Evidence of How Play Can Make Your Child a Leader
Play Can Make Your Child a Leader
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning,” Fred Rogers said. “But for children, play is serious learning.” As always, Mr. Rogers provides good insight.
Think back to your own preschool or kindergarten experience. Did you show up and immediately get to play in various centers around the room – dress up, kitchen, blocks, a sand table, painting easel, writing station, book nook? Or were you expected to enter the room, sit at a desk, and begin math problems or writing exercises? Were you expected to know your entire alphabet, be able to write your name, and even read sight words? These days, younger and younger children are expected to know an ever-increasing number of facts by the time they enter school. It seems the goal of traditional education is to produce the smartest children as early as possible.
When asked the open-ended question “what’s your ultimate goal for the children in your life”, an informal poll of parents found that goals for their children include health, happiness, empathy, and self-sufficiency. Parents hope their children become respectful and compassionate. They want to raise caring, adventurous individuals. They hope their children will have friends. These parents wish for their children to become problem solvers. Not one parent mentioned grades.
The Research Behind Play
Is the work of children play or academic achievement? Despite the concept of “play = learning” leading to the creation of an entire educational model (Waldorf schools) and partially driving the basis for Montessori schools, the idea of play as learning and work has not been embraced by public educational models. Public kindergartens and preschools are becoming increasingly more academic-focused to satisfy testing standards. If we respect the goals of the parents from the poll mentioned (and we should), academic achievement will not provide our future generations with those goals.
Play has been proven time and time again to be the best vehicle for gaining the skills mentioned by these parents. Play and learning are inextricably linked.[i] The cognitive benefits of play have been well researched and documented. Early learning and play fuel the development of language and thought.[ii] We learn better when curious[iii] and in general, we are most curious when playing.
Research tells us:
· When children were given blocks to play with at home for use with minimal adult instruction, preschool children had improved language acquisition at a 6 month follow up appointment. [iv]
· Children that played independently with blocks developed better language and cognitive skills than children that watched Baby Einstein.[v]
· 3rd grade prosocial behaviors are a better predictor for 8th grade math and reading outcomes than 3rd math and reading scores. [vi]
· 7–9-year-olds exhibited enhanced attention inhibition, cognitive flexibility, brain functioning (indicative of enhanced executive control) after randomized trial of physical play (free recess type play, not structured PE). [vii]
Turns out it’s not possible to participate in (developmentally appropriate) play *without* benefit. These benefits include improvements in social-emotional skills, cognition, language, and self-regulation and thus acquiring skills related to having a prosocial brain and good executive function. [viii] Can simple blocks and free play at recess change the world? What skills will these types of play enhance; what kind of people will children allowed to play turn out to be? What the parents from our informal poll may not have realized is that the goals they were describing encompassed the skills necessary to be a leader in the 21st century.
What does play have to do with leadership?
Land was the most important holding in the 19th-century economy. Capital replaced land in the 20th century. Now, in the 21st century, knowledge is considered the most important aspect of a successful information economy. Innovation has become more important than imitation and creativity more important than conformity. [ix]
In 2010, IBM conducted a Global CEO study and determined that the following skills are critical for success in the 21st century: collaboration, creativity, and problem solving. 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries across 33 industries rated creativity as more important for future success than rigor, management discipline, integrity, or even vision.[x] Though this study is over ten years old, this author believes the pandemic has proven these CEOs right. The businesses that have survived or even thrived during this global turmoil have had to develop creative new methods to remain true to their mission and vision while avoiding bankruptcy. The 2021 IBM study of the same nature (of 3,000 global CEOs) found that purposeful agility is a key skill for success in modern leadership. Agility in leadership requires flexibility, adaptability, and good communication. The Center for Creative Leadership consider leadership to be a social process characterized by integrity, communication, gratitude, influence, courage, self-awareness, learning agility, empathy, respect, and the ability to delegate. [xi]
How does a leader gain these characteristics? They learn it from playing. Yogman et al review many research studies in their American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report “The Power of Play”. These research studies all indicate that play is “fundamentally important for learning 21st-century skills, such as problem-solving, collaboration, and creativity, which require the executive function skills that are critical for adult success.” [xii]
Executive function is characterized by cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory. These skills allow an individual to exhibit self-regulation and control, problem-solving, mental flexibility (agility), and sustained attention while filtering distractions. Play builds executive functioning and school readiness. [xiii] School readiness skills are mostly socially based. The American Academy of Pediatrics identified many skills necessary for school readiness. [xiv] The skills include physical well-being, sensory-motor development, social and emotional development including self-regulation, attention, impulse control, turn-taking, cooperation, empathy, communication, and self-awareness. The list continues and includes “general knowledge” defined by early literacy and math skills near the end.
