While playtime might seem straightforward, it's fraught with challenges and nuances that parents often overlook.
In this podcast, we are joined again by researcher, author, and Professor Dr Peter Gray and today we are unraveling the intricacies of play and its influence on a child's growth.
We discuss why simply taking your child to the park isn't the same as neighborhood play and the difference between 'play' and a 'playful approach to learning'.
Join us for this enlightening conversation that promises insights that are sure to change how you perceive children's playtime.
Other ways we can help you:
While playtime might seem straightforward, it's fraught with challenges and nuances that parents often overlook.
In this podcast, we are joined again by researcher, author, and Professor Dr Peter Gray and today we are unraveling the intricacies of play and its influence on a child's growth.
We discuss why simply taking your child to the park isn't the same as neighborhood play and the difference between 'play' and a 'playful approach to learning'.
Join us for this enlightening conversation that promises insights that are sure to change how you perceive children's playtime.
Other ways we can help you:
In today's episode we are continuing on with part two of our conversation with the amazing Dr Peter Gray.
Vicci Oliver:I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we're recording today the Kabi, kabi and Gabi Gabi people. I would like to recognize the continued connection to the land and waters of this beautiful place we call home. I also recognize Aboriginal people as the original custodians of this land and acknowledge that they have never seen its sovereignty. I'd like to pay my respects to all Gabi Gabi elders, ancestors and emerging elders and any first nations people listening today. Hello everyone, this is the Raising Wildlings podcast and I am your host, vicky Oliver. Now, if you've been a fan of the show, you may recall our very first episode, way back in 2020. I distinctly remember it because I was sitting so nervously in front of the computer on an island off the coast of Queensland during one of our lockdowns, and I was having that moment when you realized that you're talking to someone whose work has completely turned your world upside down, turned your ideas on education upside down and has set you on the trajectory of starting a business and homeschooling your children. I'm, of course, talking about Dr Peter Gray, who isa professor at Boston University. He works in neuroscience and psychology and his book Freetalon is one of the most recommended books that we have ever had on the podcast. It is the number one book that I recommend to anyone who is considering homeschooling or anyone who is remotely interested in child development and play. Of course, it has set me on this path that Niki and I are on right now. We thought it was about time that we invited him back onto the podcast, but we wanted to talk to him more, of course, about play. Last time we had him if you want to go all the way back to episode one we talked a little bit more about self-directed education. This time we wanted to talk more about play. He started a new sub-stack. He has got such amazing research and understanding around play in children.
Vicci Oliver:This is part two of the conversation. If you missed our first part, go back and have a listen. We talked about the evolutionary history of play, what we stand to lose in our culture if we forget how to play or we lose the value of play. We talk about, obviously, the fundamental process of play as part of children's learning and also the fact that we think that it's quite trivial, but the fact that it is trivial and that we don't have a predetermined outcome. That's the reason why play is so powerful in our lives. I also talked a lot about or I wanted to understand why he doesn't like the idea or the term unstructured play. Then we started to talk about why it can be really difficult as parents to want to engage in play with our children, which segues very nicely into where we're going to pick up again in this part of the conversation. We start talking about multi-age play, so let's get started with part two. Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education and stepping into the wilderness, however that looks, with your family.
Nicki Farrell:Each week, we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less traveled.
Vicci Oliver:Wear your hosts, vicki and Nikki, from Wildlings Forest School, popping your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure. One of the things you talk a lot about is mixed age groupings of children and why it's really important for children not to just be playing with other children. Their age and that is something that is very unique to you know a very recent in history, we've never separated, and nor do we in any other part of life separate, any people out into single-aged groupings. What are we missing when we do that?
Dr Peter Gray:Yeah, so I'm a big advocate of mixed-age play. Now that might sound a little contradictory to what I've just said, that adults and children playing together often doesn't work very well. I think adults and children can play together as long as the adult and the child are like two children figuring out a way to play that they're both enjoying and they're really both enjoying. It's not play if one of them isn't enjoying it. Teenagers, I've observed, are I've done some research in settings where we see teenagers and even little children playing together Teenagers are generally pretty good at playing with little children, better generally than parents are, and I think the reason? I think there are a number of reasons for that. First of all, teenagers are not as far removed from being smaller children. They still remember what it's like to be a smaller children better than we do. Their sense of humor is maybe a little more advanced, but it's not that different from a little kid. They still have the energy for a rough and tumble and enjoy and they're not so likely to see it as a teaching activity. They're not so likely to be condescending and patronizing in play. They're more likely to say you know, let's play, but let's play in a way that that we both enjoy and they're actually more likely to be boosting the child up into the Teenagers way of playing rather than descending into the little child's way of playing, so that so that if they're playing a game, they want to play a game that is going to be challenging to them as well as to the little kid, or if they're playing a very common way. Of course, for teenagers to play with younger children is rough and tumble, where the difference in size and strength and so on is an advantage. You can, you can line your back and swing the little kids up in the air on your legs. You can give them piggyback rides. You you can. You can sword fight when I've I've just I've witnessed and seen Just really joyful sword fights where one teenager is fending off a horde of Five and six year olds who are trying to attack him, you know, and everybody's just really Screaming with pleasure. So there are a lot of ways that Teenagers or teenagers even playing a game like basketball with younger children, where it'll be, where the teenager will deliberately Not shoot baskets because that would be too easy with just little kids who can't defend, but is only setting up as younger teammate and is helping keep the game going and is learned is very much challenged dribbling the ball through this horde of little kids. So there are all kinds of ways that teenagers play with little kids and Everybody's enjoying it.
