Spontaneous Play in the 21st
Century
Fergus P.
Hughes
University of
Wisconsin – Green Bay
Play is the
most natural of childhood activities and one of the most frequently
observed. It is an activity that eludes
simple definition, although the criteria used to define play typically include
freedom of choice, personal enjoyment, and a focus on the activity as an end in
itself rather than on its outcomes (Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983). Freedom of choice seems to be an essential
component of a definition of play. As
Vandenberg (1998) expressed it, “The excitement of play results from the sheer
exercise of freedom over necessity (p. 303)”.
The major
premises of this chapter are that (a) spontaneous child-initiated play
facilitates child development; (b) play may be spontaneous in that it is
generated by the player, but it occurs within a sociocultural context and is
dependent on that context for support, and (c) the social and cultural
conditions that support spontaneous play are less in evidence today than they
were in the past, for a variety of reasons.
These reasons include increasing complexity and specialization in
children’s play materials, increasing organization in children’s games, and a
growing tendency to characterize rough and tumble play as symptomatic of
pathology rather than as a natural activity of childhood.
Cognitive
theorists have long supported the view that spontaneous imaginative play
facilitates children’s intellectual development. For example, Piaget (1962, 1969) maintained that “games of
construction” often arise from symbolic play, and these games “are initially
imbued with play symbolism, but tend later to constitute genuine adaptations
(mechanical constructions, etc.), or solutions to problems and intelligent
creations (1969, p. 59)”. Thus he argued that spontaneous play facilitates
intellectual development in that it can lead to discoveries about the physical
environment. Vygotsky (1986) suggested
that pretend play facilitates the mastery of symbolism, the understanding of a
relationship between the signifier and the signified, which is one of the
cognitive foundations of literacy.
Imaginative play frees behavior and thought from the domination of the immediate
perceptual field, and represents a middle ground between the literalness of
seeing meaning as inherent in objects themselves and a form of thinking that
totally separated from real situations (Kozulin, 1996)
Research
on children’s intellectual development indicates that a number of cognitive
skills, including measurement, equivalency, balance, spatial concepts, conservation, decentration, reversibility, and logical classification are enhanced during play, and
particularly during the course of symbolic play (Copple, Cocking, & Matthews,
1984; Elder & Pederson, 1978; Jackowitz & Watson, 1980; Piaget, 1962; Rubin, 1980; Ungerer, Zelazo, Kearsley, &
O'Leary, 1981). In addition, symbolic play is thought to
afford children the opportunity for creative expression, as well as to actually
facilitate creative processes, including divergent thinking (Fein, 1987; Russ, 1993).
Group
symbolic play, or sociodramatic play, allows children to create alternative
worlds, encourages them to engage in subjunctive representation of
reality. It enhances the child’s need
to organize a complex environment into meaningful scripts and schemas for
possible action in the future, and encourages children to plan, to consider a
variety of courses of action, and to communicate their plans and courses of
action other people (Bretherton, 1998; Singer & Singer, 1998). It stimulates the "what if" type
of thinking that forms the basis for mature hypothetical reasoning and problem
solving. It stimulates children to
think creatively, and has been found to predict later creativity (Dansky,
1980). In addition, extensive
involvement in sociodramatic play seems to improve children's memory, language
development, and cognitive perspective-taking abilities (Burns & Brainerd,
1979; Dansky, 1980; Saltz, Dixon, & Johnson, 1977).
Language
and Literacy. There is a growing
body of evidence in support of a relationship between various forms of
spontaneous play and linguistic development.
In fact, all of the four aspects of the human language system (the
phonological, the syntactic, the semantic, and the pragmatic) are incorporated
into young children’s play (Kuczaj, 1985). Garvey (1984) suggested
that there are four different types of language play, which roughly correspond
to the different aspects of language (1) play with sounds and noises, (2) play
with linguistic systems, such as those involving word meanings or grammatical
constructions, (3) play with rhymes and words, and (4) play with the
conventions of speech. While the
purpose of language play is not fully understood, it is noteworthy that
language play involving sounds and sound structures has been observed in
lower animal species as well as in human children, and is thought to serve
important developmental functions; in human beings such play is thought to
facilitate cognitive, social, and linguistic development (Kuczaj, 1998).
