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Playfulness: a vital ingredientof social and emotional health

A Life is good Playmakers Research Study

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To lay the groundwork for this research, it’s important to share our definition of playfulness and the way we think about play.

Playfulness is the expression of a child’s natural drive to freely and joyfully explore, engage, and connect with the surrounding world. There are four basic elements of playfulness that compose this new framework: Active Engagement, Internal Control, Social Connection, and Joyfulness. When we are actively engaged, empowered, connected, and joyful, we are playing. Any activity (from raking leaves to a game of Red Rover) that is approached playfully can be play. Just like certain types of foods have greater nutritional value, some types of play are more “nutritious” than others with regard to their healthful benefits. When children are actively engaged, internally controlled, socially connected, and joyful in an activity, they are then involved in transformative play, play that supports creativity, self-esteem, deep connection and resilience. (For further reading, see our study, “Redefining Playful-ness”).

Just like certain types of foods have greater nutritional value, some types of playare more “nutritious” than others with regard to their healthful benefits.

In the past few decades, psychologists, educators, pediatri-cians, and parents have come to recognize the importance of social and emotional health in the overall development of young children. We know that social and emotional well-being in early childhood leads to school readiness1, resilience in the face of adversity2, and better overall health (both physical and mental) in adolescence and adulthood3. With one in five young children diagnosed with a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety, we also know that nurturing social and emotional health in early childhood is essential for children’s future well-being.

So far, psychology and education have focused on social and emotional skills (e.g., social competence, emotion recogni-tion, problem solving) as key competencies to promote in chil-dren in order to prepare them for the ups and downs of life. Another vital ingredient in children’s preparations for a healthy and fulfilling life is their capacity to fully, freely engage in play or what we call ‘playfulness.’ Universal across mammals4, engagement in play has numerous neurological5, physiolog-ical6, social7, and emotional8 benefits for children. Yet despite its importance, there is little research or discussion of playful-ness as a fundamental component of social and emotional well-being. Therefore, we set out to investigate the connec-tion between playfulness and three other key markers of social and emotional health: social competence, emotion regulation, and resilience.

PreParing for a healthy & fufilling life

Playfulness is the expression of a child’s natural drive to freely and joyfullyexplore, engage, and connect with the surrounding world.

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Play can serve as a mirror on social development and a cata-lyst for growth. Play time with peers and caring adults provides crucial opportunities to hone social skills9. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics argues that play is necessary for the prac-tice of group skills such as sharing, decision-making, conflict reso-lution, and assertiveness10. Play offers constant occasions for cooperation, negotiation, and problem solving whether in creating a fantasy play scheme or simply in deciding whose turn is next11. Subsequently, playing with peers is directly and positively linked to social competence and negatively correlated with aggressive and disruptive behaviors12 and anxious, withdrawn behaviors13.

Play is ever-present as infants develop emotional attachments to their parents, garnering their attention with smiles and coos or discovering the rhythm of a favorite lullaby14. For preschool-aged children, both pretend play and rough and tumble play are linked to increased emotional competence. In play, children are able to negotiate the rules, circumstances, and the direction of play, all the while learning how to regulate their emotions15. Playing with older siblings or adults helps children to more easily recognize and understand different emotions, better regulate emotions (e.g., taking turns, sharing), and refrain from being disruptive or aggres-sive16. It has been hypothesized that rough and tumble play with parents and with peers helps children to learn about emotional expression, practice perspective-taking, and manage a wide range of emotions17.

Finally, play provides unique opportunities for children to recreate and control potentially overwhelming events, try on adult roles, and conquer their fears18. Playing with caring adults can instill confidence in a child and a sense of connection that leads to resil-iency in the face of future challenges (see Ginsburg et al., 2007). Through play, children develop the competencies they need to face and overcome adversity. Early childhood play intervention can have a significant long-term social, emotional, and cognitive impact on children, even into adolescence and adulthood.

One recently published longitudinal study conducted a random-ized controlled trial of the impact of a play-based intervention for children between 9 and 24 months19. In the longitudinal follow-up study, Walker et al. (2007) introduced a play-based interven-tion for low-income mothers in Jamaica. For two years, mothers were taught play techniques, given simple homemade toys, and encouraged to play with their toddlers. Participating mothers were assigned to the play-based intervention, dietary supple-mentation, or both and all participants received weekly visits for two years. At the 16 year follow-up of 103 adolescents, children who received the play-based intervention at an early age showed fewer attention problems, and reported significantly less anxiety, fewer symptoms of depression, and higher levels of self esteem than participants who did not receive the intervention compared to children in the other two groups. At 22 years of age, children in the play-based intervention group demonstrated significantly less violent behavior, fewer symptoms of depression and social inhibi-tion, higher IQ and higher educational attainment20.

Play and social & emotional develoPment

Clearly, recent research has illuminated the importance of play with respect to social and emotional health. However, there is little understanding of how playful-ness is linked to social and emotional competencies. Therefore, we investigated how playfulness correlates with specific competencies that represent three distinct markers of social and emotional well-being: social competence, emotion regulation, and resilience. We also looked at how playfulness correlates with problem behaviors: anger/aggression, anxiety/withdrawal, and negativity/lability (overall negative emotion and rapid mood swings). We asked 28 teachers in six different preschools in San Francisco and St. Louis to complete a set of social and emotional measures, including a measure of playfulness, on the children in their class-rooms (with parental permission).