Dr Peter Gray:The bigger point I want to make about mixed-age play is that, generally speaking, when children who differ in age and ability Are playing together, it's a learning experience for both the younger and the older kids and and for the younger kids Generally speaking, the older kids are Are boosting the younger kids up to a more sophisticated or more challenging Kind of play then they would be able to do if they were just playing with their age mates. So Just to give some examples, I've witnessed I've witnessed car games or board games where Little kids are playing with older kids and the little kids are capable of understanding the rules. But if we're just a little kids playing it, they the game would fall apart because they don't have the attention span. They would forget what they're doing. They would be for the card game. They'd be showing their cards because they don't remember.
Vicci Oliver:They would be for a little leadership there would be.
Dr Peter Gray:So when they're playing with the older kids, the older kids are are, tell, are, reminding them what they have to do. You know they're not, and they're doing it in a non patronizing way hey, hey, idiot, stop showing your cards. You know, and because it's not patronizing, it actually is more effective and more playful than when an adult is doing it. It becomes kind of a teaching experience rather than just part of the play. So the so similarly, you can. You know you like that basketball game I just described. Little kids would never be able to organize the game. It wouldn't be fun, you know. But because there's that teenager there who can keep the game going, keep it going straight, and who who's Kind of setting up the little kid of kids and and so that they can actually make baskets, that the teenager is adding structure to it that the little kids might not be able to do, and and that. And there are many forms of play where the teenagers are either literally or figuratively boosting the child up, helping the child climb a tree, by hardly by boosting, but also by standing underneath if the child fell. You know the there. So that so and and and what are the older kids learning in in. When they're playing in this kind of way, the older kids are learning. First of all, the younger kids are inspired by the somewhat more sophisticated way that the older kids are playing, and they want to do that and they're learning to play in a For sophisticated way, but the the older kids are being inspired by the creativity and the energy of the younger kids. We tend I don't know if this is because the culture we're growing up in or if it's just kind of biologically natural we tend to, as we grow older, even in childhood, lose a little bit of our, of our creativity, and we tend to become a little bit more, a little bit less flexible in our, in our activities, a little bit, and and and little kids tend to retain a little more spontaneity and a little more creativity, and that can inspire the older kids. The other thing that can happen is what I've seen is older kids maybe just partly, with the excuse that there's little kids, will continue to play at things like building with blocks or Clay or painting pictures and our society, you know, kids begin to think that they're too old to do this kind of stuff. This is baby stuff, you know, which is why not very many of us grew up to become artists. Little kids are artists and then we kind of lose that. But if there's little kids around, I've seen the kids continue to do these things with little kids or and they're kind of inspired to do it and they become better artists as a result of that. They continue to play at artistic things. As little kids are playing that way, they continue maybe to play in a more imaginative way, because little kids are little. Kids always want to play in imaginative ways, and so older kids, if they're playing with little kids or even if they're just being inspired by little kids, may continue to bring more Imagination into their play. So it works both ways in terms of affecting play.
Dr Peter Gray:But the other thing that the older kids are learning in such play is sort of how to, how to be a nurture, how to Look out for little kids, how to, how to and how to teach you, because you're not teaching in a pedantic sort of way.
Dr Peter Gray:You're you're.
Dr Peter Gray:Whenever you're playing something, you where, the, where you kind of have a sense of what you're supposed to be doing here and you have to then explain it to the little kid who doesn't know.
Dr Peter Gray:You are, just as part of the game.
Dr Peter Gray:You're teaching the little kids something. You're teaching them how to add up the scores, or how to read these words if you're playing a computer game together, how to read these words on the screen, or how to climb a tree more safely, if you're climbing trees together, or you know so how to how to kick a ball, if you're playing a ball, a ball kicking game. So that's the. So you're. You're explaining things and in the process of explaining things, anybody who teaches knows that you learn more by teaching than by being taught, because you, when you, when you try to articulate to somebody else what you think you know, you develop a more conscious understanding of what it is that you know, and you and you and you rethink it, and so really do, and so when older kids are Explaining to younger kids what you have to do in this play, they're also kind of explaining it to themselves in a way that that they now understand it at a higher level than they did before, just because they've had to put it into words that somebody else can understand so powerful.