As
an example of play with sounds, the spontaneous babbling of the infant in the
first year could easily fall within the definition of play since it is
intrinsically-motivated, freely-chosen, devoid of external goals, and
apparently pleasurable for children.
Such play can facilitate word usage because parents may unintentionally
influence their children to make sounds appropriate to the language that they
speak. In that sense, the sound play of
the infant may ultimately result in advances in sound production. By the end of the first year, infants
produce a variety of playful sounds with their mouths, and sound play occurs
among older children as well. Three-
and four-year-old children become fascinated with songs, chants, and rhymes,
and enjoy producing nonsensical rhyming patterns, and play of this type is
related to language development in that the ability to rhyme is highly
correlated with early reading achievement in children (Bergen & Mauer,
2000).
Solitary
play with the syntactic and semantic elements of language appears in the second
year. Children repeat sentences, each
time substituting a new word of the same grammatical category: a child might
say "Daddy go out", "Mommy go out", "Baby go out"
or "Doggie fall down", "Kitty fall down", "Baby fall
down" . They construct and deconstruct sentences (e.g., "Give it to
me", Give the cup to me"), ask questions and provide their own
answers themselves, recite lists of words, numbers, or letters, and engage
themselves in conversation.
Solitary
experimental play with the rules of word order is thought to form the basis for
the development of the grammatical structures of language (Garvey, 1984; Ratner & Bruner, 1978). While the language of social interaction is goal-directed and
devoid of the element of playfulness found in the solitary monologue, solitary
language play gives children an opportunity to experiment with the elements of
speech (Garvey, 1984).
Since
language and symbolic play both depend on representational skills, it is not
surprising that efforts have been made to relate play to linguistic
development, and to literacy. The
connection has been clearly established, although the direction of influence is
more difficult to ascertain.
Experimental research to demonstrate that symbolic play directly
influences language comprehension has often taken the form of having one group
of children listen to a story and then play out the scenes, while another group
either engages in discussion of the story or engages in unrelated
activities. Later the children's memory
for details of the story is tested. The
finding that emerges in studies of this type is that the play group displays
the greatest understanding of, and memory for, the story's details (Saltz, Dixon, & Johnson,
1977; Williamson & Silvern, 1990).
The
language-symbolic play connection is further supported by the results of
correlational studies indicating a relationship between scores on standardized
symbolic play inventories and language measures such as the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test (Laasko, , Poikkeus, Eklund, & Lyytinen, 1999; Lim, 1998;
Lyytinen, Laasko, Poikkeus, & Rita, 1999), and between parental reports of
symbolic play and literacy tasks such as rhyming and segmenting sentences into
word units (Bergen & Mauer, 2000).
Finally, there appears to be evidence of a circular relationship between
pretend play and linguistic development:
Fein, Ardila-Rey, and Groth (2000) reported that the experience of
acting out stories as they were read to them resulted in an increased interest
in dramatic play in a group of five- and six-year-old children.
Convergent
Problem Solving. Single-solution
problems require the ability to engage in convergent problem solving (Pepler & Ross, 1981), which is characterized by
bringing a variety of isolated pieces of information together to arrive at one
correct solution. Illustrative of such
problem solving is the task devised by Sylva, Bruner, and Genova
(1976), and later replicated by Barnett (1985), who asked preschool children
seated at a table to try to obtain an
object beyond their reach without standing up or leaving their chairs. Two sticks were provided, neither long
enough to reach the desired object, but if the sticks were clamped together,
the children could attain the goal. One
group played freely with the problem solving materials prior to engaging in the
task, a second group watched as the experimenter solved the problem before they
were asked to do it, and a third group was given neither the play experience
nor the opportunity to observe the problem being solved. The children who either played with the
materials in advance or watched an adult solve the problem were the most
successful problem-solvers. In
addition, the play group appeared to be more highly motivated to solve the
problem, and worked at it more persistently than did the observation group, who
either solved the problem immediately or simply gave up.
