The Importance of Play for Children

It is impossible to think of children without thinking of their games and their make-believe in the playgrounds, in the garden, in the house, in the hallways, etc. We find them playing at "Mother and Father," "Red Indians," "School," "Cowboys," and other games. You see them, while still in the cradle, playing with the fingers of their hands and feet. And the moment they are left to themselves, we see them go back to their games of make-believe. To anyone who takes pleasure in watching children, it appears plainly that they love to play. Play, then, is a universal trait among the children of the whole world, and therefore it must not be neglected nor its importance overlooked.

If someone should ask: why is play the occupation children choose? we would answer him:

1 — Play is the road by which they come to know the world around them. The boy who stands amazed, watching a man build a house, we find a while later absorbed in mud and sand, building a house in make-believe fashion, to test out and work through his amazement in play. Children are forever living in their experiences, because as they play they are testing life, and their knowledge grows. Some of them, for instance, play at "the sick man" or at "the shop" or "war" or "travel"; and among them we see the little girl imagining herself a mother, washing her little girl, or cooking, or receiving her guests, while the boy imitates his father, doing carpentry or fixing something in the house. Most of their games turn on imitating the grown-ups, because in imitating the grown-ups there ripens in their heads the idea of the things grown-ups do which they find hard to understand. They are forever living their experiences in play, and in this way they can understand life better.

2 — Play helps them to become skillful in the use of tools and materials — and not only how each is used, but what each one does by itself. The little girl gives a party for her doll: she manages her cooking and her drinks with care and precision, and receives her guests with good manners; then, the party over, she sets about washing the dishes, pressing lip upon lip as she pours the water for fear of a spill!

So too the boy: he does not attempt climbing without first making sure within himself that he can keep his balance, and with which of the boys he can play "Up You Go, Down You Come." And here is another child who has learned by experience how many pieces of wood he needs to load his cart. And there is a child who knows just how damp the sand must be to make a good cake of it!! Naturally, this precision and skill were arrived at gradually, after

many mistakes at the beginning. The child learns from his mistakes if he is left to himself, and in this way children conquer fear and gain confidence in themselves, while their muscles grow strong and coordinated.

3 — Play is a guard against the troubles of childhood: happiness in childhood is often overshadowed by the clouds of troubles, fears, and complexes of every kind. Many things we grown-ups accept in passing, but children face them for the first time and find them hard to solve. New experiences contradict the old ones, and then the worries thicken. Sometimes the sharpness of our tempers, and our unintended threats, are misunderstood by the child. This ignorance of the child's makes him captive to all manner of fears, for he does not distinguish between reality and fancy. Of these problems the child rarely speaks: he feels them, yet cannot ask for a solution to them. And how many of us grown-ups can understand? Our problems — we grown-ups — we usually talk about them and find a fitting solution; but the child's limited knowledge and his unripened power of argument keep him from speaking, so he takes refuge in his games.

We sometimes do not understand children's games, and find no solution to them. Marie makes a snake of

mud and lets it sleep on the roof. Salim builds a house and fortifies it with every fort he has, and puts inside it all his toy animals. Samia, aged 3, puts her toys in the corners of the room, then begins searching for them — "Not here! Not here!" — and when she finds them she shows her astonishment. This kind of play is important for the solving of their problems; it gives them a weapon for their tangled mental powers and a solution for their confused minds.

When a grown person invents something, he feels pleasure and superiority — and so it is with children's play, for it too is invention; indeed it gives the child a feeling of satisfaction, capability, and competence even more than it gives the grown-up, since he needs that feeling, surrounded as he is by people bigger and stronger than himself. Khalil shouts: "Come look at my castle!" and Walid: "Come look at my tower!" — so I hurry over to them before they strike them a blow and those playthings come tumbling to the ground!!

In play the child gains not only the spirit of mastery and personal growth: he also learns to cooperate with his companions, to give and take, and how to conduct himself with others. In playing with his friends he is obliged to soften his behavior, for he is often asked to help, or to offer advice, or to make way, or to join in a game run by another child. So one time he is the leader, and another time one of the leader's followers, and so on...

And while the child is learning those sweet social habits, he talks, echoing the words of the grown-ups, and compares himself with his companions. He claims superiority and gives his opinion without proof, for various strange reasons. Declarations such as these, from the mouth of a child who is not fettered or bound (by "do" and "don't"), are very important in the growth of his intelligence and the widening of his social life.