Happy Halloween...Let's Play!

Let's face it.....most adult humans seem to have lost the desire to play. Somewhere in the process of growing up we learned that playing and being an adult doesn't go together. There are a few of us who persist at trying to infuse our days with play but I have observed that number to be few. ( I don't confuse irresponsibility or using "humor" to insult others with being maturely playful.)



I do think we long to be able to play but we can't allow ourselves what we think is the "luxury" to actually enjoy our play. When we do occasionally forget and have a good time playing we apologize and pay penance by working even harder. That's sad.  Play theorist Brian Sutton Smith once observed that "the opposite of play is not work. It's depression." I think that it might just be true that the more we remove healthy play from our lives, the farther we move away from healthy ways to deal with life. Play helps us to be creative in our problem solving, relieve stress, be flexible, and to be smarter.


Years ago I was planning an evening Vacation Bible School program at a church. The night  was to begin with a meal followed by fun activities for all ages, concluding with a short worship service. During the activity time I tried to plan fun workshops for all ages, hoping that even the adults would find something that called to them. One of the activities I put together was a table where adults could color. I had reproduced large line drawings of famous Bible stories and provided crayons and markers for the participants. The evening of the first session I watched adults look at the workshops offered and make their choices. I was amazed and pleased when I went to the room where the coloring pages were and discovered 6 men sitting around the table coloring, talking, and laughing. Each night after dinner those 6 men came back to color and laugh some more. At the end of the week they thanked me for putting that particular event together saying that they had enjoyed themselves and their companions and that it had been years since they had given themselves permission to play in that way. 




Maybe the adult need for play and our reluctance to seem silly by making time to play is the reason why Halloween is so popular with adults. Costume parties, pumpkin carving, and haunted houses for more mature audiences are in abundance in October.  More than at any other time in the year, adults have permission to dress up and act silly and play at Halloween. What would our lives be like if we incorporated some kind of play into our schedule every week?  With all of the reminders to exercise one might think people would be playing but I suspect that for many of us, exercise has become another chore, like work- something to be endured and do "because it is good for us" but not to be enjoyed.

The trick of it all is to live a balanced life that includes fun and creativity. Maybe this Halloween season is the time to make a promise to treat ourselves to laughing and playing more.

'It is a happy talent to know how to play."
Ralph Waldo Emerson




"It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them."
Leo F. Buscaglia


"Play is the exhulatation of the possible."
Martin Buber


"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."George Bernard Shaw


"Play is a major avenue for learning to manage anxiety. It gives the child a safe place where she can experiment at will, suspending the rules and constraints of physical and social reality. In play, the child becomes master rather than subject.....Play allows the child to transcend passivity and to become the active doer of what happens arounds her."
Alicia F. Lieberman, author of The Emotional Life of a Toddler