Divergent
Thinking. Divergent thinking, the
ability to branch out from a starting point and consider a variety of possible
solutions, involves fluidity of thinking, broad scanning ability, and free
association. It is thought to be a
major cognitive process underlying creativity (Guilford, 1968; Russ &
Kaugars, 2001). The connection between play and divergent thinking has been
established in various lines of research.
First, a relationship has been found between divergent problem solving
ability and the characteristics of children's play materials (Dansky &
Silverman, 1973, 1975; Pepler &
Ross, 1981). For example, Pepler and Ross (1981) gave sixty-four preschool
children the opportunity to play repeatedly with convergent (e.g., puzzles with
one correct solution) or divergent (e.g., blocks, which can be assembled in a
variety of ways) materials. When the
children were later asked to solve a variety of problems, those who had engaged
in divergent object play were more flexible and more original in their problem
solving approaches, and quicker than those in the convergent play group to
abandon ineffective problem-solving approaches. The researchers concluded that the experience of interacting with
toys that suggest a single correct way to be played with may teach children
that there are correct answers, and may encourage them to seek them out. Playing with open-ended materials, on the other
hand, may suggest that there are numerous approaches that can be taken to any
problem.
While
object play has clearly been related to divergent problem solving ability in
young children, so too has make-believe, or fantasy, play. For example, Dansky (1980) observed
ninety-six preschool children in a free-play situation, and categorized them as
high or low in their pretend play ability.
He then assigned them to one of three conditions: (1) free play, (2)
imitative play, and (3) a problem-solving task. Dansky (1980) found that the children in the free-play situation
performed the best on the divergent problem solving task, but only if they were
spontaneously high in their level of make-believe play. He concluded that it is not play in itself
that predicts problem solving skill, but the extent to which children become
involved in make-believe when they are playing.
It
has been suggested that the link between fantasy play and divergent thinking
can be found in the concept of decentration (Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg,
1983), which involves the ability to attend simultaneously to many features of
the environment and to transform objects and situations while at the same time
understanding their original identities and states, to imagine things as they
are and as they were at one and the same time.
A child engaged in make-believe knows that the object he is sitting in
really is a cardboard box, but pretends it is a car; in a sense, it is both a
box and a car at once, and perhaps it was a submarine ten minutes earlier. Make-believe play, therefore, provides
evidence of a considerable amount of intellectual flexibility in the child, and
flexibility is a key ingredient in the creative process.
An
alternative explanation of the play-divergent thinking connection was suggested
by Russ (1993; 1999; Russ & Kaugars, 2001), who maintained that
affect-laden fantasy underlies both symbolic play and creative expression. Thoughts, ideas, or fantasies that contain
affective themes such as aggression or anxiety are illustrations of
affect-laden fantasy, and such fantasy has been related empirically to creative
problem solving (Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987; Russ & Grossman-McKee,
1990). Symbolic play is characterized
by both fantasy and a high degree of affect, and so one might expect to find a
relationship between pretend play and creativity. In fact, such a relationship has been found repeatedly in the
research literature (Russ & Grossman-McKee, 1990; Russ & Kaugars, 2001;
Russ, Robbins, & Christiano, 1999).
As
is true of the research on language and literacy, the direction of influence
between play and divergent problem solving is neither simple nor direct. Instead, the relationship is both complex
and reciprocal: pretend play may enhance divergent problem solving skills, but
the acquisition of problem solving skills also enhances the quality of pretend
play (Wyver & Spence, 1999).
