Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 1

Children’s Right to Play and Attachment

Wendy Russell Sarah Mutch

Children’s Right to Play and Attachment

• Children’s right to play

• All being well, children develop attachments to caregivers, peers and place

• Sometimes, conditions do not support this

• SCENARIO CHALLENGE:

– Have a think about examples you know where there have been attachment problems

– Groupwork

Image: www.kurumsalhaberler.com

Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 2

Just playing

I like playing with my brother – pushing him around in the laundry basket, that’s my favourite game. I don’t know what its called – just the pushing my brother around in the laundry basket game Boy (6 years old) at the Consultation on Children’s Right to Play, Scotland 2010

Image : superstock.co.uk

Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 3

What do we mean by play?

• ‘As-if’ • Shared frames

(Bateson, 1972; Turner, 2007)

• Appropriating elements of everyday life and turning them upside down (Sutton-Smith, 1999)

• Rearranging the world to make it less boring or less scary (Sutton-Smith, 2003)

• ‘Refracts’ aspects of society rather than reflecting them (Stevens, 2007)

Image: photography.nationalgeographic.com

What do we mean by play?

• Deliberately seek out uncertainty (Spinka et al., 2001)

• In control of being out of control (Gordon and Esbjorn-Hargens, 2007)

• Primarily for its own sake, for the pleasure and joy of being able to do it (Pellis and

Pellis, 2009)

The adaptive value of play

Dominant, minority world view of play as the rehearsal of skills that have value in the real world – a ‘deferred benefits’ approach

But play is qualitatively different from real-life expressions – playing exaggerates, inverts and subverts conventional behaviours

Image: minsterschoolyork.co.uk

Image: studio3music.com

Immediate benefits

• The central adaptive value of play lies with developing physical and emotional flexibility in response to uncertainty

• The ability to regulate emotional responses to disturbance and reduce stress levels allows for other processes to be brought to bear on the situation

• Establishes the foundations for nuanced responses to novel and unpredictable environments

Image: snooperz.com

Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 4

3Ps through the prism of play

• Key themes in UNCRC:

– participation

– protection

– provision

• Human rights are interdependent, interrelated and indivisible

• Play has a relationship with all the articles

Play and participation: for children playing is a primary form of participation in

everyday life

Photo: John Robertson, Daily Telegraph

Play is a disposition, interwoven into daily lives Not a separate time- and space-bound activity

Playing as self-protection

Playing enhances adaptive capabilities and marks the ability for children to look after themselves (and each other) and cope with the adversities of everyday life (resilience)

Playing as self-protection

• Pleasure and enjoyment • Emotion regulation • Stress response systems • Creativity and learning • Attachment to peers and place

Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 5

Image: photofunblog.com

Friendships form one of the most important

contexts for supporting mental health Image: http://www.123rf.com

Summary: ordinary magic • Playing is a highly attractive form of self-

protection, and the very unwittingness and ordinariness of this from a child’s perspective adds to its value; for children play is simply about having fun, messing around and being with friends

• It also represents ‘ordinary magic’ (after Masten, 2001); for many children play is just something that happens, but it has the potential for the emergence of magical properties, to support survival and enhance well-being

Image: http://belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/ NCB gallery of pictures to celebrate 20th anniversary of UNCRC

Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 6

• Positive stress

• Tolerable stress

• Toxic stress

Image: TLC, the National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children Image: http://news.monstersandcritics.com

Image: walesonline.com

Children’s survival rights

infringed

Children’s capacity to

play

Play can help mitigate

extreme stress

Image: flickr

Image: www.newsrt.co.uk

Recognising, respecting and promoting the right to play

In supporting children’s right to play, attention must be paid not simply to the external expressions of play, but to the conditions in which ‘playfulness’ thrives

All being well… • All being well,

children can provide for their own playing, if the conditions support it

• But there are situations were this is not there case and children need more support to be able to play….

Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 7

Parental engagement

• If parents don’t understand the child’s need for play other factors can get in the way or seem more important or urgent! – Advice and information and where to go

– Attachment difficulties

– Aggression

– Social isolation

– Environment

– Disability

What can we do? Compensatory play

experiences

• Support – knowing where to go when you need it

• Pop in and play sessions – aimed at 0-2 year olds

• Pre school Childcare – aimed at 2-4 year olds

• After school clubs – aimed at 4-11 year olds

• Open Access Play – aimed at 8-14 year olds

Lots of families become isolated

• ‘Just talking to other parents can be a huge help and is great moral support. I can also talk to staff about …. anything that may concern me and it has been little things that have made all the difference.’ Victoria, Pantside

• It was somewhere for us to go to get us out… Its done Cameron no end of good and given me lots more than I expected.’ Jessica, Lansbury

At this time Sara had a baby and a toddler

• ‘I had Kenzie to look after as well, it was difficult to get out and about with the two of them but at Flying Start there was so much for him to do and other children to play with and before long his behaviour started to improve, his speech came on briliantly and the staff were wonderful with him.’ Sara, Caerphilly

Children’s Right to Play and attachment ATTACHMENT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND NEEDS 12th June 2013, at Swansea University

© Wendy Russell and Sarah Mutch 8

New play experiences for both parent and child

• ‘They have loved everything from messy play, to sand and water, glue and glitter, to picture books, toys and games, and have even joined in with cooking sessions, helping to make and decorate fairy cakes and rock buns. Its something different, something fun and the chance for them to explore new horizons, alongside new friends.’ Joanne, Lower Rhymney

The Starfish story

• A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

• She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”

• The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,

• “Well, I made a difference to that one!” • The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what

she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved. - adapted from the Star Thrower by Loren C. Eiseley

Why do we do it?

• Offering compensatory play experiences for children, young people and families we can make a difference

• Building experiences, access and expectations from very young and throughout their childhood to adulthood enables children and young people to have their right to play even when life’s realities seem to get in the way

References • Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press .

• BBC (1994) Out to Play.

• Burghardt, G.M. (2005) The Genesis of Animal Play: Testing the limits. Ma: MIT Press.

• Children’s Parliament and IPA Scotland (2010) Consultation on Children’s Right to Play, Kelso.

• Gordon, G. and Esbjorn-Hargens, S. (2007) Are we having fun yet? An Exploration of the Transformative Power of Play. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 47: 198-222.

• Lester, S. and Russell, W. (2008a) Play for a Change: Play, policy and practice – a review of contemporary perspectives, London: National Children’s Bureau

• Lester and Russell (2010) Children’s Right to Play: An examination of the importance of play in children’s lives worldwide, Working Paper 57, The Hague: Bernard van Leer Foundation.

• Masten, A. (2001) Ordinary Magic: Resilience processes in Development. American Psychologist , 56(3): 227-238.

• National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2005) Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Developing Brain. Working Paper No. 3. Cambridge, Ma: National Scientific Council on the Developing Child.

• Pellis, S. and Pellis, V. (2009) The Playful Brain: Venturing to the Limits of Neuroscience. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.

• Spinka, M., Newberry, R. and Bekoff, M. (2001) Mammalian Play: Training for the Unexpected. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 76(2): 141-168.

• Stevens, Q. The Ludic City: Exploring the potential of public spaces, Abingdon: Routledge.

• Sutton-Smith, B. (1997) The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press.

• Sutton-Smith, B. (2003) Play as a Parody of Emotional Vulnerability, in J.L. Roopnarine (ed) Play and Educational Theory and Practice, Play and Culture Studies Vol. 5. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.