Why Play Matters More than Ever for
Today’s Kids
Talking Points about Healthy Play
Prepared by Playing for Keeps for ASTRA Members
February 2005
Making presentations in your community about healthy, constructive play can be an
important and effective part a public relations program for your store(s) or products.
To assist ASTRA members who have opportunities to speak about the importance of
children’s play, ASTRA has collaborated with Playing for Keeps to provide the talking
points you’ll find below. Playing for Keeps is a national, not-for-profit organization
dedicated to better outcomes and higher quality of life for all kids through increasing
their access to healthy play. It is a central source for information about play and its
developmental benefits for children.
The presentation below is structured in segments that can be used as one complete whole
for a more lengthy presentation. For a shorter presentation, feel free to edit the content
or eliminate some segments.
The presentation is designed to be used with an accompanying powerpoint presentation
that you’ll find on this disk.
The presentation may be edited to meet the needs of any given audience and time frame.
All we ask is that you credit Playing for Keeps as the source of the information you are
providing and that you refer your audience to our website at www.playingforkeeps.org.
Thanks for your help in spreading the word about the importance of healthy play.
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INTRODUCTION [2 to 4 minutes]
 Thank you for welcoming me here today to talk about why play
matters so much in the lives of today’s kids.
 I’m [your name] and I spend a lot of time thinking about kids and toys
and healthy play. In fact, the topic fascinated me so much I gave up
[your previous career] and opened up a [toy store/toy company here
in town] [how many years ago] with a focus on providing healthy,
creative, non-violent products [for our community.] [Briefly tell your
story here. If you have a professional or educational background in
teaching, child development or a related field, make a point of
featuring your credentials and expertise about children.]
 While my business and livelihood depends on selling toys, our work
at [name of your store or company] also involves helping parents and
grandparents and others understand how important it is to make time
and opportunities for children to explore the world through play.
[Show slide # 1]

What I want to talk with you about today is how and why play makes
a significant contribution to a child’s healthy development.
 There is a large body of research that shows—and this is good news—
play is one of the healthiest activities we can offer young children.
This is good news because:
o
It gives parents permission to exhale, slow down on all the
overscheduling, and just enjoy time with their families.
o
Also, it’s something that is accessible to all families, regardless
of their socioeconomic status, their level of education, and their
time commitments.
 Today I want to talk with you about the links between healthy play
and good outcomes for kids—and how adding a bit more fun to your
family and community life can be good for kids and adults alike.
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OUR HOPES AND DREAMS FOR OUR CHILDREN
[4 to 5 minutes]
[This section is designed to engage the audience with your presentation and
to get them actively thinking about children they know and love.]
 Let’s start by thinking for a moment about the children in our lives.
 How many of you are:
o Parents?
o Grandparents?
o Godparents?
o Aunts or uncles?
o Friends of a young child?
o Teachers?
o Child care providers?
 Virtually all of you in this room have a child in your life who is
beloved to you. That tells me that you probably have some hopes and
dreams for that child.
 So let me ask you this: think about that child or those children who
are beloved to you, and ask yourself: “What kind of person do you
hope he or she will be?”
 Let’s hear some of your thoughts. Go ahead and shout out your
answers while I make a note of them. What kind of people do you
hope today’s children will be?
[Jot down half a dozen to a dozen answers as they are shouted
out. Nearly every time you do this, most responses are likely to
be in the category of life skills or character skills—e.g.
compassionate, hard working, responsible, self-confident,
etc.—and very few of the responses are likely to be
accomplishment-oriented—e.g. good grades, good athlete.]
 Let’s compare your responses with those from other parents around
the world.
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 Recently, 2300 parents in a number of schools in California were
surveyed and asked this same question. What kind of person would
you like your child to be?
 The top ten responses were what you see here. Take a look. [Show
slide #2]
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Self confident
Responsible, dependable
Curious, eager to learn
Independent, self-directing
Able to work well with other children
Sensitive to others
Kind and considerate
Hard worker
Good grades
Amiable, good tempered
 What strikes me about this list is:
(1) It is so similar to [different from] the list we just randomly
created in this room.
[Note: it is likely to be very similar. Try to translate the words your
audience gave you and match them—more or less—with words on the
list from the California parents to show just how universal our hopes
and dreams for children can be. Of course, neither “survey” is a
controlled sample or projectible, but the outcome is generally
predictable, i.e. weighted toward life and character skills rather than
specific, measurable outcomes.
