The Importance of Play and Play Therapy
Fantasy or pretend play is an important mode of expression for young children
Through active, imaginative play children express their thoughts and feelings, adopt different roles and perspectives, and organize the world on their own terms. Play provides a safe outlet to rehearse future events and reconstruct past events, both as children fear them and as they desire them; children are the author, the director, and the hero in all episodes; they rule, they triumph, they reward and punish. Play also allows children to process and internalize the important routines and interactions that make up their daily lives. Even before they can speak, toddlers love to reenact the rituals of feeding, bathing, and bedtime with a doll or stuffed animal.
Children age 1-4
Small children, aged one to four like to have adults sit beside them and watch them play, help with whatever toy needs adjustment, and participate when invited.
Very young children engage in play which is simple, repetitive and concrete such as “he is going up the stairs to bed,” “she is having her dinner now,” or “it’s time to go to the park.” They go into a bit of a reverie, occasionally referencing the play or asking the adult to chime in with a comment. Typically, a child will hold up the doll for ‘a kiss good night’ or say something such as, “now you say, it’s time for bed.” It’s important to let the child lead and not interrupt the flow. When adults insert themselves too much into the play or take over, children may get very upset; they almost always protest in one way or another, or cease playing. Gradually, when parents offer new suggestions, new possibilities, new ideas, children respond with newer suggestions, more possibilities and better ideas!
As children develop more language and knowledge, the themes and content of their play become more elaborated and detailed, and the characters become more complex and more diverse. Children of four, five, and six can become engrossed in their play for a half hour or more at a time and do not need adults to be immediately present, as often. At this stage, children who are immersed in their play may look surprised or annoyed when interrupted. This is private! At other times, children may delight in long interactive episodes of fantasy play with their parents or include their parents by explaining the nature of the plots and characters. Parents often get a whole more insight into their children’s thoughts, feelings, and relationships through play than they do by asking direct questions.
Children age 5-10
Older children aged five to ten are usually able to interact in fantasy play with others, allowing friends and classmates to interject freely and spontaneously in the development of the ‘story,’ although there are typically ground rules set out at the beginning and various negotiations about the direction of the play, as it unfolds. Older children revert to individual fantasy play when they are alone, when they are tired, or when they are stressed. The pleasure of creating a scene entirely their own way without being interrupted or edited is relaxing and restorative.
Simply ‘being with’ children
That it is ideal for adults to simply ‘be with’ small children while they play is counterintuitive to some. Busy parents who have limited playtime often think they should be very active in moments when they do play. For example, “let’s put all the animals over here; I’m going to roar like a tiger; that animal is going to fly through the trees like this, whoosh.” They seem to feel they should entertain their children but by being so active, they relegate their toddlers to secondary roles or leave them behind, altogether, which undermines the whole enterprise.
Some parents think they should be teaching their children whenever they interact with them, as in “do you know the name of this animal? Do you know that pandas live in the forest? Do you know what they eat?” These interjections during free play interrupt the child’s own interests, creativity, and exploration, which are the essence of play. Children learn by ‘doing’ at this stage.
Distractions from play
These days, parents too often look at their phones while their children are playing, which is another way of interrupting and distracting children from their business. When caregivers are quietly attentive, children can ignore them and get on with their play. When children have to compete with phones, they have to interrupt their play in order to reengage their parents. When they have to track and follow parents who are moving to another part of the room, they have to give up their play entirely; following their parents becomes their full time job.
There are few more relaxing activities than watching a contented child engage in fantasy play. They are no rules to follow, no winners or losers, nothing to struggle with or accommodate and so the child is happy, entertained, engrossed, and fanciful…playful. Nothing is expected of the adult but his or her engaged presence. Sit on the floor with a cup of something and let yourself relax.
When caregivers overcompensate
Parents who are preoccupied, anxious, or depressed, and consequently emotionally unavailable to their children most of the time, may overcompensate when they do engage. They may tickle too roughly, talk and laugh too loudly, get too close, and fail to notice that they are making their children uncomfortable. They are trying too hard and not able to tune into their children’s needs, and reactions. Sometimes, parents can be very intrusive and overstimulating, even frightening, which causes considerable distress to their children. Children do not need to be jazzed up or entertained. They need a loving and attentive audience.