Early literacy and math don’t have to be addressed by a structured full-day preschool program teaching memorization of the alphabet and flashcards of math facts. Early literacy is most easily addressed at home through caregivers reading out loud. This can be children’s books at bedtime or even recipes while cooking. Children also pick-up on aspects of early literacy by watching their parents read to themselves. Playful learning can also easily address early literacy and math skills. Books can be used while playing house. A child can read to their dolls before putting them to bed. Hide and seek games include counting. Collecting sticks or pebbles from outside can become comparison work for more vs less when determining who has the bigger pile. Playful learning is also characterized by situations that enhance social skills such as listening to directions, solving disputes without words, paying attention to others, and focusing on tasks without constant supervision. [xv] The AAP report on The Power of Play cites 8+ studies that indicate the benefits of play. Those benefits include
· improvement in executive functioning
· language
· early math skills (numerosity and spatial concepts)
· social development
· peer relations
· physical development and health
· enhanced sense of agency (feeling of control over actions and consequences). [xvi]
Borrowing from Mitchel Resink’s excellent example explaining the Creative Learning Spiral from the book Lifelong Kindergarten, let’s examine wooden blocks and a group of kindergartners. Some may argue that kids sitting on the floor “just” playing with blocks is a waste of educational time.
The children pick up different shape blocks and begin stacking on the floor. Emma, kneeling (physical development), notices Hunter has a rounded piece that would work well for her tower (early math concept). Emma then asks Hunter for the piece (language), or Emma might slide a few blocks over to Hunter (peer relations) and mention that it looks like a knight’s castle (language and creativity). Hunter agrees (language and social skills). Marco, squatting (physical development), adds blocks to the setting and all the blocks fall but immediately starts to build again (sense of agency). Emma begins to tell a story about who will live in the castle. Marco adds to the story and the children take turns expanding the tale (language and social development). Hunter, lying on his belly (physical development), calls the teacher over to show off the structure (social development, sense of agency, language). The teacher acknowledges the work the children put into the effort and offers a book with pictures of types of buildings. The three children flip through the book together (literacy, peer relations) and decide to change the base of the castle to provide more support to the structure (early math, sense of agency). [xvii]
This is just one example of the many aspects of children’s development that are directly enhanced through play. Social rough and tumble play often seen between siblings at home and good friends on a playground also have significant benefits, including growth of the neocortex and cerebellum. The neocortex controls sensory-motor perception and generation, language, and spatial reasoning. The cerebellum is responsible for the functions of working memory in addition to language and spatial reasoning. The two areas in the brain are closely linked. [xviii] Well-developed language and working memory can contribute to leadership skills. Social rough and tumble play is often viewed as a “break” for children, when in fact there’s significant brain development happening.
A key aspect to successful learning through play is that children are given freedom with minimal adult intrusion. This is not to say the children should go without supervision or even a bit of structure or plan. Given freedom for exploration, decision making, and planning, children will improve flexibility, self-control, adaptability, resilience, and emotional balance. [xix] Even as adults, many leaders do their best work when given the freedom for creative thinking and collaboration with peers.
