Why You Find It So Hard To Play, And What To Do About It

0:01Welcome to this Motherkind Moment clip. It is Monday, which means this is your place for a little shot of inspiration and a shift in perspective before the week ahead. This week's moment comes from Emma Worrollo, one of the world's leading play culture researchers. And in this clip, Emma breaks down why we can find it so hard to play with our children and the exact things that we need to do to change that. I love Emma. I love her energy. I love her perspective. Here it is. I am someone that's like very well researched in the sort of science of play. And it would seem that there is definitely some kind of link between those two things.

0:46We have quite good research now that shows that people who have a high quality of the characteristics of playfulness tend to be more resilient they tend to be quite good at solving problems they generally have a sort of sense of everything's kind of you know figureoutable yeah and I think it's so interesting that because like you say we do just completely deprioritize it as you say I've talked about almost every topic on mother kind and not really yet sort of play and fun so when you do that research and you know you've I know you're like one of the world's leading experts in this what tell us what did you find out like make the case because there'll be mums listening if maybe all the mums listening who are like I've got the mental load I've got two kids I'm working full time I do not have time to be playful and be fun and be silly I'm just trying to get through the day and I feel like you are probably the best person to convince us of the importance of this and how it can help in all other areas yes and I think it's important to note that playfulness is not another brand of toxic positivity and it's not about mindless optimism it's actually much more helpful than trying to be happy than trying to find your cheerfulness it's something that you can chase very specifically it is a characteristic that is innate in humans so this is not a personality trait this is not something that oh just fun or extroverted people have this is something completely sort of woven into what it means to be a human now we have we all have this very organically as children this is how we learn we start off life playing as much as we possibly can you see this in babies you see this in toddlers you see this in children we are curious we explore we play that is how we learn it's one of the truly most interesting special things about human and what sets us aside compared to other mammals we play in more ways than any other species on the planet but what happens is we train ourselves out of it so it's not that play is just for childhood play is for life it is as I said intrinsic to being a human but we train ourselves out of it and we learn how to devalue its importance because once we start to load our lives with things that are serious and things that require responsibilities and things that distract us we become very rusty at those skills I spoke about at the beginning curiosity imagination silliness we we just sort of stop using them but they are there they are there they are still there and we can get them back.

3:46Is that why so many parents say, I just don't know how to play? Because, and I think that's the first time I got this and I was like, oh my God, like I've forgotten how to play with my kids and I know how important that is and I want to do it. But I just feel like, actually, I've got, I'm going to focus on the washing up because it feels so awkward. Yes, and I think if you feel like that, do not feel any shame or panic. That's very normal. Children are experts at play and they play in a very different way to adults they're very good at what I call blank canvas play so they can make something up out of nothing that is very hard for an adult to do that hasn't done that since the age of six and it's possible that when you become a parent you may be going from actually a state of play deprivation where you haven't played for so long suddenly you've got a little child in front of you who is actually an expert and for a lot of mothers in particular they can feel quite frozen and quite intimidated in that situation because they cannot come up to that level but you don't need to you absolutely do not need to when you're playing with your child often you are actually not at play so this is quite important to kind of figure out because true play is intrinsically motivated.

5:08So when you play, you do it because you want to do it. It is self-directed. You choose how you go about it in your own way. And it's very personal. So what is play for you, Zoe, might not be play for me. When we play with our children, we do that for them. We do that because we want to have a relationship with them, because we want to communicate with them, because we want to get on their level, because we love them and we want to find out who they are but there might be times in fact there will be many times when you're not actually in true play in that moment but you can coax yourself into it if there are activities that help you get into a play state more readily I always encourage people to you know do those things with your children when you're co-playing because your role in the play is important to your child and the more relaxed you feel and the more comfortable you feel the more that they're going to enjoy that time with you so it's interesting I get this so I'll tell you what's interesting I get this so my kids love uh role play and dress up and then I quite like that and I can see how that's probably part of my play style but when I try to enter the game and like put on American accent and stuff they're like they're like no no no no no don't do and they're like directing me so I can so see what you're saying actually that in that it's like that's not play for me that feels that is their universe children don't get to control their reality but they do in play they are the directors so if you have a child and you think oh my child is so bossy almost so mean to me in play good good that's what they're meant to be doing they are in charge that is their it's like their scene that they are directing you're an actor in it so playing with your child you you can get a lot of joy and play from that but bear in mind it might not be true play for you because ultimately you're doing it for them so when we come into thinking about how do I get some fun that is truly fun for me what I'd love to explain is the difference between play and playfulness so play is an action this is an activity that you do and exactly as you said I'd love every mother to have more time to find play for themselves but that is not the reality of most people's schedules but what you can go after is playfulness playfulness is more about a lens that you see the world and this is something that you can bring into your every day and actually playfulness loves mundanity it loves it because the true spirit of playfulness is turning something that is boring into something that is fun and I'm sure everyone listening has had a moment where they're doing a boring chore you've got the washing up to do you've got a load of toys to tidy away and you put music on and it changes your mood no one tells you to do that no one teaches you oh you know when you're doing something boring you should put music on it's a it's a reflex that we have and it's just about training that reflex in other moments how can you gamify things how can you add some spontaneity how can you kind of bring a competitive edge to something if that's what you enjoy it's like putting that into the everyday that's the spirit of playfulness and that is far more realistic for parents I love that I absolutely love that and if someone is kind of feeling like okay so I'm going through my tasks that I have to do and I'm feeling the opposite of that like maybe a bit like resentful oh my god I've got another load of washing to start but they want to tap into what you're saying they're like do you know what I've think this could be more fun if I could be more playful how does someone start to make that switch I think you need to try and tap into your inner play kid so you could think about how you played as a child as a reminder that that kid is actually still in you so if as a kid you were actually very adrenaline seeking and very brave and very outdoorsy and now suddenly you're very timid maybe you don't go out that much maybe you've become a sort of someone that you don't recognize from that child that you want that you were it's important to remember that you'll still be attracted to that way of playing and you just need to figure out how you can tap back into it it's not necessarily about replicating the same activities that you did as a child because they might not serve your needs anymore you might not have the needs for what you used to do as a kid but it's about trying to find that spirit that is still within you and how can you re-access it in a different way in your life now oh my god I absolutely love that that that idea of like that spirit coming into this world that we're in now of responsibility yeah you know seriousness like feels feels really magical and also what I love that you talk about is that we don't do this because it's fun although it is and it definitely makes those boring tasks better there's also amazing research about linking playfulness to resilience there is yeah I love a study that was done by the University of Oregon it was actually done in COVID to see how people that had a higher sense of playfulness and were using that more were coping during COVID and they were able to show that it was self-reported but they were able to show that those who were more playful had more resilience so the reason for this is because when you're in the spirit of playfulness you tend to be more flexible and you tend to be more curious so when you think about that from a resilience point of view when you are coping with something you're constantly looking for you know coping strategies or solutions or ways to just alter your perspective and that is what the characteristic of playfulness trains you to do so we tend to devalue it especially here we're in in England right now we don't have a great play culture in the UK and we tend to devalue it you know we we tend to we're grown-ups we need to be serious it's not the time for silliness the world is very dark and scary but actually it's incredibly important because it has such a massive impact on how we are able to exercise our resilience and how we're able to solve problems