Worth a Listen, Look or Read #6 — "Go Outside and Play"

Hey you, the adult. We’re talking to you.

Jeff Ikler here for Kirsten Richert with our weekly “Getting Unstuck” mini feature: “Worth a Listen, Look or Read.” Here in about five minutes, we extend the main idea of the week through a new way of thinking, unique content, or critical skills to help leaders at any level get unstuck.

The idea

This week we chatted with a brilliant panel on the idea of unstructured play for children: Hannah Beach (author / consultant / teacher), Dr. Michael Hynes (author / school administrator), and Genevieve Eason (community advocate). https://bit.ly/3gZ0hC0 All three are parents.

Robert Collins - Unsplash

I was drawn to a number of points in our conversation, but two stood out:

1. Hannah describes “unstructured play” as free play; it’s an invented activity from the mind of a child. Unlike adult-organized activities or technology-driven entertainment, play that kids design on their own gives them the opportunity for “outbreath” — the critical time to digest and make sense of their world, to explore ideas, to discover and create, to figure out who they are and ultimately to grow as humans.

2. Play can be fun, but it doesn’t have to be fun. It just has to be engaging.

These points are the reason why many schools are extending recess or rebuilding it into the school day where it had been eliminated or reduced.

Extending the idea

This got me thinking: if recess and other opportunities for unstructured play – “outbreath” – are critical for kids’ sound mental health, are they also critical for adults? Logic would say “yes,” and two reliable sources agree. As reported in Psychology Today:

“Play's value among adults is too often vastly underrated. We would all agree that play lifts stress from us. It refreshes us and recharges us. It restores our optimism. It changes our perspective, stimulating creativity. It renews our ability to accomplish the work of the world.

To the skeptics who would ask “Come on, you want me to stop working so I can do what?“ Fast Company offered the all-important business case:

“Not only can play help jumpstart that creative problem-solving process, it can shake us out of the cognitive habits that are holding back our performance at so many other levels.”

Putting the idea to work

OK, I’ll give you that when Psychology Today and Fast Company talk about “play,” they’re not always talking about the unstructured kind. They often reference games and activities, and those usually have structure and rules. But I’m willing to count them because they’d have to be seen as providing an emotional discharge from the hectic day-to-day pace that most of us find ourselves in – or self-impose. They offer the opportunity to step back and decompress. They offer the opportunity to engage oneself physically and more importantly, mentally. They offer an opportunity for adult “outbreath.”

So what might true “unstructured play” for adults look like? Here are three suggestions:

Create a content club. We’ve all heard of book clubs, but today with the variety of content at our fingertips, it’s almost criminal to limit ourselves to books. I recently co-created a “content club” instead where we rotate facilitation and the choice of content — book, documentary film, podcast, article, poem — on a monthly basis. Our only “rule” is that everyone gets a chance to talk. And as evidence of our engagement, our conversations frequently depart from the topic de jour and take us down interesting roads. Let me know if you want to join us. We meet at noon EST the first Tuesday of every month via zoom.

Have a solo dance party. Hey, if it’s good enough for Hugh Grant in Love, Actually and Tom Cruise in Risky Business, it should be good enough for the rest of us. My good friend, Laura, routinely tapes herself and shares her inventive solo dance routines on Facebook. She’s inventive, graceful, and expressive.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Befriend a tree. Elizabeth Anne Bernstein, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, recently penned a beautiful article, “Why A Tree is the Friend We Need Right Now.” You may need a subscription to read the article, so here is the skinny:

• Trees have a lot to teach us about resilience, being strong in the face of adversity: there’s inclement weather, fire, insects!

• And trees can also teach us a lot about sharing and nurturing relationships. Science has well documented that trees “talk” to each other and share scare resources via intricate underground networks.

• Tree provoke awe. If you are not moved by the size and majesty of an old growth forest, if you’re not moved by a 100 foot tall oak, or the massive height and girth of a redwood or a giant sequoia, or the smell of a pine forest on a warm summer day, well, check your personal expiration date.

When I worked in Manhattan, I would often grab lunch at a nearby deli and head to Central Park regardless of the time of year. The view and atmosphere always changed with the changing of seasons. I would find a bench and a tree that offered shade or a colorful palette and relish my opportunity for “outbreath.”

“Thank you,” I would think.

“You’re quite welcome,” the tree would whisper back.