For children, playtime isn’t just enjoyable. It’s necessary. In 1998, child development expert Joe L. Frost of the University of Texas-Austin published a paper called “Neuroscience, Play and Child Development” that has often been cited. He called play “equally important as other basic drives of sleep, rest and food”, and cited evidence from brain scans that play is essential to the normal development of neurons and synapses in the brain.

Play is common to all young mammals, equips them for the skills they will need in later life, and deprivation of it can result in aberrant behavior, Frost wrote, saying that a study of drunk drivers involved in road fatalities found that 75 percent of them had had play abnormalities.

Free play can look like idleness, but is important to develoment.

Free play, especially with other children, requires planning and negotiation, which fosters development of executive function, a brain activity that regulates self control. That kickball game in the alley is practice for future years, when they will need to negotiate relationships and jobs, control impulses, follow laws, and myriad other activities that are mimicked on the playground. Social scientists such as Jean Piaget had long said that play was important to brain development, and medical diagnostic tools that became available in the 1990s bore the theories out: CAT scans and magnetic resonance imaging show that the wiring of the brain the pruning of synapses that is more or less complete in adulthood depends on the everyday experiences the child has and the kind of thinking they are called upon to do. Use it or lose it.

But 10 years after Frost’s oft-cited paper, children are more scheduled than ever, and their play is less free and creative. Last year, a clinical report in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) cited play as the right of every child, as defined by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The report underlined the importance of play for normal child development, and expressed concern that many children are not allowed enough time for it, even in affluent families. “Many children are being raised in an increasingly hurried and pressured style that may limit the protective benefits they would gain from child-driven play.”

The AAP gives a number of reasons for this: more single-parent families with less time at home, pressure from parenting magazines and other media to enrich every moment of a child’s life with educational activities; increased testing in schools; the rise of television and computers as entertainment; and, for some, a lack of safe outdoor play spaces. Along with possible negative effects on mental functioning, too many scheduled activities and not enough playtime can contribute to obesity, anxiety and depression.

The AAP recognizes that all children are different – some may thrive from a highly driven schedule – but others may feel stress and anxiety, affecting their self-image into adulthood. The report says that there is an increase in depression and anxiety among college students today, sometimes to the point of debilitation. The report cites studies that link depression to overly critical self-evaluation and perfectionism in some youth, caused by parental pressure to excel. “This competitive era may be producing a minority of young people so intensely worried about the appearance of high achievement that they will forsake core values such as fairness and honesty for the sake of acquiring good grades,” the report states.

When they do have time to play, children have many more toys at their disposal than at any time in history. But the toys children enjoy today are quite different from toys in pre-television days. Until the 1950s, toys were simple – balls, baby dolls, teddy bears, chalk. Simpler toys required creative input from the child – imagination. Since toy companies fixed on children as their market in about 1955, toys come fully scripted – dolls with well known “personalities”, hand-held computers that lead the child through mazes developed in a lab, and educational games with right and wrong answers.

Indeed, modern life seems to conspire against free play, according to Howard Chudacoff, a professor of urban studies and American History at Brown University in Rhode Island. His book, Children at Play: An American History, chronicles toys and games from 1600 to today. He writes that after 1950, children’s play is forced “underground” when manufactured toys and less access to open space impinge on their natural urge for free play. “Since the early 1900s, mechanized vehicles had increasingly overwhelmed city, suburban and even rural streets, while commercial interests, local governments and watchful adult protectors worked to remove children from sidewalks and other public spaces. Burgeoning amusements, from board games to television to computers, lured children indoors and protective parents discouraged their offspring from roaming neighborhoods and woods. The built environment of many a community, including both housing developments and commercial and industrial structures, filled open spaces such as vacant lots and fields, pushing youngsters into formal play sites and organized activities.”

At the same time, schools have implemented more testing of students to check that they are reaching quantifiable benchmarks. Bad timing, says a trio of educators in a 2006 book called Play = Learning: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children’s Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth. In its opening chapter, the editors write, “The world is moving toward an emerging creative class that values conceptual knowledge and original thinking … Instead of encouraging creativity, thinking outside the box, or coloring outside the lines, we are requiring children to memorize information, even in the face of the fact that information constantly changes.”

There are a number of researchers investigating the benefits of play at different stages of life. David Elkind, professor emeritus of child development at Tufts University, sees play as part of a trio of skills that includes love and work. These three endeavors rotate in dominance throughout human development. In infancy, roughly the first two years of life, the three are almost indistinguishable, but play is dominant, and is in effect the work the child does to understand reality. In early childhood, age 2-6, Elkind says, the three separate slightly – children at this age take their own fantasies very seriously, and need open-ended toys, such as clay and blocks to aid their own development. Learning the names of numbers and letters should take a back seat to creative expression, he argues, because creativity is so important at this stage of development.

The results of an international study bears out this theory. Every three years the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducts a study called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). It tests 15-16 year-olds in 32 countries to compare educational outcomes. In 2006, Finnish students ranked top in science and came second in mathematics and reading. Canada ranked top 10 in all three categories but the US did not appear in the top 10 at all. A study group from Washington, DC visited Scandinavia to investigate the reasons that students from those countries did so well. Among other things they learned that in Finland, educational reforms resulted in formal schooling being delayed until age 7 to allow development of social skills first. Pre-school focuses on self-reflection and social behavior – play. Grading doesn’t happen at all until high school. The incorporation of play into learning is surely not the only factor, for the PISA success, however. Hong Kong, where most learning is by rote, scored just behind Finland in all three categories.

The AAP urges its members to educate parents about the benefits of play and urge them to make time for it. They advise that pediatricians should:

• Emphasize that although parents should monitor play for safety, a large proportion of play should be child-driven, rather than adult-directed.

• Reinforce that parents who share unscheduled spontaneous time with their children and who play with their children are being supportive, nurturing and productive.

• Encourage the use of “true toys” such as blocks and dolls.

• Tell parents that, although well intentioned, arranging the finest opportunities for their children may not be their best opportunity for influence, and that shuttling them between numerous activities may not be the best quality time.

You may wish to consult:

Chudacoff, H. (2007) Children at Play: An American History, New York: New York University Press.

Elkind, David. (2007) The Power of Play: How Spontaneous Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children, New York, De Capo Lifelong Books.

Frost, JL, Neuroscience, Play and Child Development, Paper presented at the IPA/USA Triennial National Conference 1998. Retrieved April 1, 2008 from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/17/5e/d7.pdf

Ginsburg, KR, and the Committee on Communications and the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of child and Family Health, The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, Pediatrics 2007;119:192-191.

Michnick Golinkoff, Roberta; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; and Singer, Dorothy G. (2006) “Why Play = Learning: A Challenge for Parents and Educators, in ibid., Play = Learning: how Play motivates and Enhances Children’s Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth (3-14). New York: Oxford University Press.

The National Institute for Play, headquartered in Carmel Valley, California, offers research into the science of play and the psychology of different types of play, such as storytelling; pretending; object play, such as with toys; and body play, such as dance.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006