biochemicals associated with Play are the opposite of those associated with Fear, Anxiety and Anger and can balance their negative effects. There is even evidence to suggest that the acidic nature of chemicals associated with Anger, Fear and Anxiety can be offset by the anti-acid nature of some of the chemicals associated with Play. This means that play has a unique biochemical balancing potential that can help children to cope with fear, anger and anxiety.
Put simply, when a child is playing, the negative effects of anger, fear and anxiety are lessened allowing children to cope and ultimately thrive. In addition Play helps maintain a positive biochemical environment for growth, development and for healing emotional damage.
As a final interesting piece of bio-chemistry, a brain growth hormone called BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor) is also produced when children play. This “brain fertilizer” speeds up brain growth in the same way that Baby Bio helps plants grow. This natural organic hormone has been shown in some cases to be as effective as behaviour medication such as Ritalin.
I recently witnessed a child running to his nursery with his hood on his head like Batman. The look of joy on his face was clearly evident as were the high levels of physical activity he was engaging in. The child’s mum then shouted, “Get that off your head you’ll mess your hair up!”
As a society we seem to be prioritising the wrong things in life. Systematically restricting play whilst increasing opportunities for sedentary behaviours through screen time is creating a crisis for our children’s physical health and development. I also believe we are removing a fundamental emotional balancing process leading to a further crisis in mental health, emotional well-being and resilience. We need to get back to what is truly important and wherever possible stand up for children’s rights to play.