16/12/2025
Play is the most underrated activity for kids 🧸✨
Play is everything! 🌍💫
Play is a way for them to explore their world — like how to socialise with others 🤝, work out disagreements , or negotiate with someone who has the toy you want 🧩😅. It’s also an opportunity to explore objects and how they work 🔍, like opening and closing a cupboard door 🚪. Play is also a way of practising skills that are needed in everyday life, like pouring water into a cup , connecting Lego pieces together, or pretending a shoe is a mobile phone .
I feel that this side of play is what we expect to see children do. However, play is more involved than that, and play can also be a source of emotional recovery ❤️🩹 and exploration around feelings 💭. Often children will do free-form play that creatively depicts a stressful event they have witnessed or been involved in — for example, their birth 👶. Young children are known to re-enact their birth in play (especially if it was a traumatic birth), and often we miss the significance of this because we are not watching them 👀 or being curious about their play 🤍. They are self-healing 🧠✨ by acting out these scenarios. They are releasing the burden of stressful emotions so they can learn and develop in a healthy way 🌱.
Creative play allows this to happen 🎨 — no rules 🚫📏, no schedule ⏰🚫, no “let me show you how to do this.” Just observing 👀, being curious 🤔, maybe asking a question or two 💬, and waiting for a response 🕊️. Ultimately, letting your child play and do whatever grabs them in the moment (safely, of course! 🛟). With us simply sitting by their side 🤍 and being available (read: no phones! 📵).
Children need this unstructured, free play every single day 🌈🧸. The more, the better! 💛