Vision for the Future
Currently, there is a push for increased academic interventions (longer days, shorter summer) for children following the turmoil in education that was present during the pandemic. Research firmly refutes this concept. Adult-driven, standardized tested, copy and pasted academic input will not benefit our children. They need PLAY. Allowing play won’t ignore academic efforts; it will enhance them. Children that participate in play as their daily work early on will develop the socioemotional, creative, collaborative, self-awareness, communication, self-regulation skills, and brain functions that will allow them to learn specific subject matter and industry-specific skills later. If we allow the children to play, to develop these incredibly valuable soft skills, we will be nurturing future leaders.
[i] Dewar, G. The cognitive benefits of play: Effects on the learning brain. Available at: www.parentingscience.com/benefits-of-play.html. Accessed February 24, 2021.
[ii] Pellis, SM, Pellis VC, Bell HC. The function of play in the development of the social brain. Am J Play. 2010;2:278-296.
[iii] Gruber MJ, Gelman BD, and Ranganath C. (2014). States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit. Neuron 84, 486-496.
[iv] Christakis DA, Zimmerman FJ, Garrison MM. Effect of block play on language acquisition and attention in toddlers; a pilot randomized controlled trial. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007; 161(10):967-971
[v] Anderson DR, Pempek TA. (2005). Television and Very Young Children. Am Behave Sci. 2005;48(5):505-522
[vi] Pellis SM, Iwaniuk AN. Evolving a playful brain: a levels of control approach. Int J Comp Psychol. 2004;17:90-116
[vii] Hillman CH, Pontifex MB, Castelli DM, et al. Effects of the FITkids randomized controlled trial on executive control and brain function. Pediatrics. 2014;134(4).
[viii] Yogman M, Garner A, Hutchinson J, et al; AAP Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, AAP Council on Communications and Media. The Power of Play: a Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children. Pediatrics. 2018;142(3):e20182058.
[ix] Gopnik, A. (2016, July 30). What Babies Know About Physics and Foreign Languages [Editorial]. New York Times. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/opinion/sundy/what-babies-know-about-physics-and foreign-languages.html
[x] Tomasco S. IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: creativity selected as most crucial factor for future success. Available at: https://www.o3.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/31670.wss. Accessed February 24, 2021.
[xi] “What Are the Characteristics of a Good Leader?” Center for Creative Leadership, 10 Sept. 2020, www.ccl.org/blog/characteristics-good-leader/. Accessed February 24, 2021.
[xii] Yogman M, Garner A, Hutchinson J, et al; AAP Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, AAP Council on Communications and Media. The Power of Play: a Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children. Pediatrics. 2018;142(3):e20182058.
[xiii] Henderson TZ, Atencio DJ. Integration of play, learning, and experience: what museums afford young visitors. Early Child Educ J. 2007;35(3):245-251
[xiv] Williams PG, Lerner MA; AAP Council on Early Childhood; AAP Council on School Health. School Readiness. Pediatrics. 2019;144(2):e20191766.
[xv] Diamond A, Barnett WS, Thomas J, Munro S. Preschool program improves cognitive control. Science. 2007;318(5855):1387-1388.
[xvi] Yogman M, Garner A, Hutchinson J, et al; AAP Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, AAP Council on Communications and Media. The Power of Play: a Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children. Pediatrics. 2018;142(3):e20182058.
[xvii] Resnik, Mitchel. Lifelong Kindergarten. Cambridge/London, The MIT Press, 2017.
[xviii] Ito, M. (2008) Control of mental activities by internal models in the cerebellum. Nat. Reve. Neurosci. 9,304-313.
[xix] Hewes J. (2014). Seeking Balance in Motion: The Role of Spontaneous Free Play in Promoting Social and Emotional Health in Early Childhood Care and Education. Children (Basel, Switzerland), 1(3), 280–301. https://doi.org/10.3390/children1030280.