Vicci Oliver:You've been in this for a very long time. What is it that you'd like to see happening more with play like? What message is it that you really want to get out there to educators and parents about play?
Dr Peter Gray:Well, I think that the primary message is that play is really, really important for children's development and to also understand what play is, because I think that a lot of people who say, okay, play is really, really important, then they proceed with activities that are not actually play. So, for example, we keep hearing about playful learning in schools, where the agenda is for the child to learn something that is part of the curriculum, whether it's kindergarten or first grade or even preschool these days but you're going to do it in a way that's called play and, of course, as soon as you have an agenda like that, it's really not play. One of the primary characteristics of play is that it's something that is initiated and directed by the children themselves. So if a teacher says, we're going to play this, it's not play and it undercuts one of the most important purposes of play, or several of the most important purposes of play, which is that play is how children to learn to make their own decisions about what to do.
Dr Peter Gray:Play is how children learn what they're passionate about, what they like to do, and play is how children learn to direct their own activities. So if you've got a teacher doing all that, you've lost major purposes of play. I'm not necessarily against bringing a playful approach into the classroom, but let's not call it play. Okay to call it a playful approach to learning, but not play it. Does it substitute for play?
Vicci Oliver:Yeah, and I think it's important to distinguish that language, like we were talking about the unstructured play versus. You know that it's child led or however we, whatever words we use, is actually very important to delineate, because I think there is even when you say and bringing a playful approach to learning is very different to the way that. I see play it is. It is important that we use the right words and understand what they are so that we know where they're at, and also misleading ourselves as educators and misleading parents, as well, right.
Dr Peter Gray:And the other thing we do is we tend to believe well, okay, so why do my children need play? Well, that's how they get physical exercise. So let's put them in activities that involve physical exercise and call that play. So we put them in in adult directed sports, whether it's the little children's playing soccer with a coach and and so on, or baseball or basketball or whatever it is. And again, that is not play, because it's adult directed, it's adult initiated. It's really more like school. It's like more of school is it's, it's your being, you're, you're being managed. It's fun.
Nicki Farrell:It's fun if you want to do it.
Dr Peter Gray:That's right and I'm not against these things, but I don't think parents should put their children into them unless the child is begging to be in it, and it's much more. In fact, it's much more important that children have opportunities for free play rather what most people would call free play and I just call play rather than that they be in yet another adult directed activity. That's true, An activity can be fun without being play If the child really wants to do it. But generally speaking, there's a lot of research showing children have a lot more fun when they're really playing and chasing one another around when they're involved in adult directed sports. They're even getting more physical activity when they're playing on their own outdoors, because there's a lot of just waiting time and sitting on the bench and so on and adult directed sports.
Dr Peter Gray:And some sports aren't really that active and some sports are not really that active and so. So that's the, and the other thing we tend to do, if we think, well, our children need play, is we might take them to the park a lot, but it's us taking them to the park and so the adult is there. And one thing we know in our world today is that even the mere presence of an adult monitor inhibits play in children. There's actually research showing there's. This was a study done a number of years ago when there were still children playing in parks without adults present, and what they found was they observed children and they observed how physically active and vigorous the children were in the park playing, and they found that if there was an adult present and controlling for everything else the gender and age of the children and so on and if there was an adult present, the children were far less likely to be playing in a vigorous way, really physically chasing one another around, climbing trees, doing all the kinds of things that we think of as healthy, vigorous, physical play. And if there wasn't adult around. So the mere presence of an adult is who's monitoring? Inhibits play. Probably, even if the adult isn't deliberately doing so, but just because the children feel like that the adult is going to criticize them or they have to do what they think the adult wants them to do rather than what they feel like to do it.
Dr Peter Gray:The other thing about taking children to the park if you're taking little children the park and you think, well, that's compensating for the fact that I can't just let them go outdoors and play in the neighborhood, first of all, there's limited activities you can do in that playground. I don't know about in Australia, but playgrounds in the United States have become extremely on interesting, all the. All the big slides and merry go rounds and the and teeter taughters that used to be there have been taken away because they're now regarded as dangerous and so there's nothing there that's really fun to play on for anyone more than three years old and so, and there may be a sandbox or something so, but there's limited activities and and secondly, every time you take the child to the park, if there are other kids there, they're probably different kids than from the last time you took them to the park, so they're not making regular playmate friends that way. Whereas neighborhood play you know the, the in the days when you could just send your kid out and other parents were saying their kids out and they're playing in the neighborhood. You're seeing the same kids. You're making friends. You're developing, you're developing a kind of culture of play you're developing. You know, these are the things we like to play together and these are the things that those other people like to play together. And when I want to play with, play their way, I play with those other people. You're you're learning. You're learning really how to make and keep friends. You're learning a lot more than you would be in every time you're playing there's you're trying to interact with strangers or you're ignoring the strangers because you don't really know the strangers. So, and secondly, you can bring stuff out from your house. You can bring out boards and tools and you can bring out your scooters and you can bring out your dolls or whatever it is you want to play with and you can play in so many different ways that when you're playing in the neighborhood.
