While public health authorities concentrate on the exercise benefits of active play, a new study from the University of Montreal reveals that for kids, playing doesn’t have goal C it’s an end in itself, an activity that’s fun, done alone or with friends, also it represents “a chance to experience excitement or pleasure, but additionally to combat boredom, sadness, fear, or loneliness.”
“By concentrating on the physical activity facet of play, authorities reserve several facets of play which are good for young people’s emotional and social health,” explains Professor Katherine Frohlich of the university’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, who supervised the study. “Play is a way to achieve various objectives, including the improvement of physical health and also the development of cognitive and social aptitudes. Obviously, we must ensure children’s development and combat obesity. But to obtain there, must we distort play?”
The study involved a photography and interview project with 25 Montreal area children, aged 7 to 11 years, because they photographed and talked about their most favorite methods to play. One Ten year old girl loved climbing on the modern art sculpture near her home, for example. “Play is definitely an activity that brings pleasure and it is purposeless,” explained the study’s first author Dr. Stephanie Alexander, also from the university’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine. Children’s photographs of their leisure activities show that sports are very well represented C balls, bicycles, hockey, and baseball C but so might be many sedentary activities, such as puzzles, knitting, reading, movies, and video games. Animals and pets were also photographed by many.
The semi-structured interviews allowed Alexander to better understand the meaning of play for the children. “Play reframed as a way for improving health removes the spontaneity, fun, and freedom in children’s play, also is essential for their well-being,” Alexander said. “Active play alone doesn’t constitute many children’s preferences.” It’s also clear that risk-taking is an essential part of children’s play preferences. “Allowing children to take acceptable risks while remaining vigilant is indeed beneficial to their development,” Alexander added. “An overemphasis on safety may bring about the emergence of the generation of young adults that’s much less in a position to cope with the unpredictable.”
In summary, they identified four size of play particularly significant to children: play being an result in itself (children play just for fun, not for exercise or developing their mental and social skills); play isn’t necessarily active (many children also relish more sedentary games); children feel ambiguous about scheduled play activities (children haven’t much time for free play); and risk is recognized as a pleasurable component of their play. “Despite the abundance of messages targeting children and play and health, children’s perspectives are hardly ever taken into account within public health, although they have social and scientific value,” Frohlich said. “We hope our findings will state and improve the way authorities and indeed parents approach playtime.”
About this study: Stephanie A. Alexander, Katherine L. Frohlich and Caroline Fusco published “Problematizing “Play-for-Health” Discourses Through Children’s Photo-Elicited Narratives” in Qualitative Health Research on August 21, 2014. The researchers received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC.)
