Brain building and play

I'm slowly working my way through my new book, Play=Learning, which is a collection of scholarly articles about, surprisingly enough, how play facilitates learning. It is a subject which I find endlessly fascinating. It is also a subject which fills me with frustration because I believe so deeply that children need to play, that it is important, and it helps them learn and grow emotionally, but I fear so many parents do not see its value nor importance.

With one too many queries about good curricula for three and four year old, I must take my frustration out somewhere. You my lucky readers are the current recipients.

Since people like to listen to people with letters after their names, I'll stick with that. I'll share some of the many quotes I have underlined in my new book.

"Moreover, the features of make-believe -- child controlled, rich in social engagement and language, and attuned to the child's interests -- are ideal for stimulating changes in the cerebral cortex that underlie the development of self-regulation." - from Make-Believe Play: Wellspring for Development of Self-Regulation by Laura E. Berk, Trisha D. Mann, and Amy T. Ogan found in Play=Learning

Did you catch that? Child-directed, imaginative play changes the cerebral cortex of a child's brain in positive ways. The cerebral cortex, for the brain obsessed among us, is the outer layer of the cerebrum which plays a key role in attention, awareness, language, and memory. It's kind of important. In fact, without the ability to pay attention, to be aware of the world around you, to communicate, and to remember, it is nearly impossible to learn. This is the absolute foundation of the structure needed for a child to learn. These are also the areas that so many children have difficulty with much to the frustration of their parents and teachers.

More desk work is not the answer, but play is. Not the adult-directed, didactic, pablum play that some adults are more comfortable with, but the imaginative free form play of children making sense of their world. They absolutely need time, a lot of time, to become lost in their play. (Or, perhaps it is more palatable to call it being in a flow state with their play to borrow a term from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.) Unless the curriculum is going to direct the parents to lay down the books and let the children play, a curriculum is not going to facilitate what a child needs most.

Or how about this one?

"When preschoolers and kindergartners spend much time sitting and doing worksheets, as opposed to actively engaging in play-based learning, they become inattentive and restless, express doubt about their abilities, prefer less challenging tasks, and are less advanced in motor, academic, language, and social skills at the end of the school year. Follow-ups through third grade reveal lasting, negative consequences, including poorer study habits and achievement and a rise in distractability, hyperactivity, and peer aggression over time." -from the same paper quoted above

So it would seem that not only is the cerebral cortex not primed for later rigorous learning, it seems that to push academics too soon actually has the counter effect... an actual loss of skill and ability. It's as if by disallowing play and instead insisting on inappropriate learning activities, the child's ability to build a brain primed for learning (by doing what comes naturally to them) is turned off. They lose skills. The skills that were so desperately desired that too early academics were pushed.

Parents of preschoolers and kindergartners, you gain nothing by pushing school too soon. If the research is to be believed, and I think it is, then you actually have quite a bit to lose by doing this. You can take a deep breath and cross 'find the perfect early childhood curriculum' off your to-do list. Instead, go to the library. Check out lots and lots  and lots of books about all sorts of things. Read them together, talk about them, ask questions and then answer those questions. This is the content you are providing for your child's play.

Next, give them props, or better yet make them together. Were you reading a book about castles that caught your child's interest? Then build a castle out of a cardboard box, add some blocks to play the role of everything else, and get out of the way. You can do this for just about anything. A lot of stories, both fictions and non-fictions, some decent toys which can be imagined to be whatever is needed, maybe a special prop or two to fit whatever theme of the day (or week or month) happens to be, and time.

Try not to get involved if you can help it. Let your children work out what the play will look like, who will be what part, how the story will unfold. Sometimes the negotiation of these things can seem as though it takes the entire time, but it is as much of the play and the moving of the story line. Add an opinion if you are asked or if you really do need to redirect, but otherwise just sit back and listen and marvel at the brain building and learning that is going on.