Let's Play during COVID-19
From Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
Published on
Last updated on
Playing helps children stay physically and mental well. It is an everyday part of a healthy and happy childhood. Play is just as important during a crisis like the current coronavirus pandemic. It helps your child manage their emotions and maintain a sense that everything is and can be ok.
During a crisis, playing is your child’s way to:
Playing at home
A great way for you to support the health, happiness and development of your child during the current crisis is to find ways they can play at home. Making time to play and have fun together is good for your relationship with your child and for your own mental wellbeing.
Playing can also protect your child from some of the negative impacts this crisis could have.
For example:
Being at home for long periods of time and being physically separated from friends, families, routines and cherished places is a new situation for most of us. Playing is a natural and active process that can help us.
Children play naturally. Usually the most important things you can do to support this are giving your child enough space and time to play every day and having an understanding attitude. If your child sees that you are happy they’re playing, they tend to enjoy it more.
During this coronavirus pandemic, your child is expected to be at home for long periods of time. They may be physically separated from friends, family, routines and places that are important to them. It is a new situation for them – and for most of us.
You might see your child playing in a different way. They may return to play they enjoyed when they were younger. They may play games that are linked to illness, loss or even death. Their play might show feelings such as frustration, boredom or confusion.
Responding to your child's play
Playing is one way children deal with stress and cope with the situation they’re in. When children play, they are working out what they think and how to respond.
Unless your child seems distressed or stuck in their play, you can usually be reassured that it’s part of how they are coping.
However, your child might rely on you more than usual to make sure they have things to play with and space and time for them to play every day. Sometimes they might need extra attention to feel safe and cared for.
Examples of how you can support your child’s play, without leading or taking over:
These are general tips for supporting your child’s play. Trust your own judgement.
Your child might like you to play with them or simply be nearby, so they feel safe and cared for. They may also like some privacy while they play – for example, if they’re not used to spending so much time indoors with you.
Children sometimes use play to:
Your child is living through a very new experience which is confusing and frightening for adults, too.
Playing is a very important way for your child to understand – and come to terms with – what they are hearing, seeing and feeling. It can be hard to feel like choices have been taken away, or to have little way of knowing how long this situation is going to continue.
Playing is one of the ways children adapt to change. The way they play may change – it may be loud and destructive, or quiet and calm.
Here are some examples of playing that you might see:
Older children and teenagers may play like this, too. It is important that we remember that older children still need time and space to play.
It can help simply to know that this is your child learning to cope with a new situation. However, when you are cooped up at home it can also be difficult to handle.
Playing at all ages can be messy and fun. But when you and your child are at home together for a while, it might be more difficult to cope with.
Being messy is a natural part of playing.
It involves:
During the current situation, your child might use messy play to:
If your child is doing this, you can help by:
It can be harder to deal with mess around the house – or to wash and dry clothes – when you are having to stay at home so much. And children may worry about adding stress to the family, too.
The important thing is to try to fi nd a balance that works for your family.
Here are some suggestions:
Going outdoors is good for our mental and physical health. It can relieve family pressures caused by spending so much time indoors together, too.
You may be allowed to go out to exercise for a short time each day. Guidance varies from country to country and may change as the coronavirus pandemic goes on. Always follow the official guidance where you are.
Whether your time outside is on city streets, in a park or in the countryside, nature is all around you.
The coronavirus pandemic has created unusual and difficult experiences for children and families. One of these is not being able to go outside.
This can be especially difficult if you feel your home is crowded, or don’t have much privacy from neighbours.
Feeling stressed or upset is completely understandable. It’s important to look after yourself and to find ways to relax.
Playing is a way of being connected to the world. Here are some suggestions of things you can play at home.
Always be very careful of your child’s safety when they’re near windows.
It can be hard to keep physically active at home, but there are lots of benefits to using up energy – for example, improving your mood (and your child’s) and sleeping better.
Sometimes your child might need to play alone or prefer some privacy when they play. Equally, there will be times when you need some space too.
Other pages in the IPA series offer guidance and ideas for playing at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
They include:
Playing when you can’t go outside
Information on playing when you cannot go outside your home.
DownloadAll children have the right to play as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The Convention is a list of all the rights children and young people everywhere in the world have. This is recognised by the Irish State.
Article 31 of the Convention says:
"Every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts."
The World Health Organization (WHO) says:
"To grow up healthy, children need to sit less and play more."
There are many types of play and sometimes play can involve two or more different types of play. When children play they don’t decide first what type of play they will engage with - they just play.
Here’s how Bob Hughes describes types of play in his book 'A Playworker’s Taxonomy of Play Types, London: PLAYLINK, UK.'
Play using words, nuances or gestures for example, mime, jokes, play acting, singing, debate, poetry.
Communication play used the whole body – from facial expressions, hand gestures, body demonstrating and vocally.
Play which allows a new response, the transformation of information, awareness of new connections, with an element of surprise.
This play type is one of the most visual by allowing a child to access loose parts, arts and craft materials.
Play which allows the child to encounter risky or even potentially life threatening experiences, to develop survival skills and conquer fear.
This type of play is defined by play behaviour that can also be classed as risky or adventurous. This has important benefits to a child’s development.
Play which dramatises events in which the child is not a direct participator.
Children may also wish to use make up and costumes in this type of play.
Play to access factual information consisting of manipulative behaviours such as handling, throwing, banging or mouthing objects.
Play which rearranges the world in the child’s way, a way which is unlikely to occur, for example being a superhero or sitting on a cloud.
Play where the conventional rules, which govern the physical world, do not apply, for example pretending to be an animal, or having a make-believe friend to being an object, for example a tree.
Control of the physical and affective ingredients of the environments, for example making a dam in a stream, building a bonfire and digging holes in the earth or sand.
Play which uses infinite and interesting sequences of hand-eye manipulations and movements, for example examining an item and looking into how and why something works.
Play that allows the child to explore ancestry, history, rituals, stories, rhymes, fire and darkness. Enables children to access play of earlier human evolutionary stages.
Skipping, Jumping, playing Chase.
A stick is a wand or the grass is molten lava.
Enacting real life through play, like playing house or mums and dads.
Playing a game together and deciding on rules for that play.
Acting a role like driving a train or having a tea party.
Discovering physical flexibility and the exhilaration of display. This will not involve any deliberate hurting but children should be laughing and having fun.
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