Let Children Play: The Unmeasurable Component Imperative for Development

photo by Xavi Cabrera on Unsplash

There is a lot of discussion around child development; how to optimise learning, track milestones, and give children the best possible start in life. And yet, one of the key components of integrative and meaningful development is still being missed: unstructured, unassuming play. It’s naturalistic, it’s human, and it’s something all children do without prompting, and why? Because it’s one of the most poignant intrinsic developmental systems we have. It is not supervised activity or modules designed for skill building that improve not only emotional well-being but also social well-being and physical health.

In a systematic review, research points out how unstructured play promotes well-being during interventions. Across multiple studies, children exposed to these unstructured play interventions (in wide-open environments with the physical and psychological freedom to explore) showed increased physical activity, better social engagement, and enhanced emotional well-being. It’s not a secret that these outcomes are foundational for long-term health, so where are we going wrong and why is structure seeping its way into the freedom of childhood?

Modern systems reward control; it can be seen in the education system in relation to standardisation, or in healthcare systems with measurable outputs. Unstructured play is a contradiction to what most would understand to be ‘optimal’; it appears as inefficient, messy, and unproductive, and it’s hard to measure…but it works.

What if development does not require constant direction but instead space to experiment?

In total honesty, most adults would prefer a structured routine and activities because it feels more responsible and within the parameters of control. The purpose of actions can be explained, it can be justified socially, and it’s obvious what is happening. However, when children invent rules, negotiate roles, take manageable risk and explore without the constraint of adult scripting, they begin to build capacities that a worksheet wouldn’t be able to replicate. Their aptitude for self-regulation, conflict resolution, creativity, and agency improves; they’re building survival skills and resilience.

While it is uncommon, it may be the future of health interventions. This research nudges at the idea that play could be a preventative measure, not a last-minute switch. When children are allowed to negotiate freely, they build social competence, and when they are offered autonomy to explore, they strengthen their own emotional well-being. These qualities are imperative for building healthy future relationships and competency in their community, not to mention their psychological well-being overall. Let’s reframe what play could be: a policy and a real learning exercise.

The deeper issue runs culturally deep; there is a discomfort in allowing an activity during ‘times of productivity’ that doesn’t produce an immediate or physical output, but unstructured play provides invisible growth and growth that cannot be measured with a certificate or a report. Short term-measurability often undermines long term wellbeing, are the systems in place only there because they’re easy to measure? Or are they there for the effective reason: supporting human development?

From the playground and beyond, the approach to play is synonymous with the way human growth is also approached. At what age is unstructured exploration no longer acceptable? By adulthood, most of us have fully replaced our exploratory spaces with structured expectations, and then wonder why creativity ceases to be and why people don’t have resilience. The destruction of these qualities happens earlier than anyone realises.

Play is learning; it is not just something of indulgence but of developmental infrastructure. Childhood play is one of the earliest expressions of autonomy in a safe and stable environment, and autonomy is a predictor of lifelong well-being. In the removal of autonomy, what is happening to the potential of future generations? To restore balance, it must be recognised that some of the most effective developmental forces are unable to be scripted, if our societies are concerned with physical, social and emotional health, the rejection of play must be challenged.

When we look at unstructured play through the depth psychology lens, it is not just behavioural, but archetypal; it’s the psyche in motion. When children engage in free play, they are rehearsing life through symbols, projecting fears into monsters, experimenting with the idea of power through role play, encountering limits and risks, and negotiating their understanding of identity through their imagination. In Jungian terms, for a child, play is one of the earliest circumstances where the ego meets the unknown, navigating shadow (like fear, aggression and frustration) in manageable doses, learning integration rather than suppression. Controlling play is more than simply controlling behaviour; it’s interrupting the natural process of psychic development. Over time, the structure and management of play separate the unconscious, integration fails to occur, and sends the message that authority resides outside the self, not within it. A child without the safe, reassuring uncertainty of play may become an adult unable to tolerate ambiguity.

For the full research paper, published in Nursing & Health Sciences, Volume 22, Issue 2, find the link here: Systematic review of the impact of unstructured play interventions to improve young children’s physical, social, and emotional wellbeing - Lee - 2020 - Nursing & Health Sciences - Wiley Online Library

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