Childhood and Imaginative Play
In the Western world, people have historically welcomed and supported imaginative play in the lives of young children. Perhaps, as a child, you recall you and/or other young people playing imaginatively: pretending to be media characters (e.g., SpongeBob Squarepants or a character from the Harry Potter or Star Wars series) or playing out life experiences you saw and/or took part in like playing school or doctor. You might have played with your siblings, friends, and cousins. You might have had props for these play activities like toys, dolls, or action figures. You might have even created makeshift objects that took on new meanings when, all of sudden, a tree branch became a sword for your pretend battle. We also support imaginative play in Western preschool programs and daycare facilities, for example, with play areas like the dress up corner for young children to try on costumes to explore and play being different occupations.
Developmental and Educational Benefits of Imaginative Play
Our support for imaginative play with and for young children is not only supported in examples offered here, the notion of play as an activity in childhood is also in the English language. We say “play is the work of the child” or “it’s just child’s play” to remind us of the benefits, and perhaps the limitation, of imaginative play to this time in the human lifespan. Imaginative play, according to prominent developmental theorists, supports children to develop their cognitive skills (e.g., perspective taking) and social-emotional growth (e.g., turn taking). While educators and caregivers of young children in the Western world are noticing pushback on the presence and significance of imaginative play in place of direct instruction as found in primary, secondary, and tertiary formal education, the dominant view is that imaginative play has developmental and educational benefits and only childhood is where such benefits live.
Imaginative Play Throughout Our Lives
I’m not sure we do and should limit imaginative play to an activity only of and for young children. Yet it already may feel odd to say that older children, adolescents, and adults engage in activities that may very much look like (i.e., have “a family resemblance to”) the kinds of imaginative play activities young children do, like act out scenes from their favorite movies or play out a visit to the doctor. Indeed, we may believe that older children, adolescents, and adults don’t play. People might wear a Halloween costume, but that’s one sanctioned day only. The limitations of imaginative play beyond early childhood show up in ways we talk as we develop. The language of “school” and “work” take focus over the language of “play” as we age. Just a few of the many examples come to me as I write. We have “homework” and “housework” expected of us. We go to or look for “work.” We “work out” to stay healthy and/or in shape. We “work on” a solution to an issue our company, governing body, or community is facing. What might it feel like to replace these examples and others in our lives with the word, and the activity, of imaginative play? Can we play with and in institutions like schools and companies? Can we play with possibilities and not be overly guided by solution finding or other outcomes? Can engaging in imaginative play throughout our lives support us to develop our thinking, feeling, relating, and becoming?
I’m happy to write that an answer to questions like these can be an enthusiastic “Yes!”
Lifespan Imaginative Play as Performance
For more than three decades, I’ve been building an international movement with amazing, inspiring people that embraces imaginative play as a lifespan, developmental, and educational activity. We play with and support the imaginative play of people of all ages. We co-create imaginative play with people across different contexts, like in schools, community organizations, political organizing, and corporations. We call the imaginative play created by and for older children, adolescents, and adults performance. Our use of performance has a family resemblance to what artists like actors or dancers might do on a traditional platform like a stage. Our use and practice of performance opens up possibilities beyond artists and the stages they may create and show their art. We invite all people, not merely “creative” folks, to play, and, as suggested earlier, to see their performances in everyday life. To invite people to perform as we do, we co-create an environment for us to at once be who we are and become someone else/new together. To perform as who we are and who we are becoming together harkens back to what children do when they play imaginatively, since they are at once the “child they are” and “the character they pretend to be.” And giving who they are and exploring the possibilities of who they are becoming is developmental.
Much of my offers to perform with others emerge from my decades of experiences as a theatrical improviser, where folks come together to create worlds, characters, relationships, objects, and environments emergently. From my experiences, also inviting and supporting older children, adolescents, and adults to perform via improvisation brings into being new feelings of power and possibilities to serve their, and our, development. Performance in the form of improvisation is a game changer, a revolutionary activity, and a socially just and inclusive practice. It’s been my life’s work (more so my life’s play!) and passion to co-create and perform possibilities of lifespan imaginative play for human development and community and social change. I invite you to share and build improvisationally together performances with me/us on this site, remotely, and/or in the physical world. What and how can we create together? I’d love to hear from you!
