Introduction
You’re unique, just like everyone else! And guess what, your play is too. We are all products of nature (pre-wired parts of our brains) plus nurture (our early life experiences). The combination results in our unique preferences and proclivities and our play, the activities and situations that we find engaging and fulfilling, is part of that.
In our September Play Note we encourage you to approach your cornucopia of playful experiences with curiosity and learn how to
- explore your play history,
- discover your play nature and
- identify your play personality.
Perhaps you’ve tasted widely from the smorgasbord of life, perhaps you’ve been more subdued. Your relationship with play is multifaceted and influenced by everything from genes to geography, bullies and besties. Your experiences (and not just the pleasant ones) have been adding color and dimension to your personal kaleidoscope of play. May you look through the lens with wonder!
It is with great delight (and official permission) that we share Dr. Jane Goodall’s play history as told to her dear friend and National Institute for Play founder, Dr. Stuart Brown. Her story illustrates how her early interest in animals was encouraged by her mother and evolved into a lifetime of service, conservation and advocacy.
Play Note: What Is Playing for You?
Because each of us is unique in what we find playful and fulfilling, the goal of this Play Note is to enable you to answer the question “What is Playing for me?” The content for this Play Note is sourced from Dr. Stuart Brown’s 30+ years of qualitative play research conducting play histories of 6,000+ individuals.
Dr. Brown has developed three interrelated constructs to fully answer that question.
Your Play History involves examining what activities and situations currently and in your past engage(d) you – give you a personal, internal sense of meaning and fulfillment. In more scientific terms, they are the activities and situations that “light up the play circuits in your brain”. Taking your Play History is a means of putting you in touch with the joy and satisfaction you experienced in your childhood and highlighting the current activities that bring you joy.
Your Play Nature is made up of the joyful and deeply satisfying activities-situations you identify in the Play History. If you are naturally, or innately, motivated to undertake an activity that gives you an internal, personal feeling of satisfaction or fulfillment, you have identified an aspect of your Play Nature.Your Play Personality is rooted in your playful (external) behaviors. When you are involved in innately motivated, playful, fulfilling activities how would your behavior be described? The characteristics of those behaviors are pointers to your Play Personality. Dr. Brown’s experiences with those 6,000+ individuals led him to identify eight core play personality types. Here is another set of Play Personality types.
Jane Goodall: Play Personality & Nature
Here we provide an example of the above described constructs – Play History, Play Nature, Play Personality – applied to a widely respected person, Dr. Jane Goodall. Dr. Goodall is an extremely accomplished ethologist and conservationist. Dr. Brown knows Jane Goodall personally which provides us unique insights into the role of play in the life of this extraordinary woman.
Play History: As a child she was naturally attracted to situations with animals; her mother fostered her pursuit of those interests. As an adult she took risks to pursue those interests.
Play Nature: Observing and interacting with animals
Play Personality: Explorer – she consistently explores opportunities, to be with animals, to support young people in being sensitive to nature, to fix the devastation of our planet.
Play News & Updates
- Internationally renowned artist Francis Alÿs has been documenting the games that children play on streets around the world. His Children’s Games is an ongoing archive of urban practices – a 20 second vignette.
- Lego’s 2022 PLAY WELL report
- 95% of children say play helps them try new ideas
- 93% of children say it is easy to make friend when playing
- 95% of children say play helps learn new things
- 95% of children say play makes them relax
- 97% of children say playing makes them happy
- 94% of children think play makes them creative
- IPA USA Porch Play Chats – Porch Play Chats are conversations with people who are passionate about play. New episodes are posted every couple of weeks; there is an archive of past episodes and each episode offers a transcript of the discussion.
Links to the current issues of 4 peer reviewed play journals:
- American Journal of Play – 2024 Issue 1
- International Journal of Play – 2024 Issue 2
- Journal of Play in Adulthood – 2024 Issue 1
- International Journal of Play Therapy – 2024 Issue 3
