Playing isn’t just kids’ stuff

Who can forget those days in the park, at home, or during school recess, imagining we were a superhero with special powers? Or playing tag in the schoolyard with your classmates?

Play is part of our nature from a very early age and becomes a way of learning and relating to our surroundings. For a moment we leave behind the world around us and imagine that we can decide who we want to be, where we want to be, and what our relationship is with others. Doing this makes us happy and amuses us while at the same time helping us develop skills that will be of great help in life.

We learn by playing

Play allows us the chance to enter a world of knowledge. Each game is a combination of challenges that stimulate the attention of children and help them know themselves better, experiment, make an effort, have fun. Without being aware of it, and in a fun way, boys and girls submerge themselves in a parallel world where they learn values and enhance qualities that will be with them throughout life. Knowing how to win and lose, solve problems, work as a team, communicate with others… In a word, play helps develop a series of different skills: sensory, motor, cognitive, communicative and social.

Not everything can be considered as play or as achieving these things. According to Andrés Payà, professor of Pedagogy at the University of Valencia and an expert in play and children, play should be free, voluntary and pleasant. When adults try to condition or direct it, it can lose its playful side and a large part of its meaning. For its participants, the goal should always be the play in itself, not so much the indirect consequences, the learning. Learning is always a collateral effect, which is precisely why play is so enriching.

But do we currently give the role of play the importance it deserves in the education of our children? According to the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, children have a right to play. It’s a right just as important as education or health. As Payà puts it: “A childhood with play is a healthy and happy childhood, where children practice and learn social and cognitive skills that favor their role as citizens.” 

From our position as adults, it’s our job to create the right conditions so that children can play freely and without restrictions. Providing places for play, establishing a time for it, designing materials that facilitate it… These are key factors in guaranteeing its development.

At the Gasol Foundation, we understand that learning about healthy habits can also be fun, and that the playful side is a basic factor. That’s why play is a part of our workshops, so that in addition to learning certain ideas, boys and girls can have fun. For example, at the start of our Safalin program, participants assume the role of astronauts and are invited to travel through the Healthy Galaxy, where they can visit different planets: the one of healthy eating, the one of rest, the one of emotional wellbeing and physical activity. At each planet, the boys and girls discover the activities common to their inhabitants. Thus, in the case of the nutrition planet, they learn about the healthy food consumed by the inhabitants of this part of the galaxy. As a result of this teaching focus, they absorb the knowledge we’re transmitting as they have a good time.

Play for adults

Traditionally we’ve considered play to be ‘kids’ stuff’ and we’ve even called it ‘a waste of time.’ We accept that the littlest ones spend time amusing themselves because we accept that it’s appropriate to their age, but it’s hard for adults to believe that it could benefit our day-to-day life. We associate the success of our work with the amount of time and effort expended, sometimes forgetting how important quality time is, and how it makes us feel.

Fortunately, there are more and more companies that believe in the potential of play as a tool for professional improvement. We call this trend gamification, and it consists of incorporating playful elements into the work scene so as to get workers involved, encourage their creativity, and solve organizational problems.

Gamification can be based on different stimuli that are interesting for part of the team. There can be competition among the members, it can offer a compensation or benefit, it can be presented a professional achievement, or as recognition of an employee within the workplace.

The results of this practice are overcoming initial skepticism: in many cases, it has brought improved results, more teamwork, and greater engagement by participants. It’s predicted that is will become more common and established, thanks in part to the greater presence of millennial workers, who are especially receptive to this practice. It’s estimated that in 2025 the members of this generation will constitute 50% of the workforce.

It’s clear that play helps improve work production and gets employees more involved. Although we shouldn’t forget that motivation should often come from oneself, and for that to happen it’s essential that we identify what excites us and make it our profession.  Only in that way will each day be an exciting challenge.

Giving sense to our life

One of the most important ingredients in my professional success is that I love what I do and enjoy it a great deal. I’m someone who considers himself extremely fortunate. How many times have we hear it said that we must dedicate ourselves to what we like or what excites us? And that this is one of the most important objectives we can have in life? I’m fortunate to have found that activity, basketball, which, besides giving me so much on the court, has allowed me the chance to have a wonderful impact off-court.

I invite each of you to get out of bed with an enormous urge to enjoy your occupation, job, family… And if you’re not already doing it, to try and feel that you’re living the life you want. With the enthusiasm of making each day a chance for growth, fun and happiness... Of course there will be setbacks and hard times, but these too are part of our life, and overcoming them will make us stronger. Because life is child’s play.

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Original article in Spanish: https://www.expansion.com/directivos/deporte-negocio/2019/06/15/5d03a784e5fdeab47f8b46d4.html