The author discusses the process of play in terms of six elements in the play cycle first introduced by Sturrock and Else in 1998 and revised by King and Newstead in 2020--precue, play cue, play return, play frame, flow, and annihilation--and their relation to Winnicott's concepts of "potential space" or the "third area," which…

In this article, the author deploys Erving Goffman's concept of territories of the self as an analytical tool to understand the challenges and opportunities a childcare setting presents for children engaged in social fantasy play. He uses this concept to unpack the unique institutional play habitat of a childcare facility and shows how Goffman's…

The author explores the relationship of play to choreography. He defines choreography as the rules that guide body movements from their minute physicality to their broad social and cultural contours. He conducts a review of the literature and accentuates five general topics--learning through creativity; choreography as writing and pedagogy;…

The author describes how, during the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians embraced telehealth for vulnerable children struggling with intense feelings, learning challenges, and isolation. She suggests that generating playful engagement, however difficult without the toys and comforts of the traditional office, remains crucial. She discusses the stresses…

The authors surveyed public libraries to learn about the opportunities for play they offered and children's freedom to engage in such play without adult supervision. The authors conclude that, in recent years, public libraries in the United States have increasingly created spaces and programs enabling free play for children and teens. These…

The authors investigate the personality traits of parents and children and their significant influence on the behavior of the other. Using the HEXACO model of personality, the authors examine the behavior of one hundred parent-child dyads on a playground to understand broader parent-child relationships. Their analyses reveal two opposed types of…

The author examines the childhood experiences of formerly enslaved children. He suggests that the conventional understandings of scholars and historians concerning play may not be applicable to the complex lives of enslaved children because researchers do not consider such children as always propertied beings. Their play practices were molded by…

During the first and second months after school lockdown in spring 2020, the author and others conducted surveys in the United States of children aged eight through thirteen and of parents with children the same ages. Contrary to many expectations, they found the children less anxious than they had been prior to the pandemic. The children were…

Whether kids should be encouraged to play video games remains a topic of debate among many parents, who often entertain some of the myths associated with video game play. The authors review the latest scientific evidence to dispel worries that video game play contributes to obesity, desensitizes players to real-world violence, and causes…

The author demonstrates that war places children's play under acute stress but does not eliminate it. He argues that the persistence of children's play and games during periods of armed conflict reflects the significance of play as a key mode for children to cope with conditions of war. Episodes of children's play drawn from the recent Syrian…

The authors consider mature make-believe play a critical component of childhood that helps children develop new skills and learn to communicate. They argue that, although theoretical accounts of play have emphasized the importance of make-believe play for children to achieve social and academic competence, the absence of a reliable and valid…

The author discusses Johan Huizinga's "Homo Ludens" and the animating mood that it calls the "play spirit." He argues that these styles of playfulness represent a major practical and theoretical contribution Huizinga offers contemporary studies of play, and he considers Huizinga's methodology in a reading that runs counter to…

The authors note that ancient Athens, in important ways, connected children, toys, and play. But they also find the scholarship of toys sparse and scattered. They discuss obstacles that can skew our modern view of the Greek mind, and they caution that modern eyes should not see play where the Greeks saw ritual and religious devotion. With these…

The authors consider the strengths and weaknesses of three different visuo-spatial constructive play object (VCPO) types--blocks, bricks, and planks--and their impact on the development of creativity in spatial thinking and higher learning during free play. Each VCPO has its own set of attributes, they note, leading to different purposes,…

The authors point out a basic contradiction: On one hand, we want to keep children as safe as possible; On the other, they suggest, learning to take risks is a normal part of childhood and child development. In Norway, research has shown that early-childhood education and care (ECEC) practitioners have, in the past, taken a permissive approach to…