Play, fun, and boredom

In his article, Emotional Development, The Importance of Pleasure in Play , Dr. Bruce D. Perry makes some fairly profound, fun-provoking observations. I have taken the liberty to italicize points that I invite you to contemplayte with me.

Some people think of play as the opposite of work. They think of it with goofing off, being lazy, lack of achievement, or, at best, recreation. “Stop playing and get to work!” Yet, as many of you probably know, it is through play that we do much of our learning. We learn best when we are having fun. Play, more than any other activity, fuels healthy development of children — and the continued healthy development of adults.

How is it possible that so many of our curriculum developers and teacher trainers and educational priority setters could forget such a basic truth about the nature of learning? We learn best when we are having fun. Best. When we are having fun.

Play takes many forms, but the heart of all play is pleasure. If it isn’t fun, it isn’t play. We play from birth on — we play using our bodies (building with blocks) and our minds (fantasy play). We use words to play (jokes, wit, humor) and we use props (blocks, toys, games). While the exact nature of play evolves, becoming more complex as we grow, play at all ages brings pleasure.

First, the fun/play connection. Then, fun/pleasure. Pleasure is fun and fun is pleasure and that’s all you really need to know about why fun is so attractive, so central to our personal truths. And play, at it’s best, is fun. And that’s all you need to know about why play is important.

And now we come to another key observation about play and fun – the play/boredom connection:

Ironically, it is a lack of external stimulation and solitude that facilitates creative play. Often, a child will initially perceive this as “boredom.” The child seeks structure and organization from parents or teachers — “I’m bored. I have nothing to do.” And all too often we jump in too soon and make the mistake of creating the child’s activities for him. We need to learn to let children become bored, because it is through this transient period of under-stimulation that their internal world can come alive. This process is facilitated by solitude — the opportunity to be alone and without too many external stimuli.

When a child cannot watch television, play video games, and is not participating in a scheduled “externally focused” activity, she will become more internally focused. Her imagination and creativity takes over. She will find and create “toys” from what is available — sticks become dolls, dolls become royalty, and these members of “royalty” become actors in the child’s play — rocks become blocks, blocks become walls, and walls create castles.

Boredom, rather than something we need to avoid, or help our children avoid, is the door to creativity. And that door is somewhere in the inner world. It’s a very easy door to open. It only takes a slight push, just a little playful nudge. Trying to avoid boredom, to ignore it, to drown it in drink or food or media, to escape the inner world, makes even that slight push of playfulness more and more difficult to exercise. We become too numb to feel our way through. Too numb to feel even our basic, central, life-giving need to have fun.