Aggressive fantasies
During fantasy play, children often say such things as “I hate you, I’m going to kill you, or I’m going to make you disappear,” and hopefully, no one is there to admonish them for being mean or spiteful. Adults usually allow themselves vengeful fantasies and children should be allowed them, as well. Fantasy play is a great outlet for angry, competitive, and hurt feelings and the expression of those negative feelings serves to allay them, not stoke them. Once played out with full force the feelings recede, making room for problem solving and more realistic solutions than murder and witchcraft. Adults frequently express their concern that children have difficulty discerning fantasy from reality but children as young as three know “it’s just pretend,” meaning they know very well that there are different rules for play and the real world. They know exactly what happens when a kid hits another kid at day care or kindergarten.
Research on fantasy play
Fantasy play was, and still is, considered by many to be essential to all aspects of child development-emotional, intellectual, social, and moral. Recent studies and meta-analyses suggest that the factor that contributes most to the benefits attributed to fantasy play may not be fantasy play itself, but parental engagement. Children who are good at problem solving, planning, sharing, perspective taking, and tolerating negative emotions such as sadness, anger, and frustration have parents who actively assist them to develop these skills. There is strong evidence that children who engage in fantasy play have better language skills but that too, is strongly associated with parental engagement. Researchers generally agree that because children are intrinsically motivated to engage in fantasy play, it is a positive way for parents to interact with their children. Of course, not the only way.
Play therapy
When children experience emotional or social difficulties for any reason and these difficulties interfere with their ability to make friends, to learn, to participate in pleasurable activities, or to manage their day to day routines such as sleeping and eating, they may be referred for play therapy by their school or family doctor.
Almost all forms of therapy for children utilize play because play is how children best communicate difficult feelings, worries and events. Children often lack the words to convey their experiences or they are reticent to use them for fear of punishment or rejection.
Elements of play therapy
At the outset, therapists observe children in play to assess their ability to express themselves, take different perspectives, problem solve, make sense of their experience, and control themselves. Much of the early work with children is to help them label or clarify their feelings and associate those feelings with their ways of relating to themselves, and others. Also, in the first phase, therapists actively assist children to regulate or modulate emotions through relaxation exercises, to reenact and make sense of significant events, and to develop a coherent narrative about their distress or predicament. It is through play that children convey what happens at home, at school, what is said, and how they feel about it.
The next phase is to help children consider new possibilities, new ways of expressing themselves, and interacting with others. A critical element is to help teachers and care givers better understand the meaning of children’s actions and reactions, and help teachers and caregivers to consider new possibilities, as well. Finally, parents, therapists, children, and teachers collaborate to introduce and reinforce new ways of interacting at home and in the classroom, be attentive to the recurrence of old patterns, link recurrences to current events, and…. move on. Therapists sit with the children, are curious about their ideas, help them to express their thoughts and feelings, and offer ideas about solutions. Sometimes, the work is to help children accept that they have an ongoing challenge such as a learning disability, an anxiety disorder, or autism.
Traumatized children
Children who have experienced abuse, chronic poverty, war, violence, or the death of a parent are often unable to engage in fantasy play. They are too frightened or numb to consider anything other than whether they are in immediate danger, and where they can run and hide. These children play in a compulsive, joyless, repetitive manner which goes nowhere and resolves nothing. There are no heroes, no rescuers, and no solutions. Play therapy for these children usually involves working with their bodies to develop a sense of efficacy through physical reenactments of traumatic events. Children are encouraged to replay the events and take an active role, run away, yell at their tormentors, reestablish their sense of being powerful, rather than powerless. It is the sense of complete powerlessness and defeat that shackles and paralyses traumatized children.
Traumatized children must protest what happened to them, reclaim a connection to the present, and develop some hope for the future. They must feel a sense of safety before any work can take place. Additionally, these children need to develop a trauma narrative which absolves them from responsibility for all that they suffered. Traumatized children, like traumatized adults, tend to blame themselves for whatever they endured. They believe they somehow invited the events or failed to prevent them.
What do play and play therapy have in common?
Play and play therapy both foster the ability of children to express themselves and create solutions for themselves in the presence of a caring adult. Play and play therapy strengthen the communication and bonds between parents and children by exploring feelings and themes not otherwise expressed, or expressed in new ways. Play and play therapy investigate fears, hopes and struggles, and translate them into meaningful messages for parents and teachers. Through play and play therapy, children develop curiosity and insight regarding their thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions which, in turn, increases their empathy for others. It is only through understanding their own minds and mental states that children can comprehend the minds and mental states of others.
About the Author
Janet Morrison, M.A., C. Psych Assoc. is a psychological associate in private practice and a senior lecturer at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto. Over the past 30 years she has assessed, treated and supervised treatment of children in long-term care, as well as, consulted for Children's Aid Society and group homes across Ontario.
Listen to our podcast episode on the importance of play: Episode 2 | Why Play is Essential to Children's Mental Health and Development