Play
and Socialization. A variety of play forms have been found to
facilitate aspects of social development in children. For example, physical play between parent and child is thought to
have important socializing functions (Carson, Burks, & Parke, 1993;
MacDonald & Parke, 1986), and a relationship has been found between the
amount of physical play in the home and children's competence with peers:
children rated as popular by their teachers are the most likely to have
parents, and particularly fathers, who engage in a good deal of physical play
with them (Carson, Burks, & Parke, 1993).
The rough and tumble play with peers that occurs throughout childhood
but peaks during the elementary school years (Pellegrini & Smith, 1998), is
thought to enhance children’s abilities to encode and decode social signals,
and thus may enhance social cognition (Bjorklund & Brown, 1998).
Involvement in
sociodramatic play seems to improve children's ability to cooperate in group
settings, to participate in social activities, and to understand human
relationships (Smith & Sydall, 1978; Smith, Dalgleish, & Herzmark,
1981). Role-taking skills can be enhanced
by gently supervised forms of social fantasy play (Burns & Brainerd, 1979; Golumb & Cornelius, 1977; Saltz, Dixon, & Johnson,
1977). While most of the research in this area points to the necessity
of an adult "social director" to stimulate children to play in a way
that enriches perspective-taking ability, some psychologists (e.g., Rubin & Maioni, 1975) suggest that role-taking
ability may be enhanced by social play that is totally spontaneous and not at
all influenced by adults.
The value of
spontaneity in child-generated pretense as a facilitator of social development
can be seen in an examination of the consequence of using adult-assigned roles
in socio-dramatic play as opposed to allowing children to choose roles for
themselves. If an adult assigns the
roles, the child’s freedom to self-regulate is diminished, and the child is
less likely to define the activity as play.
However, if the adult allows children to choose their own roles, they
begin to explore issues of "control and compromise" (Howes, Unger,
& Matheson, 1992). They engage in a
complicated and delicate process of negotiation while they assign roles to
themselves and to their peers. Indeed
they often bargain about play roles (E.g., Shelley: "I want to be the
airplane pilot. I never get to be the
pilot." Scott: "Yes you
do. You were the pilot yesterday. Now it’s my turn.") and themes (E.g.,
Jean: "We're a family going to the beach." Joan: "I don't want to go to the beach. That isn't any fun. I want to be a firefighter." Jean: "O.K. You could put out a fire at
the beach."). Negotiations of this
sort can encourage children to communicate more effectively with peers, and to
resolve some of the inevitable conflicts that arise in the interaction of
preschoolers (Howes, Unger, & Matheson, 1992).
Imaginative
play cannot and should not be considered without reference to the social
context in which it occurs. The freedom
to play, and to play as one chooses, can vary from one cultural milieu to
another, depending on the amount of play space and free time that is available,
and on parental and general societal attitudes about the relative importance of
play and work in children’s lives (Roopnarine, Lasker, Sacks, & Stores,
1998). It has been suggested
(Roopnarine, Shin, Donovan, & Suppal, 2000) that despite an impressive
research base detailing the developmental progression of pretend play and its
various benefits, there remains a major gap in our understanding of the
intersection between pretend play and the sociocultural system in which it
occurs.
The necessity of considering the
social context of pretend play is underscored by research on the
characteristics of representational activity in the one-year-old child. While Piaget (1962) characterized the
initial signs of representational ability as solitary in nature, and implied
they occur naturally without adult intervention, pretend play is from the
outset an intensely social activity between parents and children (Haight &
Miller, 1992; Haight, Parke, & Black, 1997). Not only does pretend play usually occur in a social context, but
social pretend play in the second year has been found to be more sustained,
complex, and diverse than is solitary make-believe ( Haight & Miller,
1992). Mothers typically encourage
their children to engage in acts of make-believe, particularly when, at the
beginning of the second year, the child is less likely to pretend spontaneously
( Tamis-LeMonda & Damast, 1993; Tamis-LeMonda & Bornstein, 1991). They demonstrate an activity, such as
pretending to talk on a toy telephone, and then offer it to the child with
encouragement to do the same thing. As
the child matures, mother-generated acts of make-believe decrease and are
replaced by spontaneous child-generated pretense; sensitive mothers match their
play to the child's level of sophistication and are the most effective at
enhancing children’s play (Tamis-LeMonda & Bornstein, 1991; Tamis-LeMonda
& Damast, 1993).