A total of 229 preschool children were includedin the study.

connecting Playfulness with other Key indicators of social and emotional wellness

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To understand the connection between playfulness and other markers of social and emotional wellness, we used correlational analysis. Pearson’s r tells us the size and the direction of therelationship between two variables.

An r value near +0.70 is very desirable because it indicates that the two variables (e.g., playfulness and resilience) are highly related but they are not the same thing. As we expected, playfulness is highly positively correlated with emotion regulation (r=0.75), social competence (r=0.69), and ego-resiliency (r=0.69).

And, playfulness is significantly negatively correlated with lability/negativity (r=-0.43), anger/aggression (r=-0.38), and anxiety/with-drawal (r=-0.60).

this tells us that a child who is rated highly on Playfulness is also very liKely to Be rated highly on social comPetence, ego-resiliency, and emotion regulation. Further, a child who is rated highly on playfulness is also very likely to receive a low score on lability/negativity, anger/aggression, and anxiety/withdrawal.

Once we determined that playfulness is highly related to other key markers of social and emotional well-being, we then evaluated how each individual element of playfulness (e.g., active engagement, joyfulness, internal control, social connection) correlated with social and emotional health.

our research findings

Finally, we wanted to understand which combination of playfulness factors was most predictive of social and emotional wellness. Can joy alone predict social and emotional well-being? What about social connection? Or is it the combination of playfulness factors that most reliably predicts wellness? Here’s what we discovered: For emotion regulation and resilience, the combination of multiple playfulness factors was most predictive ofpositive scores.

This tells us, for example, that when children are joyful, actively engaged, and socially connected, they are more able to regulate emotion than when they are simply joyful or engaged but not socially connected to peers.

these findings suggest that three of the core ingredients of Playfulness - active engagement, internal control, and social connection - serve asfoundations for emotion regulation, resiliency, and social comPetence, resPectively.

Emotion regulation was most related to active engagement (r2 = 0.48), suggesting that children who easily engage in activities are more likely to respond positively to peers and adults and easily recognize emotion.

Ego-resiliency was most related to internal control (r2 = 0.44), indicating that children who feel safe, competent and empowered to challenge themselves are more likely to persevere when under stress.

Social competence was most related to social connection (r2 = 0.49), suggesting that a child’s basic drive to connect with others (e.g., being inter-ested in playing with others, enjoying play with others, playing harmoniously) is a pre-requisite for social competence, which refers specifically to a child’s social skills (e.g., inviting a friend to play, joining a group, negotiating conflict). Simply put, a child who is motivated to connect with others will be more likely to acquire the skills to do so.

EMOTIONREGULATION 48%

44%

49%

ACTIVEENGAGEMENT

EGO-RESILIENCY

INTERNALCONTROL

SOCIALCOMPETENCE

SOCIALCONNECTION

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altogether, these findings tell us that Playful children are more liKely to regulate their emotions, demonstratestrong social sKills, and Persevere under stress.

And, even though single ingredientsof playfulness, such as Engagementor Connection, are very closely linked to specific social and emotional skill sets, it is overall playfulness that is most predictive of social and emotional health.

the following charts reveal the Percentages of emotion regulation and ego resiliency that can Be eXPlained By Playfulness factors

Playfulness factors predict 50% of a child’s score of ego resiliency. That is, a child who is connected, empowered, and engaged is very likely to be resilient in the face of major challenges.

how much of ego resiliency is Predicted By the Playfulness factors?

how much of emotion regulation is Predicted By the Playfulness factors?

internal control

social connection

active engagement

other

Joy

social connection

active engagement

other

Playfulness factors predict 59% of a child’s score on emotion regulation. That is, a joyful, connected, and engaged child is very likely to regulate emotions well.

RESEARCH STUDY AT A GlAnCE

# of ParticiPating children: 229

the measures : Playfulness assessment Profile (PaP), social comPetence Behavior evaluation (scBe-30), ego resiliency scale (eisenBerg), emotion regulation checKlist (shields & cicchetti, 1997)

48% BOYS, 52% GIRLSBETWEEN 3 AND 5YEARS OLD

14% ASIAN, 20% BLACK,56% LATINO, 10% OTHER

EACH SMILING FACE REPRESENTS 10 CHILDREN

# of ParticiPating schools: 6

# of ParticiPating teachers: 28

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references

contact info

Email : info@ligplaymakers.org Phone: 617.266.4569 Web: www.ligplaymakers.org All photos courtesy of Aimee Corrigan

At Life is good Playmakers, we nurture playfulness in children and their caregivers in order to foster their overall social and emotional health. In our current work, Life is good Playmakers infuse existing academic curriculum, mental health services, and even social and emotional learning programs with a playful approach that provides children with essential ingredients for a joyful, engaged, connected, and empowering future. Our new research tells us that playfulness in children is closely related to their ability to get along with peers and adults, negotiate conflict, problem solve, recognize and manage their emotions, and cope when challenged. Our play-based intervention, Powerplay, has shown powerful effects on the social and emotional well-being of children suffering the trauma of Hurricane Katrina (for further reading, see our study, “Life is good Playmakers on the Gulf Coast”).

an aPProach that worKs

future research will helP us understand how our Playful aPProach, Providing children with oPPortunities for Joyful, emPowered, connected engagement, directly imPacts the overall health of the children we serve.

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life can hurt. Play can heal.