In our play we reveal what kind of people we are.
Ovid
Roman poet
43 BC–17 or 18 AD
Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.
Plato
Greek philosopher
427–347 BC
Whoever wants to understand much must play much.
Gottfried Benn
German physician
18861956
Although young childhood for me was several decades ago, family vacations spent on my grandparent’s farm was always a time for some serious play, which meant a lot of interaction with the environment. I can still feel the cool grass on my bare feet, the scratchy feeling on the back of my knees as I hung upside down from the limb on the apple tree. The creek ran cool and clear. Mint grew along the banks so there was always a cool, damp, minty smell, as I waded in the water, my toes curly around the slippery rocks. My brothers and I would take turns, turning over rocks, looking for crawdads. 
Winter on the farm meant ice skating on the pond, sledding down hill with my brothers on the old toboggan, making Christmas cookies, baking pies, playing the old Christmas albums over and over again on the record player, and preparing Christmas dinner. These were all activities in which I loved to participate. 
Other aspects of my childhood included, my Sasha doll, the old chalkboard, and my favorite books: “My First Delights” by Tasha Tudor, “Blueberries for Sal” by Robert McCloskey, “Corduroy” by Don Freeman, “The Story About Ping”, by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese and “Little Black, a Pony”, by Walter Farley. The story lines of books had a significant impact upon me. As I moved into middle childhood, books like “The Black Stallion”, “The Boxcar Children”, and all of the “Little House” books became models of family relationships and collaborations within the context of life and survival.
My mother took the lead role in supporting play in our household. She believed in kindness and respect for all living things, the attainment of knowledge and practicing of skills through play and through reading. For example, many of my friends had Barbie dolls, but I had a Sasha doll. As a progressively minded woman of the 1970’s my mother was fiercely against the Barbie image of women. With the chalkboard, I played school, teaching my younger brother how to write. Of course my mother saw it as an intrinsically motivated form of reinforcing my own writing skills, and my little brother was happy, learning, and “out of her hair”. My mother also believed in the healthy aspects of outdoor play.
From birth until I was age 7, I lived with my family in a suburb of Indianapolis. Opportunities for connecting with the outdoor environment were limited. In remedy to this, our family moved “to the country”. There we had a pond in which my brothers and I swam and played, frequently throughout the summer. The pond provided hours of exploration time as we caught snakes, frogs, tadpoles, and turtles.
The pond was surrounded by wild black berry bushes, which helped to satisfy our “gathering” instincts. In the winter, the pond occassionally became an ice-skating rink. About ½ of the property was forested with hard and soft wood deciduous tress, which included Sugar Maple trees. And yep, we “tapped” the trees for sap, boiling it down to make maple syrup. To add to all of this, we bought several horses. My mother and I rode a fair amount together out on the trail. That was the play aspect of having horses. She became my riding instructor. I joined the Morgan County 4-H Horse and Pony Club, through which I competed in the county and state fairs each year.
I remember too, that summer brought with it evenings with my parents sitting on the deck, looking out toward the pond talking, bird book and binoculars close at hand; my brothers and I running around the yard and the field catching lightening bugs. Compared to many, my childhood was rich with quality play. I often wonder how the play of my brothers and myself would have evolved if we had remained in the suburbs, like most families do.
I am more than a little concerned about children watching television to obtain downtown instead of playing. As clinical psychologist Miquela Rivera points out, "A play deprived environment in which children rely too much on 'screen time' - video games, television, movies, and computer-based diversion - to fill their time is sterile and seldom draws upon creativity."(Rivera, 2009) Almon, describes these children as spend[ing] hours, sitting still in front of screens - television, video games, and computers - absorbing other people's stories and imaginations, unable to create and act out their own. (Almon, 2002) How many t.v. shows, movies, and games are about people who sit around watching t.v. shows, movies, and playing video games? Not many! This activity is just not very interesting. We need to be careful to not become that which is mind-numbing and uninteresting.
Almon, K. (2002). The vital role of play in early childhood education. Gateways, 43. Retrieved from http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/GW43almon.pdf
Rivera, M. (2009). The powerful effect of play in a child’s education. Education Digest, 75(2), 50–52.