Research on
cultural variations in the group symbolic play of older preschool children
reinforces the view that the sociocultural context has a significant impact on
play. Imaginative pretend play has been
observed most often in cultures that expose children to a greater amount of
stimulation and a greater amount of novelty, and/or those in which children
have opportunities to make choices about their play activities and companions
without adult supervision or interference (Edwards, 2000).
In reaction
to the observed cultural differences, some scholars warn of the danger of
simply attempting to document whether or not pretend play can be found in a
given society, particularly if cross-cultural variations are described as
deficiencies. Instead they suggest that
we ask how children use pretend play differently in the different
contexts in which they develop (Roopnarine, Shin, Donovan, & Suppal,
2000). In some cultures play themes
resemble the domestic scenes and work roles of adults, and may allow children
to practice adult roles; in others the roles and scripts are far removed from
reality (Edwards, 2000).
Even within a
particular culture, variations in spontaneous imaginative play can be observed,
a point that is illustrated by Farver’s research on the contrasts between the
play of Anglo-American and Korean –American children in Los Angeles nursery
schools (Farver & Lee-Shin, 2000; Farver, Kim, & Lee, 1995; Farver,
Kim, & Lee-Shin, 2000; Farver & Shin, 1997). Korean pre-school teachers, even if educated in the United
States, saw the primary value of early childhood education as teaching academic
skills and good work habits. Their
classrooms were highly structured and contained few materials that might foster
creative play. In fact, play of any
sort was a rare occurrence in the Korean-American pre-school. Anglo-American teachers were more likely to
encourage independence of thought, they provided a substantial amount of
material (e.g., props, miniature life toys) designed to encourage the use of
imagination, and spontaneous play was much more in evidence in their
classrooms.
The variables
that predict the occurrence of spontaneous pretend play seem to transcend
culture. When Farver & Lee-Shin
(2000) examined the degree to which Korean-immigrant mothers living in the
United States had been assimilated into American culture, they found that those
mothers who were “separated” or “marginal” in their acculturation styles were
less accepting and encouraging of their children’s play, and less likely to
actually play with their children than were those who were more “integrated” or
“assimilated”. Similarly, Farver, Kim,
& Lee-Shin (2000) reported that children’s individual characteristics are
better predictors of pretend play than are ethnicity and culture in themselves. Regardless of ethnicity, children’s style of
interaction with peers, the degree to which they were successful in their
interactions, and their scores on a test of creativity were significantly
related to their level of make-believe play.
American
children entering the 21st century seem to be less likely to
determine when and where they will play because of a number of restrictions in
the physical environment, including increasing urbanization, a decreasing sense
of community, fear for personal safety, and difficulty in obtaining access to
natural play spaces (Dargan & Zeitlin, 2000; Frost & Jacobs, 1995;
Frost, Wortham, & Reifel, 2001).
Beyond the physical restrictions, there are other indicators of change
in sociocultural support for spontaneous play, and these include the increasing
prominence of play materials with highly specialized functions, the replacement
of invented games by organized sports supervised and directed by adults, and a
tendency to view rough and tumble play as indicative of pathology.
Specialized
Play Materials. As far as can be
determined, toys have always been a part of the play experience for
children. In wall paintings dating from
ancient Egyptian civilization children are depicted as playing with dolls and
balls, and jumping rope. The toy
manufacturing industry is thought to date back to southern Germany during the
Renaissance (1300-1600), when, in addition to homemade toys such as tops and
kites that were available during the Middle Ages, there were elaborate wooden
dolls, lead soldiers, and little glass animals (Somerville, 1982).