Dr Peter Gray:So actually a research study, and this was done in the 1990s in Zurich, switzerland, where the researchers studied five year olds in two different neighborhoods there were similarly socio, economically, so in most ways there were similar groups of kids, but in one neighborhood the kids were still allowed to go out and play in the neighborhood without adults being out there In the other neighborhood. Because of busy streets, they were not allowed to go in place, but the parents compensated by taking them to the park on a regular basis. And what the researchers found is those kids, those five year olds who are still allowed to just go out and play with other kids in the neighborhood had twice as many friends, were and were socially and physically more competent, more fit than the kids who were being regularly taken to the park by their parents. So even though the parents believe they were compensating for the fact they couldn't just send the kids out to play by taking the park, the truth is it wasn't compensation in terms of the effects on the kids.
Vicci Oliver:And yeah, it says a lot about the way we design our neighborhoods these days and all of that like there's so many moving parts in the way, how quickly our society has changed. But I do see many places around the world making allowance like actually putting that in their minds when they're designing cities, towns, new developments and things like that to hopefully make them more accessible and having that feeling of safety for parents as well, which I know is probably one of the big barriers to Right.
Dr Peter Gray:Yeah, we've gone through, at least in the United States, a period where you know new housing development. You don't even there, hadn't even sidewalks. So you know, sidewalks used to be a place to play you know there are all kinds of sidewalk games.
Dr Peter Gray:Yeah, they were, and I live on, for example, there's no sidewalks and there's just a street, and so the and so there's no easy way. Even if a kid wanted to go to a nearby park, they'd have to walk on the street to get there, which most parents, even I, would regard as dangerous.
Vicci Oliver:So we've got a bit of work to do to find other ways to undo the harm that we've done in, I think, just how quickly our society's moved away from where we were so long ago. But the work that you do, peter, is still so important. It's still wildly talked about. It's your book, is the number one book that we recommend and it also probably comes up the most with our guests that come on when we say what's a book that you would recommend, and your one still comes up as being like quite a life changing book for many, many families, and I know that it has been for both Nikki and I in our own journeys with our families. So thank you so much again for joining us on the podcast today. Where can we find out more about your sub stack? What can people do to be following along with your amazing thoughts?
Dr Peter Gray:Well, you can easily subscribe to my sub stack. You know, just, you could, you could is.
Vicci Oliver:I'll link it in the show.
Dr Peter Gray:You can subscribe free or you could make a voluntary pledge if you wish a voluntary donation to the sub stack. What I do for any, any profit that I get. For people who get a paid subscription which again you don't have to do you can do it free. But a paid subscription, any profit I get, I donate to organization nonprofit organizations that are aimed at creating more opportunities for children's play and freedom in learning. So if somebody wants to make a $50 paid subscription, I encourage you to do so, but I also encourage you, if that's something you are not prepared to do, to just subscribe for free. If you subscribe, you'll get a regular email indication whenever there's a new. Right now I'm doing one a week and so there's a new one every week, usually on Tuesdays.
Vicci Oliver:It's been so great. I've really enjoyed going back through and reading those articles, because you talk about it a lot in the book and I've seen a lot of your things, but it's always refreshing and always important to go back over it. And also, I love seeing the comments at the bottom, because the more educators in particular who are understanding your work, I think that that has a very big ripple effect with the wider community. All right, thank you so much, peter, for being with us today. We really appreciate it.
Dr Peter Gray:Well, thank you, it's been my pleasure.
Vicci Oliver:Okay, that brings us to the end of our time with Peter. So if you missed the other two episodes, they should be really easy to find. You can scroll right back to find episode one of season one to hear our very first podcast ever, which was with Peter, and then, obviously, part one of our conversation is the very previous episode. I'd love to know what you thought. So drop us a line on our Instagram page, which is raising underscore Wildlings underscore podcast share far and wide and hopefully we can start to remember why play is so important for our children. Thank you so much for joining me. I know that your time is so precious and the fact that you choose to spend it with us each week is appreciated more than you could ever know. So, as always, I love doing this journey with you. So until next time, stay wild.