Peter Gray advocates giving children more freedom, autonomy, and time to play and explore. He believes this is better for their mental health and long-term development. Parents, schools, and society all have a role to play in making this possible.
I agree with many of his views, though putting them into practice is more challenging, partly because of societal constraints and partly because of our own desire for convenience, need for control, or instinct to intervene.
Be playful.
Play, as I and many other play researchers define it, is an activity that has the following four characteristics: It is (1) chosen and directed by the players themselves; (2) intrinsically motivated; (3) structured by mental rules; and (4) always creative and often highly imaginative.
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To feel in charge of one’s life, one must feel free to choose one’s own paths (autonomy), feel sufficiently skilled to pursue those paths (competence), and have friends and colleagues for support, including emotional support (relatedness).
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I then examined how play and other independent activities promote children’s long-term mental well-being by (a) satisfying the three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), (b) promoting an internal locus of control, and (c) building courage.
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Trustful parenting sends messages of empowerment to children: You are competent. You have eyes and a brain and can figure things out. You know your own abilities and limitations. Through play and exploration, you will learn what you need to know. Your needs are valued. Your opinions count. You are responsible for your own mistakes and can be trusted to learn from them. Social life is not the pitting of will against will, but the helping of one another so that all can have what they need and most desire. We are with you, not against you.
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what does it mean to be a TAS [trustful, autonomy-supportive parenting] parent?
Recognize the child as a unique, whole person, not the parent’s creation…
Attempt to see from the child’s point of view…That does not mean acceptance of misbehavior, but it means being on the child’s side, rather than against the child, in trying to find a solution.
Focus on the child’s present, not future…
Children who feel secure in their relationship with their parents, who feel supported rather than controlled, who feel trusted and therefore trustworthy, and who have a good good enough environment in which to play, explore, and learn–including plenty of opportunities to makes friends and interact with others beyond the family–will be best able to chart their own satisfying future…
TAS parents allow their children to make mistakes and to fail, because they know that mistakes and failures are inevitable components of learning. When they provide help, They do so by supplementing and supporting the child’s own efforts rather than by taking over the task completely. The goal is to abet the child’s striving for independence, not interfere with it…
Expect children to be partners in family chores…Involve the child in decision making and problem solving…Family rules can be made by discussion with the goal of consensus. Family vacations will be much more pleasant if everyone agrees on, or at least consents to, a destination and plan…
Reinforce moral values more than achievement…
Instead of banning activities, teach safely rules…
Respect the child’s privacy…
Resist fear-based and defensive modes of parenting...
Enable free play and independent exploration…
Preserve children’s time for free play…
Ask children about independent activities they would like to undertake…
Practice playfulness…Life is to be enjoyed, and the best way for parents to convey that to their kids is to enjoy life themselves. Becoming a more playful adult does not necessarily require any change in what one does; it may just require taking a new attitude toward what one does. A book I have found to be helpful in learning how to do this is the late Bernie De Koven’s A Playful Path. Here’s one of the many passages that I highlighted:
You don’t have to play to be playful. You don’t need toys or games or costumes or joke books. Playfulness is all about being vulnerable, responsive, yielding others the moment….You have to be present to enjoy the sunrise, to delight in the light of your child’s delight, because otherwise you simply aren’t there to catch it. It goes by you as if it and you aren’t even there.
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