The Benefits of Play

I recently read an article in Scientific American by Melinda Wenner Moyer, all about the role of unstructured play in setting kids on a course for healthy child development. Moyer cites the story of twenty-five year old Charles Whitman, who back in 1966 climbed to the top of tower on the campus of the University of Texas and proceeded to shoot forty-six people, killing seventeen. The killing sparked an effort to understand why anyone would do such a thing. Mental health professionals interviewed Whitman along with twenty-six other convicted Texas murderers. Most of the killers had two things in common: they grew up in abusive families, and they never played as children. The takeaway here is not that playing as a child will prevent one from engaging in criminal behavior. Rather, further studies since then have confirmed that letting kids engage in free, imaginative play is a crucial factor in health social, emotional, and cognitive development. Parents, let your children play!