Ending the Play Gap

A Personal Reflection on the first ever International Day of Play

Several years ago, I was about to go to a child development forum, when an upbeat organiser called and asked:

“Could you send us a photo of you as a child and a paragraph about a childhood play memory? And by the way, to energize everyone we will have some playful activities for delegates.”

My stomach turned. I had no childhood photos, few memories of play and forced playfulness as an adult seemed terrifyingly awkward.

More recently, as an expectant Dad, I read a book chapter on play by UK psychotherapist and author Philippa Perry.  She recounted asking a family friend why he left the room whenever board games were suggested. He described the inconsolable memories of a playless, and perhaps loveless childhood. He had never really learned to play and now it made him feel awkward and shameful. The story highlights a challenge for many parents: if you didn’t learn how to play as a child, how do you play with your own child? I had never verbalized or thought consciously about my own play-phobia, until this moment.

Play is a biological need for every child. It forms the foundation of both our ability to learn and to build the relational skills for love, friendship and even healing from pain. Feeling safe and loved at home provides the secure base necessary to explore and play. Child trauma short-circuits play with another biological imperative, survival. You cannot really play in survival mode. So, children who need the healing and learning power of play the most, are least likely to get it. This deficit diminishes their prospects of thriving throughout life. I call this the play gap.

Many more children than we realize live on the wrong side of the play gap.

Surveys across 37 diverse countries show 57% of adults reported one adverse childhood experience such as physical abuse, emotional neglect, or parental addiction in childhood and 13% experienced four or more. Over 400 million children live in war zones, 160 million children are forced into child labor and 650 million girls married before the age of 18. There is no place on earth untouched by the play gap.

Play is under threat for all children and increasingly squeezed out of childhood everywhere. Children today are 62% less likely to play out than baby boomer grandparents. Jonathan Haidt recently highlighted in Anxious Generation, how a culture of ‘safetyism’ stops parents from allowing children to play outside combined with a shift from play-based to smartphone-based childhoods harms mental health. Urbanisation, climate change and pollution put public play-spaces out of reach and many children around the world spend almost no time in free-play or outdoors.

Our failure to protect play harms global progress, particularly in education. Over half of children in middle-and-low-income countries are in school but not learning much. Research shows play-based content inspires children’s motivation-to-learn and learning outcomes, much more effectively than teacher-centred instructional learning. But there is little time for play in most curricula. Even in wealthy countries, play is overlooked in a culture of over-testing and exams. Play-based early childhood education is a known turbo-booster for learning outcomes throughout childhood. Yet the poorest half of 3–6-year-olds cannot get a place in pre-school perpetuating intergenerational poverty and hindering long-term economic growth.

June 11^th marks the first ever International Day of Play here at the United Nations in New York, and around the world. It is a moment to recognize play as a vital sign that children are safe, loved and learning. The play gap is not insurmountable. We are the first generation in history with the knowledge and resources to end the play gap and three simple affordable policies can help governments lead the way.

1. Make parenting programmes that are proven to promote secure attachment, nurturing care, and playful parenting available for every family.
2. Ensure every child between ages 3 and 6 has a free place in early childhood education and is learning through play.
3. Protect all public play space from urbanisation, environmental hazard, and conflict.

Just before writing this, I watched our toddler chase a half-deflated balloon around the living room, through the kitchen and into the garden. Giggling and babbling, he was utterly in flow, learning about motion and gravity, cause and effect, and discovering his agency to move through the world. It was pure play in the context of love and safety. I joined in, chasing him, chasing the balloon and the whole space was filled with laughter. Learning to play as a parent is healing and takes you places you never imagined existed. It feels like a quiet victory over my own childhood, marked by inter-generational cycles of family trauma, orphanages, and gangs. The cycle is broken, play prevails and this June 11^th I will be imagining a world where we ensure no child anywhere grows up on the wrong side of the play gap.

every child, everywhere.

that shaped my childhood. The cycle is broken, play prevails and this June 11^th I will be imagining a world where we ensure the right to play for every child, everywhere.

My first book will be published in December: Trauma Proof by Benjamin Perks | Waterstones

---

Photo credit @ UNICEF/UN0642776/Willocq

My first book will be published in December: Trauma Proof by Benjamin Perks | Waterstones

---

Photo credit @ UNICEF/UN0642776/Willocq