All My Children

Despite everything that has been said, it is obvious that parents cannot always have direct empathy with their child’s play experience. But certainly it can help parents to become aware of the different needs, anticipations, and desires a child brings to his play, as long as the parent realizes and accepts the fact that divergences between parent and child do exist. And the greater the parent’s emotional involvement in play, the more beneficial it is to the child, and to the relation with each other.

Almost any mother can recall with pleasure the elaborate fantasies she acted out with her dolls: how tenderly she ministered to them, with what fierce anger she occasionally abused them. Such a mother will provide her own children with dolls; she may even create beautiful wardrobes for them. But how many hours is this mother willing to spend playing dolls with her child? Mothers nowadays believe themselves to be too busy with more important things to be bothered with play. When acting this way, they deprive themselves of experiences which, would they permit them to sink in, might turn out to be considerably more meaningful than they could possibly imagine. For example, if a mother took the time to play with her daughter, she would surely be fascinated by the stories her child invents around her dolls and the kinds of experiences the child makes them undergo. It might even bring back to the mother stories she herself had woven around her own dolls, and she might discover previously unknown or long-forgotten aspects of her childhood. If she thinks along these lines, the parallels and differences between her fantasies as a child and those of her daughter will tell such a mother much about her daughter, and give her a direct feeling for how the daughter experiences herself. It is too bad that many mothers have forgotten so thoroughly the great joy and pleasure they felt when they asked their mother to play with them and she did so, and the lost feeling they experienced when she wouldn’t join in.

Here is a very important aspect of play, one that is frequently overlooked: it makes a vast difference to the child and his play if he can share his experiences with an adult who is able to remember childhood experiences around the same play. There is ample room in most children’s lives for play with other children, both spontaneous and as organized in nursery schools or playgrounds, and also for solitary play. That is, there would be ample room for play at home if television did not take its place. But parents, even those concerned about-television, often fail to ask themselves carefully enough why their child seems mesmerized by it. The most common reason for this fascination is the child’s desire to escape solitude and be in contact at least with imaginary characters on the screen, when real people are not available. Unless his relations to his parents are badly disturbed or his ability to relate seriously impaired—both ominous signs of emotional disorder—any child would much prefer to interact with real people in a real setting than with imaginary figures on the television screen. Solitary play, which parents often try to promote in place of television, cannot satisfy this need, nor can it take the place of people, even imaginary ones if no real ones are available.

When people who grew up before television was omnipresent in homes reflect back, they realize that they were able to fill out their empty time with play, and they wonder why modern children seem unable to do so and turn on the television; but they usually forget to ask themselves what they might have done had television been available to them. In all likelihood they too often felt the need for give and take with people, and when it was not available they turned to play and fantasy of such interactions with people, as in doll play, or play with soldiers or other toy figures, only because imaginary interactions with people, as through television, were not available to them. Also, before television was an outlet for this need, perhaps these children may have insisted more strenuously that their parents or siblings play with them and thus eventually gained their true desire. Many modern children, turned down by their parents, do not continue to insist that their parents play with them, but dejectedly turn to television as the second-best opportunity for interaction with at least imaginary figures. Unfortunately these children are seriously deprived of opportunities to forge bonds of intimacy with the most important persons in their lives—their parents—around play activities equally engrossing and meaningful to both parent and child.

Since many children now go to nursery schools at a much earlier age and have the opportunity to play there, why can’t this experience make up for playing with the parent? The most obvious answer is the most important one: because these other playmates are not parents. Nothing anyone else says or does can compare in significance to a child with what his parent says or does. The young child cannot help seeking his parent’s approval; nothing bolsters his self-esteem more than a parent’s approbation. Furthermore, nothing plunges him into deeper despair than a parent’s lack of interest or criticism. The younger the child, the more this is true. Therefore, only some kind of parental involvement in the child’s play can make it seem trulyimportant and worthwhile. Without it, play is “kid stuff” without much relevance, something a nursery-school teacher or baby-sitter does because it is her job and it keeps the children quiet.

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