September 24, 2016 - 01:06
When I look back to my childhood, one thing I notice is that all the used-to-be-fun games seem no longer funny. I went to visit my uncle’s family two weeks ago, children burst into laugh when their youngest sister replied everything “mama.” They made fun of president candidates as I used to do when I was in primary school. Every game when I just involved into, I thought I would never get tired of it. Chinese chess, never! Monopoly, never! Jump-rope, never! Chicken vs. Hawk, never ever! Then I left them behind with the excuses of “I am getting older, no more excitement for those games,” though I know because I think they are silly, by heart.
Biologists concluded the definition of play as “apparently purposeless activity.” (Henig) Then I think about my childhood once again. Though I have a lot fun while watching toddlers playing, do toddlers actually have fun from their games or from the adults who are encouraging them to understand “this is funny?” I tried to take credit from my childhood but all my memory was filled with happiness for no reason. It seems like that we were taught which play was fun, we imitated what adults reacted, and we got joy when we thought we were supposed to.
In my account, play is an aimless thing to the kid involved. In the very early stage of our life, we played very straightly- just for fun, or the fun of adults around us. When we grew up from toddlers to little kids and learnt to use express orally, we learn to have fun by ourselves, by “eventful chases and dramatic fights.” (dorothy kim)
The stage of imitating adults passed, but the next stage still involves inherent nature. Kids learn to creep, and then walk, and then run, and then fight. They found babies’ toys no longer attractive as those toys used to be. Babies' toys are mostly designated for distinguishing colors and training listening abilities, which are reasonably to be threw away. Old fashion passed, new fashion came. Like the early stage life of animals, human’s early stage life involves play fighter as well. It is like an impetus dissolved into the blood, and since the body is too young, it cannot control the impetus, which makes play-fight happen so often in early stages of life. “One popular view is the play-as-preparation hypothesis. In this perspective, play evolved because it is good preparation for adulthood. It is a chance for young animals to learn and rehearse the skills they will need for the rest of their lives.” (Henig)
I joined the fight because I wanted to see if I could act agilely towards evil people like heroes in TV shows. I am sure that I was practicing survive skills for the future, as Henig writes, “play is a way…of getting into muscle memory the generalized movements of survival: chasing, running, probing, tussling.”(Henig) Body movements also promote brain development as kids, at least I am, are learning from the fight about their own balance, agility, and bravery, which proves that “there is a sensitive period in brain growth, during which time it’s important for an animal to get the brain-growth stimulation of play.”(Henig)
Another reason for my playing is that I was eager to “learn and rehearse the skills needed for the rest of life.”(Henig) I felt adults always belittle us, such like my cousin who is eight years older than me. He would walk away if I failed explaining things for three times. We kids did not have as much competence as adults though they built up their adult-viewing attitudes already. When my cousin burnt his patience up and walked away, I got freak out on myself as well. The hunger for being adult-like made us start role playing games, which modeled the adulthood societies, where we can learn more knowledge.
Since kids learn more and get older, they become teens and view their former fun as boring. One other reason for this transformation for me and friends around me was that we got bored of the “dark side of play.”(Henig)
“The other side of playing is teasing, bullying, scapegoating, excluding, hurting.”(Henig)Role players finally got bored of these “destabilizing, destructive or disturbing activities” (Henig) and realized the true approach to become adults- for example, reading like an adult.
Adults’ way of reading books is different from kids’. When I was young, my mom never took seriously about how I treated books or what my attitude was when I was reading. After I learnt more words, she started to teach me not to sit or stand on books, to keep books neat, and to read reverently. Though we have wrapped up for physical activities-my father could not catch me up when running, brain activities seem even harder to get ready with. However, this is the sign showing that children are getting more adaptive to become adults. Years past, this mean of play unawarely prepares for intelligence, and this means of learning unawarely prepares for fun.
In dorothy kim’s short post about her play, the current “last” stage is “social activities.” We are adults now, equipped with enough knowledge to confront, or even argue with older people. Furthermore, since intelligence serve as software, our active body movements of younger stage also serve as hardware when we are involving social activities. Human’s play along life shapes human brain of different stages. We may not realize what the use of play is when playing, but finally it functions.
Work Cited
Robin Henig, Taking Play Seriously, New York Times (Feb. 17, 2008).
dorothy kim, "Playtime." Serendip Studio's One World. Changing Our Story 2016, 19 Sept. 2016. Web.