The importance of play in childhood and adulthood

"The human only plays when he is free in the full sense of the word and he is only fully human when he plays" –Friedrich Von Schiller

Do you remember the last time you played just for the pleasure of playing?

Often we associate play as something unique to childhood and only relevant to that life stage. But, in addition, lately we find that not even children have time to play.

The game goes far beyond an activity with educational and pedagogical value that entertains the little ones or that enlivens moments of adults. The game is part of the list of evolutionary milestones that we must reach throughout our development, for example, the milestone of learning to walk.

Let's look at chimpanzees, dolphins, dogs, lions, among many other animals, they play until they grow old and die. With which, playing transcends culture, playing is necessary for development and we should never stop doing it, in the same way that we do not stop eating, walking or talking.

• Related article: "The 6 stages of childhood (physical and mental development)"

Play and expression

Playing we express ourselves and give freedom to our body and our mind. The game is a machinery of realization that over the years we atrophy.

We will call the game "machinery of realization", because it allows us to see ourselves, knowing ourselves, exploring ourselves, allows us to fulfill ourselves, be more free and develop and discover all our potential. If we atrophy all this, we reduce ourselves to being more manipulable people, disconnected from ourselves, from our body, from our emotions and above all of our sensations. Those that allow us to self-regulate, understand ourselves, know what we need and why we need it.

Playing brings us closer to the present moment, since it is one of the few experiences that are made for the simple pleasure of doing them and not for the result or by what is achieved. And that, every moment in which we are connected to the present moment, is happiness.

Playing we allow the free emergence of our being, of what we need to extract and express, our spontaneity opens up aligning mind, emotion and body. All those emotions that we accumulate, tensions, anxious symptoms, headaches, among others, can be released in moments of play.

How to recover the game?

Getting the game back can be a bit of a chore for some. The good news is that we are designed and prepared, as a species, for it! Why can it cost?

Having been inhibited for so long, unconscious fears of being real and spontaneous may appear. They usually appear in the form of blocks, such as experiencing embarrassment when playing or laughing. Why do we cover our faces so many times when we laugh, if it is wonderful?

In addition, we often find that we have substituted "pleasure" for "duty" and that is accompanied by a series of beliefs that They can be very limiting for us when we have doubts about “what is right” and “what is wrong” when deciding what to invest in my weather.

For all those people who have not played for a long time, expressive therapies are ideal. For example, art therapy as a vehicle for connecting with oneself, laughter therapy as a practice of "Letting go" and "letting go", dance therapy as a means to become aware of the body and liberate locks.

Benefits of sharing the game with our children

By giving children free play moments and spaces, we allow their development to be much richer. They can explore, they can experience roles that are not their own but that they need to feel, they can discover themselves and Above all, they can release and express everything that they do not know how to do with words or that they cannot even understand.

On the other hand, As a father or mother, being able to share moments of free play with your child brings many benefits in bonding and attachment. When I speak of free play, I mean a game that is free from correction and free from judgment. A game in which only intentional attention is paid to pleasure, fun, laughter, physical contact, looks and especially unconditional love.

Sharing this type of game means providing our son with security, giving him confidence, exploring and expressing himself. We will be transmitting to him that he or she matters to us, that we like to know more about him, that his company is pleasant for us, that it is important for him to express himself and that it is okay for him to do so. We will be validating your emotions and ridding you of unpleasant feelings for not knowing if it is okay to feel what you feel. And with all this, we will also be building a healthy attachment between mother / father and child.

Being the development of healthy attachment one of the most essential aspects of the type of relationships that our children have and will have with the world, with reality and with the people around them.

What games can I play with my children?

Sometimes we tend to believe that the best activities for our children are those that are very novel and elaborate. Let's break with that myth, games don't need to be of this type.

They can be games as simple as singing a song, dancing, playing hold of the gaze, guessing with closed eyes when the other's finger reaches one of the joints from my arm, let each one draw a picture of the other, guess flavors, smells, textures, objects with their eyes covered, speak imitating an animal, make it seem that you are an animal, a plant, an object, a firefighter, a teacher, or any profession, guessing movies or fictional characters and cartoons, doing a chain of massages, among many others.

All these games mentioned above, not only are games that hardly require material, but also they are very stimulating games for our children and for ourselves. With them, in addition to benefiting from everything mentioned in the previous paragraphs, we will be stimulating sensoryly, providing more body awareness of oneself that will later serve for a higher emotional self regulation.

Therefore, we have seen why the game is necessary for a good development, what benefits we obtain by sharing the game and the importance of maintaining it throughout our lives.

Now, all you have to do is play, enjoy and feel!

"The child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play lost the child who lived in him and he will miss it very much" -Pablo Neruda

• Author: Coral Rodríguez. Child and Adolescent Psychologist at ARA Psychology. Specialist in Behavior Disorders, Emotional Management and Mindfulness.