OPEN ACCESS | Guest Editorial | Published Online: 15^th  January 2025                                                                                             

PLAY AND ITS SALIENCE IN CHILDREN

John Vijay Sagar Kommu^1*

1* Corresponding author: Professor & Head, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore,  Karnataka, India  

Email   address: sagarjohn@gmail.com

I had an interesting experience recently with a 12-year-old child with whom I was interacting in our busy outpatient clinic. The child was brought by his parents with a history suggestive of dissociative symptoms of repeated brief spells of falls and unresponsiveness for one month. After establishing rapport with the child, I was asking specific questions to elicit any stressors. The child reported that his daily routine involves self-care activities, attending school, attending multiple tuition classes, and completing homework. He lamented that there was no time to engage in any play activities and that he felt very bored with his current routine, which involves only academic activities. He recollected and shared the joyful moments he had spent in play activities in the past and how his parents had deprived him of such experiences for the last two years. This was due to the opinion that engaging in play activities is a ‘waste of time’ that will lead to a decline in a child’s scholastic performance. The child requested me to tell his parents to allow him at least one hour of outdoor play daily.

Play ensures holistic development of a child across all the developmental domains, provides valuable learning opportunities, enables children to practice and strengthen their skill repertoire and provides a sense of agency to children. Play is an important medium to initiate and maintain peer relationships. Play allows children to express their feelings and an opportunity to work with unacceptable feelings. Article 31 of the United Nations Rights of the Child mentions that play is the right of all children.¹ Multiple factors act as impediments to play activities in children. These include increased emphasis on academic activities, hectic daily routine, lack of spaces for outdoor play, long working hours of parents with limited quality time with children, and access to gadgets like smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc.

Extensive research supports play's positive influence on children's mental health. Play facilitates the formation of secure emotional attachment early in a child's life, healthy brain development, regulating emotions, showing empathy, forming emotional relationships, emotional resilience, and effective coping with stress.²

Children need a safe environment to play in, with unhindered access to play materials that are provided with emphasis on their safety, durability, age appropriateness, and cultural background.³ Play has to be made an integral part of every school curriculum. Mental health professionals have to educate parents about the importance of play in the optimum development and mental health of children.

Parents have to adopt a balanced approach to scheduling the daily routine of children with inclusion of leisure time for play activities.  Play therapy has been used effectively for children diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, children who have experienced adverse experiences of trauma, loss, abuse, etc., and for children diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders.⁴

REFERENCES

1. Davey C, Lundy L. Towards greater recognition of the right to play: An analysis of article 31 of the UNCRC. Children & Society. 2011 Jan;25(1):3-14. DOI:10.1111/j.1099-0860.2009.00256.x
2. Whitebread D. Free play and children's mental health. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. 2017 Nov 1;1(3):167-9. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-4642(17)30092-5
3. Murata NM, Maeda JK. Structured play for preschoolers with developmental delays. Early Childhood Education Journal. 2002 Jun 1; 29:237-40. DOI: 10.1023/A:1015181607622
4. Landreth GL. Play therapy: The art of the relationship. Routledge; 2012. DOI: 10.4324/9780203835159