Ugh, a part of me always replies, when invited to play a game. It doesn’t matter the age of the person, although depending on the complexity of the game and whether faces will need to be wiped, or lots of rules taught and reinforced, it may dial up or down the excitement. I’m beginning to think that I have PDD, “Play Deficit Disorder,” which isn’t in your garden variety diagnosis, even in the realm of self-diagnoses. Google’s AI informs me of the error of my ways:
“Play Deficit Disorder is a concept, not a formally recognized medical diagnosis, that refers to a lack of opportunities or engagement in play, which can negatively impact a child’s development and well-being. It’s linked to a decline in empathy, an increase in narcissism, and potentially higher rates of mental health issues like anxiety and depression.”
Well, shoot. I am now in danger of increased narcissism, but also of following my confirmation bias. I’ve seen first hand the effects of “play deficit” as a concept in Kentucky public schools.
Where play deficit begins and ends
I know this is mere anecdotal evidence. I’m just one person, whose shared impressions and conversations with my limited network of teachers and parents doesn’t constellate hard data. It’s hard to imagine exactly what would satisfy the rigors of empirical evidence that play either hurts or helps child development. We’d have to define some terms, and some goals. It’s as essential and complex as the question, “what is education?” or “what does it mean to be whole?” Is the point to show recess time could improve attention or scores on a test–or decreased aggression, anxiety or depression? All these issues are doubtless worth someone’s time and effort. I can only say that I taught 8th graders who’d spent elementary school enjoying a daily, cumulative 30 min of recess time (or less) and the result was many young men and women who had not yet skillfully mastered their bodies, or their attention.
Because they had not internalized this during their previous eight years of classroom experience, I found myself trying to help my students, young men in particular, learn how to choose a variety of postures for learning, observe personal space, speak and listen as part of a group–at the same time as re-teaching parts of speech and the structure of a well-reasoned persuasive essay. Their lack of skill in self-mastery made them all the more hungry to become rhetorically effective. But all they knew where confinement and power struggles. This was in part due to school buildings being set up like “ideal jails” as Wendell Berry observed: long, industrial hallways with classroom cells, crowded restrooms, a culture of hypervigilance.
Since the environment was ill prepared to help them absorb self-responsibility, I offered them the tools of adulthood: they learned to use classical persuasive appeals, spot and avoid logical fallacies, even in simple requests to leave class for the library or bathroom. With thoughtful grins and vulnerably raised eyebrows, students of every color, shape and size would attempt find the right blend of ethos, logos and pathos that would unlock the desired answer to their questions. Suddenly, the game was afoot: they could see again the path to being taken seriously as young adults. All of this makes me wonder: is it enough to aggregate expert data that shows recess is as important as math or reading, or is something more primal afoot?
“Play is the work of the child.”
Dr. Maria Montessori
We have embarked on our May “month off” of homeschooling. In spite of telling the kids, with a twinkle in the eye, to be sure not to learn anything while formal school lessons are on hiatus, they come in moment by moment, having learned almost effortlessly. Breathless, they are pronouncing new insights on cicadas, their trials of homemade pulleys and levers, and imagine fairy worlds which beget hours-long creation. They observe and remark on their baby sister’s gross motor development as compared to Klára Pap’s drawings of the research from early childhood expert Emi Pikler, and ways they might teach her one day to remember clockwise from counterclockwise. Clearly, Maria Montessori’s observation that “play is the work of the child,” rings true. Having the chance to observe in multiple environments, across multiple ages beyond our home, I find it happens, over and over again. The children show us something essential about our humanity, which can be practiced and recovered. When work and play begin to dance together, something new results: work often becomes a joyful prayer of thanksgiving.
The Knight of the Dismal Face
Now, I come to the root of the problem. Within the adult, within myself, the child gets lost. I once knew how to be at home in times of play. What happened? As Peter Pan might say, I grew up. I became a workaholic, which started out as great fun. I deeply enjoyed the feeling of getting things done–meaningful work with meaningful people, which, I thought, filled me with meaning, too. Right up until the meaning was drained, the people irritating, the fun all but gone, and no reliable way to “turn that frown upside down.” Then, I began to search for whatever meaning had been missing in the first place, creating the void I’d filled with work.
Grown-up problems cannot be merely fixed by a return to Neverland, as Robin Williams showed us in Hook. The child within was meant to grow up. In growing up a second time, we learn to defeat the villain (who is always the enemy of merriment) in a masterful way that goes beyond a child’s abilities, yet still partnered with the child. Sometimes, the work of the adult is simply to get out of the way and let the child be victorious. Always, it is a dance of learning to welcome the primal instincts of the child, while also providing the expansive experience of the adult.
The child within was meant to grow up. In growing up a second time, we learn to defeat the villain (who is always the enemy of merriment) in a masterful way that welcomes the primal instincts of the child, while also providing the expansive wisdom of the adult.
What gets in the way? It sounds so simple. I tilt at windmills, making tragedies into comedies (and vice versa) in spite of my stated values. I confess that I think I am heroic when I stay busy, outlining all the obstacles–boxes that must be checked–in order for me to relax and enjoy being with my family. In reciting the litany of all the things I do–which I believe they don’t notice or appreciate–I want to be seen. I feel invisible, so I wrap myself in what I have done. The saddest truth of all: when the table is set for a family boardgame, I am often bolting to and fro instead of sitting down. It is a perpetual, interminable quest to fix things in which I lose the ability to even laugh at myself.
Gravely, I take stock: what is lost, when I do not play? When I take myself too seriously, I become the enemy of delight. I fail to participate in creation itself, which God called “very good.” (Genesis 1:31), and the Hebrew suggests joy, completion, wonder, and even play. “Sabbath delight invites us to healthy play,” says Pete Scazzero. “The word chosen by the Greek Fathers for the perfect, mutual indwelling of the Trinity was perichoresis. It literally means ‘dancing around.’ Creation and life are, in a sense, God’s gift of a playground to us. Whether it be through sports, dance, games, looking at old family photographs, or visiting museums, nurturing our sense of pure fun in God also is part of Sabbath.” His four components of practicing a biblical Sabbath provides me with a path toward healing and maturity, reversing the schism between inner child and parent, doing and being, sacred and profane.
Creation and life are, in a sense, God’s gift of a playground to us.
Pete Scazzero
With the remains of May, I intend to invest in the conditions that invite me to playfulness. When I lack resolve, I will tell the part of myself which loves duty, that this is a way to honor our deceased daughter Gwyn, who knew all too well my inner tyrant that so often struggled to tolerate, much less enjoy, her play. Though I did not always have eyes to see it, she was, in fact, constructing herself through play. She was learning to think for herself, to synthesize all she could do with her mind and her hands into something others could see and touch.
The amount of concentrated work that went into game design seems to deny that it was, categorically, play. Here, there is mystery. When, exactly, does work become play? I will go slowly enough to recognize the miracle of a repeated invitation, if needed. I will practice how to say “yes” again, with or without words, and without thinking too hard about it. I will find ways to say to the child, “Lead on.”
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