The Importance of Play

The most recent installment of the public radio series "Speaking of Faith" spent an hour examining the importance of play, and how play shapes us as human beings. Here's an excerpt from a reflection that the host, Krista Tippett, wrote about the program:

[Dr.] Stuart Brown [director of the National Institute for Play], for his own part, says he spent too many years as a workaholic doctor; and he came to his fascination with play after observing play-deprivation in the lives of homicidal young men he had been given to study. These days, he gives himself three or four hours a day of "rogue tennis," reading, frolicking with his grandchildren. For work, he promotes better science on how play enriches us and nourishes human spirit and character. He believes this has implications for how we should structure our schools, workplaces, and family lives.

I am surprised, and eventually convinced, by the amazing list of virtues Stuart Brown associates with play across the span of our lives, drawing on a rich universe of play study in humans and intelligent social animals. (By the way, stop right here for a smile by looking at amazing pictures of animals quite obviously delighting in play.) It is established, Stuart Brown insists, that an actively playful life establishes the earliest sense of self; sustains trust; provides increased enthusiasm for effectiveness in learning; prevents violence; invigorates the body; lessens the consequences of stress; contributes directly to the capacity to approach and solve complex life problems; and rewards and directs the living of life in accord with innate talents..

You can read the rest of Ms. Tippett's reflection, read the transcript, listen to the program, or download it as an mp3 file, at http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/play.