By: Rae Pica
Rae Pica is an early childhood education consultant and internationally known speaker, online course creator, and author. She is the author of Why Play? How to Make Play an Essential Part of Early Education (Teachers College Press, 2024).
With the publication of my book Why Play? approaching, Teachers College Press and I decided to host a web event answering some of the questions early childhood educators have about play.
We invited registrants to submit their questions in advance. Not surprisingly, many of those questions covered similar themes (e.g., making play part of the curriculum, getting parents on board with play, etc.). For the most part, these were the queries my colleague Sally Haughey and I addressed during the web event.
But an important question that we simply didn’t have time to address involved the issue of challenging behaviors. Some attendees asked, “Are challenging behaviors more prevalent in a play-based program?”
Movement Is Not Misbehavior
Because the idea of children in motion invokes images of children bouncing off the walls, teachers worry that children playing will create even more classroom chaos. Unfortunately, many adults embrace the unrealistic and untrue belief that children are behaving (and learning) only when they are sitting motionless at their desks. Too often this means any movement in the classroom—even fidgeting—is considered misbehavior. But the truth is, when children lack the chance to move and play, they are more likely to become restless. And it is restlessness that often results in misbehavior.
Pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom is among those experts who contend that today’s children simply don’t engage in enough movement to manage optimal learning or behavior. Lack of movement, she says, has caused children to have underdeveloped balance systems and strength. She writes,
Children are going to class with bodies that are less prepared to learn than ever before. With sensory systems not quite working right, they are asked to sit and pay attention. Children naturally start fidgeting, in order to get the movement their body so desperately needs and is not getting enough of to ‘turn their brain on.’ What happens when the children start fidgeting? We ask them to sit still and pay attention; therefore, their brain goes back to ‘sleep’ (Hanscom, 2014).
Despite the research, today’s emphasis on early academics means even young children are required to sit for inordinate lengths of time. Sitting has been shown to increase fatigue and reduce concentration. Tired children who can’t focus become frustrated, and frustration often leads to discipline problems. Additionally, sitting still is an advanced balancing skill for which young children are not yet developmentally equipped. Like all skills, balancing and staying still involve a developmental process. When the proprioceptive and vestibular senses are well developed, children can sit upright and stay that way. These senses are developed through such activities as hanging upside down, spinning, swinging, rolling down hills, and running and changing directions—all activities children experience when given the opportunity to play.
More Reasons to Play
Obviously, I’m not able to detail all the benefits of play in a blog post (for more information, just check out Why Play?). But here are three compelling reasons why more play in early education can help reduce the prevalence of challenging behaviors.
Self-Regulation
Because challenging behaviors are on the rise, self-regulation has become a hot topic in education. The term refers to the ability to regulate oneself without intervention from an outside source. In the case of young children, it means adults don’t always have to tell them how to behave; they’ve learned to control their emotions and resist impulsive behavior on their own.
Since there’s to be no intervention from an outside source, self-regulation can’t be “taught” by insisting that children sit still or be quiet. That approach typically results in resistance; (i.e., challenging behavior). Instead, if we approach self-regulation skills in a way that’s fun, children are more likely to acquire those skills.
For example: Statues is a game where the children move while the music is playing and freeze into a statue when the music is paused. When playing a game of Statues, children will want to stay still—because they enjoy pretending to be a statue! Telling children to move slowly won’t inspire them to learn how to do so. But asking them to move like an astronaut floating in outer space—or as though they’re trying to walk through peanut butter—provides incentive for them to move slowly.
Social Development
Kohn (1992) tells us that, among other things, cooperative play leads to friendlier feelings among participants, results in greater sensitivity and trust toward others, and enhances feelings of belonging.
When children cooperate, good things happen. If given a chance to work together toward a solution or common goal—whether creating a game, collaborating on a jigsaw puzzle, or bouncing cotton balls on a parachute to create a “snowstorm”—they know they each contribute to the success of the venture. The children learn to become tolerant of others’ ideas and to accept the similarities and differences of other children.
Children who understand, enjoy, and trust one another are far less likely to exhibit challenging behaviors.
Stress Reduction and Joy
Stress is detrimental to learning, and play helps to reduce stress in children (Wang & Aamodt, 2012). This is achieved in numerous ways, including through creative expression, the opportunity to process feelings, a sense of agency, and the joy it provides.
In the 1800s, poet Alfred Mercer maintained that what we learn with pleasure we never forget. Music educator Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1931) later claimed that joy is the most powerful of all mental stimuli. More recently, neurologist and educator Judy Willis (2014) pointed to research determining that when the fun ends, so does the learning.
There is nothing more fun—and joyful—for children than play.
Conclusion
A play-based curriculum does not translate into a free-for-all, as many adults tend to imagine. Rather, a friendly, fun, and fruitful environment is more likely to be a peaceful environment. And research supports that contention. A study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly (Fantuzzo, et al., 2007) found that children in play-based preschool programs did indeed exhibit fewer behavior challenges than those in programs focused on academics.
Play is a biological drive and the way through which nature intended children to grow and learn. When we understand that challenging behaviors are on the increase precisely because young children have almost no time to play, we will recognize that a play-based curriculum not only results in fewer behavior challenges but is also the only acceptable curriculum for young children.
References
Fantuzzo, J. W., Bulotsky-Shearer, R., McDermott, P. A., McWayne, C., Frye, D., & Perlman, S. (2007). An investigation of preschool classroom behavioral adjustment problems and social–emotional school readiness competencies. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 22(4), 529-552. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2007.06.002
Hanscom, A. (2014). The real reason why kids fidget.” Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-real-reason-why-kids-fidget_b_5586265
Jaques-Dalcroze, E. (1931). Eurythmics, Art, and Education (F. Rothwell, Trans.). Barnes.
Kohn, A. (1987). No contest: The case against competition (Revised ed.). Houghton Mifflin.
Shrieves, L. (2009). Kids with ADHD need to fidget, study says. Medical press. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2009-05-kids-adhd-fidget.html
Wang S, Aamodt S. Play, stress, and the learning brain. Cerebrum. 2012 Sep;2012:12. Epub 2012 Sep 24. PMID: 23447798; PMCID: PMC3574776.
Willis, J. (2014, July 18). The neuroscience behind stress and learning. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/blog-neuroscience-behind-stress-and-learning-judy-willis/
Featured photo by Anna Shvets