If your audience happens to come up with a list that favors specific,
measurable outcomes, mention that their goals are different from most
audiences because most will generate lists that feature life skills.
Continue with talking points below.]
(2) Only one of the top ten characteristics (good grades) has
anything to do with producing or accomplishing specific skills or
goals, and that one characteristic is near the bottom of the list.
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(3) ALL of the other characteristics are what we can call life skills
or coping skills or character skills—reflecting not specific knowledge
or mastery of a function like reading or writing, but rather strengths
in navigating through life—strengths related to:
o
o
o
o
Meeting life’s challenges
Solving problems
Building relationships
Engaging with the world in a high quality, reliable way
 By the way, at the bottom of the list of those survey results of
California parents were the hopes that their children would be:
o Good athletes
o Good musicians
Both of these represent, of course, functional skills—not life skills.
 Before we move on, let’s take a quick look at a similar survey of
Japanese parents. It appears that these priorities may cross cultural
borders. Here is what Japanese parents said when they were asked
what kind of people they hope their children would become: [Show
slide # 3]
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Kind and considerate
Physically and mentally fit
Self-reliant
Focused and assertive
Pursues his/her own dream
Sincere and responsible
Happy
 The qualities at the bottom of Japanese parents’ lists were largely
consistent with the patterns we’ve been seeing about parents’ hopes
and dreams—again, specific accomplishments are the lowest priority:
o Graduates from top-rate university and can get any job
o Proficient in something
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 As parents and educators, we seem to have some clarity about what
kind of people we hope we are raising.
 We seem to know what we know what we want for our kids. But are
we giving them opportunities to develop this way?
 Let’s take a look at what is happening in our children’s lives…and
whether our dreams for our kids match with the kind of opportunities
we are giving them to grow and learn.
WHAT IS CHILDHOOD LIKE TODAY?
[6 to 8 minutes]
[Suggestion: This section can be shortened easily.]
 Our kids are growing up in front of our eyes. What’s it like to be a
kid today?
 We know some things about what is happening to kids today and there
are some things we do not know. I have some statistics to share with
you, but first a couple of caveats:
o There is no one single version of today’s childhood. There are
many ways to segment the population of children to understand
their experiences, but probably the most meaningful is
socioeconomic.
o To make a sweeping generalization:
 On one end of the socioeconomic spectrum, we see
overscheduled kids with a myriad of opportunities, high
expectation parents, and what some would call
hyperparenting.
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 On the other end of the spectrum, financially struggling
families are working hard to marshal and stretch scarce
resources. They tend to organize their days and priorities
around issues like safety, health care, and basic needs.
o Even so, it’s not a good, reliable picture. We don’t have a good
system for gathering research about how kids really spend their
days and what kind of parenting and educational philosophies
are driving their decision making. What data exists comes in
pieces that require much interpretation, rather like the blind
man and the elephant problem.
 But there are few things we do know about the landscape on which we
are raising our kids. Let’s take a look at some of these statistics.
[Show slide #4]
o Unstructured outdoor activities have declined by 50% over the
past generation.
o Outdoor free time is disappearing for a variety of reasons:






Perception of unpredictable, dangerous society
Parents not available to supervise
Asthma
Bugs
Sun
Safety concerns
o Recess is under siege [Show slide #5]
o Today, 40% of our 16,000 elementary schools have eliminated,
reduced, or are considering the demise of recess. Here are
some of the reasons:
 Parents and administrators consider it a waste of time,
given the long list of curricular expectations kids and
teachers have to meet
 Parents are concerned about children being outdoors (the
bugs and sunshine and asthma thing again)
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 Injuries promote lawsuits
 Increased risk of contact with strangers
 Hard to supervise, in part because kids are not
experienced at free play and conflict arise
 Teachers do not want to supervise and some even
negotiate about this point in their contracts. It’s an easy
point for the administration to give when there are so
many other points of contention.
o To make you even more bleary-eyed with numbers, here are
some facts that give us a picture of how kids today are spending
their time: [Show slide #6]
[Suggestion: don’t read the entire list. Give the audience a
chance to take a look and then pick out one or two that may be
the most relevant or even shocking to the audience.]
 The average child’s free time has been reduced by 15%
to 25% in the past generation.
 The average two-year-old spends more than four hours a
day in front of a screen.
 One in six two-year-olds has a television set in the
bedroom.
