My Connections to Play

When I was a child, I remember playing all day long. I would go to a daycare during the day and we would play dress up and climb on the rocks outside pretending to be good guys and bad guys. The best days were when the caregivers would let us take the dress up bin outside. We would use costumes and pretend to be cops and robbers and princesses and doctors. At home, I lived in a condominium that owned many acres of woods and trails. Our families would let us roam the woods as long as we were back by dinnertime. I remember my mom telling me many days to "go outside and don't come back until it's dark". The most fun I had was simply exploring- it was really cool to find old (broken) tree-houses, bottles, old tires, and other 'junk' in the woods (it felt like we were discovering it). When I was very young, I remember my family would let me go outside to play as long as I stayed within a certain distance (we used an old rock-wall as a boundary) and I would ride my bike and my scooter and run around and play with the other kids in the condo's. I learned so much from this unsupervised play, it really built a foundation for me to be a confident person and to trust myself and my abilities- I have fond memories of getting stuck in mud, of breaking my arm falling off a bicycle, and other things that weren't fun at the time but taught me lessons about myself. Play taught me about myself and about my interests and skills and helped me make sense of my world.
Unfortunately, nowadays, play has changed a lot. Parents are so afraid to even send their children outside because it is so risky nowadays. Moreover, a lot of people live in areas where there are few play spaces for children (a lack of open woods, a lack of playgrounds, etc). Though we had PlayStation's and other types of screen media when I was a child, we did not use them like the children today use them. I babysat a young child for several months who would use his Nintendo from the time he got out of school to the time he went to bed. I think we are seeing more and more of this type of play as well as structured activities in the lives of young children. Childhood and play is definitely not the same as it used to be. Play was essential to my life, and I hope that it can regain its value as a central focus in the lives of children today and in the future.