Until the
last quarter of the twentieth century, new varieties of toys were slow to
emerge, and there was little change from one generation to the next. Recent years, however, have seen the
appearance of a variety of new forms of play materials that are highly
structured, highly complicated, and technologically advanced. They include television, videos, computer
games and programs, CD’s and DVD’s, and interactive toys that contain computer
chips. Such toys appear to encourage
activity that might be more accurately referred to as “entertainment” than as
spontaneous play, and they often substitute the imagination of their creators
for those of the children who interact with them. The nature of spontaneous play may change as a result of the
“robot revolution”, and the outcomes for children could be negative in terms of
restriction of the imagination, a sedentary lifestyle, and decreased
interaction with parents and peers (Frost, Wortham, & Reifel, 2001; Oravec,
2001; Saffo & Simon, 1998; Sardar, 1998).
Little is known about the long-range outcomes of play with electronic
toys since the children who use them have yet to reach adulthood, and since
today’s adults find themselves providing children with toys that they
themselves had never even conceived of when they were young.
An
illustration of toy of recent vintage that could constitute an impediment to
spontaneous play in childhood is the “interactive toy”. Interactive toys first appeared in the
1960’s, when the pull of a string would result in a recorded statement. Today, however, interactive toys are more
sophisticated, typically containing microchips and having the capacity to store
information and to respond to input from the environment (Oravec, 2001). An example is “Amazing Ally” doll that
sings songs, tells jokes, and orders a pizza on her cell phone.
Interactive
toys may encourage children to ask the wrong question when playing with
them. Instead of asking, “What can I do
with this toy?” the child may ask, “What does this toy do?” In addition, these toys have been criticized
because they provide inadequate feedback to the child who plays with them. The toy may ask a question, and if the child
does not provide a correct response, the toy simply continues to repeat the
question, leaving a young child confused.
However, one of the most often expressed concerns about interactive toys
is that, if the play material defines the parameters of an interaction, children
do not have the opportunity to create and define the interaction
themselves (Oravec, 2001).
Even traditional toys such as building
blocks have changed considerably since they first appeared in terms of
complexity and reliance on technology.
As an example, the 1958 version of the LEGO block with the patented
stud-and-tube coupling system was sold in sets consisted only of standard
rectangular bricks and sloping roof tile bricks. By the late 1960’s, model sets appeared, complete with building
instructions, and there were 57 sets and 25 vehicles available, many of them
motorized. Parents today can purchase
the “Super Car”, introduced in 1994, which contains 13,000 elements.
One wonders
if the nature of play with LEGO blocks has changed as the simple “binding
brick” gradually evolved into a complex puzzle with 13,000 pieces. There is no correct way to construct with
simple blocks, but there is a correct way of assembling a pirate ship or an
antique car, and so the complicated block-building materials available today
are similar to puzzles and may require a degree of convergent problem solving (Pepler & Ross, 1981), while the simpler open-ended
blocks of the past stimulated children to engage in divergent problem
solving. Imaginative play may occur
with the finished construction in the modern block-building set, since highly
structured materials can facilitate sociodramatic play, particularly in a child
who is low in fantasy predisposition (Frost, Shin, & Jacobs, 1998; McLoyd,
1983). In fact, young children have
been found to play longer with highly realistic toys, although they play more
creatively with less realistic ones (McGhee, Ethridge, & Benz, 1984). Regardless of what happens after the
building project is completed, however, a lesser degree of imagination,
flexibility, and spontaneity is required in the building process itself if the
materials are complex and a correct solution is required.
If allowed to
do so and provided with interesting materials, children will play freely,
spontaneously, and imaginatively. A toy
with a specialized function, however, or one so sophisticated that it performs
a variety of activities that once were performed only in the mind of the player
(e.g., a doll calls out for pizza on her cell phone), then the toy becomes a
source of entertainment rather than a plaything. As children come to expect their toys to dazzle and entertain
them, they may contribute less of themselves to the play experience. The result is that spontaneous play will be
diminished.