 The average American home with a toddler has television
on for six hours a day.
 25% of the average child’s free time is spent in front of
the television.
 Children aged 3 to 12 spent 29 hours a week in school,
eight more than in 1981.
 The average amount of homework for America's
youngest children has tripled since 1981
 Family dinners have decreased by 33% over the past 20
years.
 Family vacations have decreased by 28% over the past
twenty years.
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
We may find ourselves very surprised by some of these numbers,
especially if these statistics do not seem to be true for the children we
know.

But these things changes in childhood are impacting kids across the
country. [Show slide #7] For starters, we see it in their
health, their creativity, and their readiness for school.

Kids have less unstructured and unscripted play time today than they
did in previous generations. This has health consequences for them.
[Show slide #8]
o 40% of young children have significant cardiac risk
factors
o One in five American children is overweight (that’s 10
million kids!)
o Record 8% of preschoolers are overweight.
 Less play means less creativity and a less developed capacity to solve
problems. Take a look at what a longitudinal study conducted at Case
Western Reserve University found about the links between creativity
and play. [Show slide #9] According to the author of the study:
o Children who exhibit more emotion and fantasy in their
early play have more emotions in their play stories in
later years, are more creative, and are better copers.
o Good early play skills predict the ability to be creative
and generate alternative solutions to everyday problems
and a higher quality of solutions.
 Less play means that kids are not as ready for school as their peers
who have adequate play opportunities. [Show slide #10]
o The kind of social skills and emotional/behavioral skills
kids need to be successful in the transition to school are
learned almost exclusively through play:
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




Regulating emotions
Communicating effectively
Taking the perspective of others
Problem solving
Resolving conflict
o Numerous studies link social competence and poor peer
relationships as preschoolers to greater risk for poor
academic achievement, retention, truancy, and emotional
maladjustment.
WHY KIDS NEED PLAY: LEARNING THE NATURAL
WAY [4 to 6 minutes]
 So how is it that play makes such a difference for kids?
 Play can be magical part of childhood. But it’s also the base for
children’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional learning.
 If you think play is a frivolous activity for children, think about the
ways that people—kids and adults—can learn new things.
 [Show slide #11] Pretty much all learning happens in one of
four ways:
o
o
o
o
Instruction
Mentoring
Modeling
Self-directed experiential learning without the fear of
failure. (This, by the way, could serve as a working
definition of play.)
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 It’s easy to grasp the critical importance of play when we think
about babies. Play is what they do naturally, and play is what
parents do with them—right from the start. It’s an instinct.
 Here are some skills that babies start learning in the crib or as
toddlers—and they all happen through play.
 Ask yourself: How else could they learn these things, if not
through play? [Show slide #12]
[Suggestion: To make this more concrete for the audience, you
may want to mention specific toys suitable for building some of
these skills.]
o Following mother’s face—literacy development
(first practice of eye tracking)
o Eye tracking play—literacy development
o Putting things in, taking things out—arithmetic
o Measuring and fitting—arithmetic
o Cause and effect—cognitive concepts
o Object permanence—cognitive concepts
o Eye/hand coordination—fine motor
o Pretending—developing imagination and problem
solving
o Establishing and negotiating rules—social and
emotional skills, developing problem solving skills
 It doesn’t stop when the child gets out of the crib. Indeed, play
impacts all developmental domains [Show slide #13] and
continues to be the natural way to learn straight through middle
childhood and even beyond. Play helps build all these areas:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Gross motor
Fine motor
Sensory
Cognitive
Speech and language
Social/emotional/behavioral
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 Why is play such an effective way for kids to learn? [Show slide #14]
o Play is deeply emotionally satisfying. It is child-directed and free
from the possibility of failure.
o Play reduces the tension that often comes when kids are expected to
achieve. Adults do not interfere. Children relax.
o Through play, kids can express and work out emotional aspects of
everyday experiences.
o Kids develop skills for seeing things through another person’s point of
view when they play with peers.
o Play is flexible and active. It increases the possibility of sustaining a
child’s engagement and natural love of learning.
 Perhaps the promise of play is best summarized by Professor Emeritus
Jerome Singer of Yale University, a leading researcher on the impact of
children’s play on their healthy development: [Show slide #15]
o “Play,” says Professor Singer, “can miniaturize a part of the complex
world children experience, reduce it to understandable dimensions,
manipulate it, and help them understand how it works.”
