No Wrong Way to Play
Cover image description: a 3x3 grid of play activities in toys. The first row is sensorimotor play with graphics of a young child blowing bubbles, a mini trampoline, and a yoga ball. The second row is three upside down cars with arrows around the wheels indicating spinning, and the third row is three right side up dinosaurs in a line.
About two years ago, I stopped writing play goals.
As a fledgling OT, I wrote goals targeting “play development” or “appropriate play skills” for many reasons. Play is the primary occupation of children, and parents and caregivers were always worried about their child’s play skills. I was constantly hearing concerns of “He doesn’t play with things the ‘right’ way,” “She doesn’t like playing with friends,” or “They never play with something for more than a minute or two at a time.” And this is paired with the fact that OTPs learn about play on a developmental continuum, where each type of play builds on the last. Each of these factors contributed to an underlying pressure to use my therapy sessions to teach kids “the right way to play.”
But here’s the thing: all ways to play are the right ways to play.
When I think about the definition of play, I think of intrinsically motivating, competence-based, and enjoyable. Let’s break it down:
Intrinsically motivating: all beings are driven to occupation, and play is the primary occupation of childhood; therefore, children are driven to play. If the activity lacks that child-driven motivation to engage, it doesn’t count as play.
Competence-based: when you feel competent in a skill, consistent engagement in the activities using the skill flows fluidly. If the activity is targeting a skill deficit, it doesn’t count as play.
Enjoyable: at its core, play should bring joy to those involved. If the child isn’t having fun, it doesn’t count as play.
Therefore, it stands to reason that an activity counts as play if those three things are present, whether it looks like neurotypical play schemes or not. If a child is intrinsically motivated, has competence in the activity, and finds it enjoyable, it doesn’t matter if it’s sensorimotor play, symbolic play, competitive play with rules, or something completely different.
Don’t get me wrong, there are valuable skills represented in all types of play, developmental skills can and should be directly taught in therapy, and teaching these skills is definitely more effective when utilizing components of play. But this doesn’t mean that one type of play is inherently better than another, and it doesn’t mean that our goal should be to progress children through the stages of play.
However, as a client-centered therapist, I still need to address caregiver concerns, right? So what do I do instead of writing a goal for “age-appropriate play skills,” “turn-taking play for four turns,” or “parallel play for x-amount of minutes”? I go back to the basics of OT: conducting an activity analysis and an occupational profile.
What skills are required for the activity I’m presenting to this child? Which of these skills does the child already have competence with, and where is the breakdown?
What does the environment look like when I’m presenting this activity? How can I change the environment to support this child’s spontaneous engagement in play?
What kind of play is this child intrinsically interested in? Is the activity I’m presenting them with based on the child’s interests and strengths?
What are this child’s barriers to play engagement? How can I adjust the activity or the environment to decrease the impacts of these barriers?
And finally, I need the families to be on board with this play-based and child-led approach to therapy. In my experience, families have an underlying fear that is guiding their goals for their child, whether that be that their child won’t have any friends, that they’ll be bullied for playing differently than their peers, or that their child won’t develop foundational skills that they feel are necessary for success later in life. If I can address this underlying fear and assure families that I am taking their concerns seriously, I have found they are much more open to trying a child-led approach.
What do you think? Do you still write play goals? How can we, as OTPs, harness the power of play while reinforcing to clients and their families that there is no wrong way to play?