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Problematic Play

changing18's picture

First off the word play can mean being involved a wide variety of things/activities so obviously having different interpretations of this word just comes with the territory.  Play is generally set up in society to be different for childen, teens, and adults, for boys and girls, in school versus the playground, with family versus with friends, and the list goes on.  With all these different constraints that already comes with the word play adding in where someone is from and their own experiences with play makes play really problematic. Some "games" that I would consider odd and/or too dangerous to be playful others may enjoy.  This includes the time I went to Florida to visit family and was told that they were going out hunting.  Now I was not a fan to begin with because the idea of killing other animals was not appealing but I realized there was a range of reasons that this play was different for them and myself.  One of these reasons is that living in a city my entire life made going in the woods for fun seem foreign without even thinking about hunting animals.  Another is a gun generally serves a negative purpose in my opinion but I realized for some it could mean sport. Nonetheless, this is just one example of how problemtic play can be I can see the problems play in social interaction causes.