WHAT KIDS MAY NOT LEARN IF THEY DON’T PLAY
[4 to 6 minutes]
 When we think about what we want our kids to be able to do—reading,
writing, and arithmetic, for example—most children will learn these and
other functional skills sometime during their childhood. It’s a matter of
timing and process…and whether they maintain their interest in learning.
Though many argue instruction is not the ideal way for young children to
learn, such skills can be learned through instruction. Many of the basics
can also be learned through play.
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 But let’s get back to the question with which we started. What kind of
people we want our kids to be, regardless of what they can do? [Show
slide #16]
 These are some of the character and coping skills most parents hope their
children will have to navigate through life:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Personal resiliency and the ability to recover from setbacks
Self-confidence
A strong and usable sense of ethics
Compassion
The habit of active engagement, i.e. they can get involved in and
excited about things
The ability to concentrate and stay on task
The motivation to be literate and to learn
The capacity for managing self-contentment and finding peace and
stimulation internally rather than only from external sources
The ability so self-regulate and personally manage one’s own
behavior in appropriate ways
 But if children don’t have direct, personal experience with people,
objects, situations and their environment—all of which comes from
play—let me ask you these questions:
o How will our kids understand what they are reading? They may be
able to decode words, but will they know enough about the world
and how it works to contextualize what they are reading?
o How can our children develop a sense of compassion and the ability
to put themselves in the place of others if they don’t play around
with the idea of what it would be like to be another person?
o How will they develop the creativity and imagination to solve
problems throughout their lives if they don’t pretend their way
through situations, problems, and solutions that have meaning to
them?
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o How will they learn to manage their own self-contentment and to
self-satisfy if they are never left with enough free time to practice
these skills? How will they be able to internally generate
stimulation when they are bored if outside sources of stimulation
(through various media or adult facilitation) are always provided?
o Can self-regulation be learned any other way than through
experience and practice?
o Perhaps most important, if our children do not learn how to selfregulate when they are preschoolers, what will happen when they are
adolescents? The must have the skills they learn through selfdirected experience to navigate in a drug culture, a consumer
society, and a highly sexualized culture.
 My point is this: play is NOT frivolous. Not by a long shot.
 The research is clear. If we continue diminishing the amount of
playtime in our children’s lives, we are actually putting them at risk.
[Show slide #17] All work (i.e. instruction and scheduling) and
no play (i.e. free time to explore the world) puts our kids at risk of
being:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Not ready for school
Bereft of context for other experiences
Unimaginative
Inadequate problem solvers
Unable to self-regulate
Lacking in compassion
Compromised in their self-confidence and resilience
 Surely these risks do not fit with the hopes and dreams we have for
our kids. They certainly don’t fit with the hopes and dreams we
articulated together earlier this evening.
 I’m here today to bring the message that KIDS NEED PLAY, just
like they need food and fresh air and parental attention.
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 Yes, my business is play, but I’m not here because I want to sell more
toys. Yes, the products I sell are fun and educational, but kids don’t
need a chest full of the latest toys to learn the coping and character
skills that are so important to all of us.
 What they need is for their parents and teachers to understand and
value their play and to give them opportunities to play in many
different settings, using their muscles and senses and brains and hearts
in many different ways.
 I came to talk with you tonight because I believe we can get to better
outcomes for our kids through something as seemingly simple as play.
[Show slide #18]
 Play is the great equalizer:
o Anyone can do it
o Does not require a checkbook, literacy, arithmetic skills,
an education, or other special skills.
o Not another thing to add to the parents “To Do” list—
rather, a message of hope that will make life easier
o Natural as eating and breathing
 And finally, let’s not forget that play is a magical part of childhood. It
helps kids learn, but it also makes life better.
 Let me close with the words of an experienced play facilitator who
works with kids who have disabilities. She knows kids and she knows
play. [Show slide #19] She sums it all up in these few
sentences:
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“When kids play, they remember. They may not be
aware that they are learning, but they sure are aware
that they are having fun.
When you have a good belly laugh with your siblings or
parents or your friends, that stays with you.
Play is life affirming. And the great thing is that it comes
so naturally…if we just let it.”
Thank you listening to my perspectives this evening.
If you want more information about the benefits of play for kids, I invite
you to visit the Playing for Keeps website at www.playingforkeeps.org.
[Show slide #20].
Or come on in to our store and talk to anyone on our staff about kids
and play. [Show slide #21] It’s our favorite topic!
THANK YOU.
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