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Commentary:
Remember how to play?
By Peter Keil
I have trouble playing, particularly in an
unstructured way — the way that children
want to play. I find it hard to justify
taking the time to just muck about unless
I can create some legitimate reason for it.
I am not the only one, in my work and
conversations with other men I find that
very few allow themselves the space to
play. I watch children involved in play
and what I see is an open ended process
that often involves making up the rules
as one goes along. I see a process that is
not so concerned with winning or losing,
is not worried about the rules being
perfect. I see children creating funny
little realities together or on their own.
What I find immensely sad is that I can
not really remember what it felt like to
do that. What men do well in terms of
play is structured and often competitive:
sport, board games and computer
games. We can’t view sport as play any
more, but just another career path.
The general trend seems to be away
from unstructured, active and interactive
imaginative play towards structured
and competitive play. The other
trend is towards passive entertainment
as a replacement for play. I was trying
to imagine what kinds of passive entertainment
existed in early cultures and all
I could come up with was story telling,
circus and theatre; these feel very different
to watching TV.
If we wish to raise boys successfully
and we wish them to embody ideals of
fairness, passionate engagement, pleasure
in the challenges of life, then play is
one place where those values are learnt.
Most importantly, play is active not passive.
The rise in passive entertainment
is really astounding and the use of the
television to provide entertainment for
children and adults has clearly deeply
eroded our traditions of play.
Recently I was involved with a camp
for men and boys. At one point the boys
suggested a game of spotlight (played
at night, one person has a strong torch
and tries to stop everyone else from
reaching a home point by spotlighting
and naming them). All the adults were
a bit unenthusiastic, but we gave it a
go and of course we were immediately
engrossed and had a fantastic time. Why
didn’t we know that? Why didn’t we
remember how much fun it can be?
I asked Simon Dubois, a psycholo-
gist and youth worker, what he would
like to say to men, especially fathers,
about play: ‘I would like them to critically
evaluate the amount of priority
they give play. How often do they generate
opportunities for themselves and
their children to play? And then, on a
broader level, I’m interested in people
stopping to think, “Well how important
is this?” “Is it my role?” or “Should
we be creating structures where kids
are able to spend more time together?”
Perhaps adults are just a stopgap
because kids can’t find other kids. I
think Kai (Simon’s four-year-old son) is
looking for someone with greater cognitive
ability to play with, which kids
the same age can’t be, but adults and
older kids can. Connecting intimately
requires an unshielded, unstructured
space where silly little wacky things can
happen. Kai’s train set is meaningless
to him unless someone is playing with
him with it.’
At Uncle Byron Bay, working with
men who wish to be mentors for boys,
we’ve learnt that play creates better
interaction. It is the best starting point
for the mentoring relationship. Men
who play appropriately with boys are
able to attract greater attention, respect
etc simply through the capacity to play.
So we try to train our Uncles to be
conscious players with distinct goals
— connection, teaching of approaches
to challenges, communication skills,
creativity.
What we have realised is that to create
a relationship of value with a boy
requires that the man is able to drop
their daily concerns and be completely
in the company of the boy — in this
space the boy’s ideas and interests are
as valid as the man’s despite his greater
experience.
Play gives you access to the greatest
confidence booster you can provide,
allowing children to create the world
in which you meet where they are in
control, where normal power structures
are broken down and those involved
are co-creating a world where anything
might happen.
So put aside the time, put aside your
ego, put aside the need to win or even
get things right, listen to the children
around you, learn from them, throw
away your ordinary concerns and relax
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