An intriguing
observation about the changing nature of manufactured toys was made by
Roopnarine (Roopnarine, Lasker, Sacks, & Stores, 1998): as American toys
reach a larger market throughout the world, children in other cultures are
given play materials that have little cultural significance to them. A Barbie Doll or a G.I. Joe may bear little
relationship to the world of a child from a radically different cultural
milieu. If children’s play reflects the
values of their cultures, what significance would such toys have for a child in
a small Kenyan or Chinese village?
Furthermore, children may feel that these interesting and colorful
objects are “better” than the traditional toys that were available to their
parents, and by implication may conclude that they are products of a better
culture.
Increasingly
Organized Games. Piaget (1962) spoke
of the difference between games with rules transmitted directly from adults or
older children and games with rules that emerge spontaneously from the
interaction of the children involved.
While the former are passed on purely “through the social pressure of
children”, the latter “are the outcome of socialization…which, though it may
involve relationships between younger and older children, is often only a
matter of relationships between equals or contemporaries.” (p. 143). Self-created and spontaneous games were the
most interesting to Piaget and the most meaningful for development because, in
the process of creating rather than simply adapting to rules, children develop
a more complete understanding of rules themselves, and particularly for the
rules for social engagement.
Rule
games invented by children themselves seem to be more valuable in fostering an
understanding of the meaning and relevance of rules than are rule games passed
down from a higher authority (Castle, 1998; Castle & Wilson, 1993). Invented games encourage children to develop
organizational skills, understand the perspectives of others as they attempt to
negotiate the rules, understand concepts of fairness, and develop a sense of
autonomy (Castle, 1998; Castle & Wilson, 1993).
As
we enter the 2ist century, it seems that commercial games with predetermined
instructions and increasingly organized sports are replacing the invented games
of childhood. The culture of sports,
with externally imposed rules, referees, uniforms, and an emphasis on outcomes
(winning) clearly differs from spontaneous, self-regulated play. In fact, spontaneous play has been described
as the “inversion of sport”; unlike organized sport, spontaneous play is
intrinsically motivated, flexible, and regulated by the players themselves so
that it may change as the interest of the players change from moment to moment
( Frost, Wortham, & Reifel, 2001).
Rough and
Tumble Play as Pathology. Rough-and-tumble
play, a form of social engagement consisting of activities such as play
fighting, hitting, wrestling, and chasing with the intent of fighting, is
believed to constitute approximately 15% of all the vigorous physical play
observed in children (Humphreys & Smith, 1984; Smith, 1989). While it is
not known why immature organisms engage in such play, Pellegrini and Smith
(1998) suggested that its primary function might be to allow children, and
particularly boys, to establish their status within a dominance hierarchy. This appears to be the function of rough and
tumble in other mammals, such as chimpanzees; it is a relatively safe way to
establish one’s status within the group without the risk of injury that may
occur during genuine aggressive acts (Pacquette, 1994).
There is a
correlation between the appearance of this activity and the maturity of the
frontal lobes of the brain. The
executive functions of the frontal lobes include reflection, imagination,
empathy, and play/creativity, and when these develop, they allow for greater
behavioral flexibility and foresight, for well-focused goal-directed
behavior. As the frontal lobes mature,
the frequency of rough and tumble play goes down, and damage to the frontal
lobes is associated with a higher level of playfulness (Panksepp, Normansell,
Coc, & Siviy, 1995). In fact,
surgical reduction of the frontal lobes of young rats results in an increased
level of playfulness and hyperactivity.
However, when these surgically altered rats are given ample opportunity
to engage in rough and tumble activity, the decline in such play with maturity
is even more dramatic than the decline that occurs in the normal rat, leading
to the speculation that rough and tumble play is not only correlated with
frontal lobe development but may actually promote it (Panksepp, Burgdorf, Turner, & Walter, 1997).
Spontaneous
rough and tumble play may be increasingly seen as a sign of pathology rather
than as an ordinary childhood activity), a growing intolerance corresponds that
with one of the more intriguing trends in the diagnosis of childhood
psychological problems: the dramatic increase in the diagnosis of attention
deficit hyperactivity disorders in the late 20th century (Panksepp, 1998). It has been estimated that in the year 2000
15% of American children (about 8 million) were so diagnosed, up from 1% at the
beginning of this century and 5% at the beginning of this decade (Armstrong,
1995). It seems unlikely that there
really has been an increased prevalence of genuine neurological disorders in
the United States; a more likely interpretation is that we have redefined what
we consider to be “normal” childhood behaviors, and spontaneous energetic
physical play is sometimes interpreted as a form of pathology (Panksepp, 1998).
There
is evidence that genuine attention deficits in children are correlated with
reduced frontal lobe size and activity (Barkley, 1997), although brain-imaging
data is obviously not a prerequisite for a diagnosis of ADHD. Whether or not a neural disorder is
present, however, findings from animal research suggest that rough and tumble
play not only reflects frontal lobe development but also promotes it. In other words, active, energetic, spontaneous
physical play may facilitate neurological development. If this is the case, the inhibition of play
through the use of behavioral restrictions or medication might actually
contribute to developmental abnormalities.
Indeed, while psychostimulant medications such as Ritalin are quite
effective in focusing children’s attention, another of their major effects of
is to reduce the urge of young organisms to engage in rough and tumble play
(Panksepp, Normansell, Cox, Crepeau, & Sacks, 1987).
Since
learning requires attention and focus, vigorous physical play may appear to be
antithetical to the educational process.
Teachers may believe that opportunities for physical play may make
children, and particularly those diagnosed with attention disorders, even more
difficult to teach. Panksepp (1998)
maintained that, as is true of other appetites, the need for rough and tumble
is self- regulating process. Once the
need is satisfied, the organism will return to a relatively quiet state. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that
if children are deprived of physical play, they will play with even greater
vigor when given the opportunity to do so (Pellegrini, Huberty, & Jones,
1995; Smith & Hagan, 1980). If there
is an appetite for rough and tumble play, and if such play not only reflects
but also promotes neurological maturity, it seems that it would be
counterproductive and possibly harmful to try to prevent it.
Conclusions:
Several years
ago, Brian Sutton-Smith solicited from a wide variety of scholars their
thoughts on a number of issues related to play. Perhaps the most intriguing question in the survey was, “How do
you think children will be playing in the year 2050?” The temptation is to respond that children will always be
children and will always find a way to play.
Essentially this is the case.
When Edwards (2000) re-examined data on play from her Six Cultures
study done during the 1950’s and broadened it with data collected during the
1960’s and 1970’s, environmental changes over the years resulted in changes in
societal reinforcement for play.
Improving literacy, increased availability of formal education, a
decreasing sense of isolation, and greater exposure to the media and mass
communication have all had an influence on play. However, every variety of play could still be found in each of
the cultures studied. Edwards (2000)
observed that a community may reinforce play to a greater or lesser extent, but
it is children themselves who instigate it.
The questions
raised in this chapter should not be taken as concerns that spontaneous play
will disappear in the 21st century.
If the research on play reveals anything, it is that play is a natural
and universal activity of childhood.
Cross-cultural research reveals, however, that play reflects and is
influenced by cultural values, and regional differences in play have been
documented repeatedly. If we conceive
of cultural variations across time instead of space, there is reason to believe
that play will change over time. If, in
fact, spontaneous play arises from an atmosphere of openness and freedom, there
is reason for concern that, while play will continue to exist, it will be less
spontaneous and less free. The
challenge to educators and psychologists is to guarantee that children will continue
to have opportunities for spontaneous play.
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