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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 791: Play Is the Untold Hero | Dr. Deborah McNamara, Rest, Play Grow
00:55:01
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- [00:00]
A
Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more@windows.com studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th. Terms at aka mscollegepc welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I've just read a fantastic book. It is called Rest, Play, Grow Making Sense of Preschoolers or Anyone who Acts Like One. But I found that this would be so applicable to parents of any age for whatever stage your kids are in, but also for yourself. There is so much that you learn about in this book and the author, Dr. Deborah McNamara, is here. She also has a book called Nourished. Welcome, Deborah.
- [00:59]
B
Thank you so much for having me and for your enthusiasm. I'm delighted. You loved it. It.
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A
I loved it.
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B
People, you know, young kids who are so misunderstood.
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A
Yes, they're so misunderstood. Okay, so would you give us a little bit of your backstory? You did your postdoctoral internship with Gordon Neufeld, and I just actually had the opportunity of interviewing him, and I've been talking about his book constantly. Hold on to your kids. This takes it, I think, in a, like, there's different depth here in Rest, Play, Grow, as well as really focusing on these earlier years. So how did you get interested in this topic?
- [01:33]
B
I had a child and I was a counselor. And while I was dealing with adults with their own counseling issues, I thought now that I'm a parent, I want to try to figure out what that looks like in terms of raising a child in today's world where we understand attachment and human development. And so I basically said I need to find some, some experts in the field that I can anchor into some science. And I found Gordon Neufeld's work, And that was 22 years ago. And so I've done nothing but study with Gordon, work with Gordon, and felt strongly that his developmental relational approach needed to get out into the world. And obviously being a parent and a researcher and an author wanted to contribute my own spin on all those things. So that's why I'm here.
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A
Oh, I love it. Did you say that his, was it his wife who helped you come up with the title of it?
- [02:24]
B
Yes, Joy actually did, and Gordon did as well. So we were sitting around just at a conference and I said, yeah, I don't know what to call my book. And you know, it's like naming your child. You know, you want something special and you're thinking twice about it and what it means. And Joy Neufeld, she's just so succinct and she just gets it and she translates things so easily. And she said, well, it's just Rest, play, grow. That's the developmental roadmap. You rape, then you grow. I'm like, joy, can I, can I use that for the book? She goes, sure, whatever. We actually called our conference that for the longest time. The second part of that, Making Sense of Preschoolers or Anyone who Acts like one. I didn't call it Young children, although the book actually ranges from, you know, one and a half, all the way up to seven. And also, as you say, you know, anyone in a period of development where you want to make sense of adolescence and so on. Very similar themes. But interestingly enough, I was, while I was writing the book, my mother in law had prefrontal dementia. If you know anything about prefrontal dementia, basically all your impulse control go goes. Your emotional regulation is non existent. You live in the moment. It's just one dominant emotion at a time. And so when I was writing the book, I'm like, you know, in trying to understand her disease and how to help her, it was frustrating to make sense out of that. She couldn't. She wasn't the same mature person that she used to be. And I was writing Rest, Play, Grow. And I thought, oh, I'm just going to use everything in this book with my mother in law. And so when I was writing Gordon Neufeld and saying, okay, I'm going to call it Rest, Play, Grow, Making Sense of preschoolers or young children were having this debate. And then I said, and I put hahaha and in brackets, anyone who acts like one. And then he sent a note back and said, that's your title. I said, no, it's not. This is my book. It's, you know, I want it something, you know, nice and not silly. And then I get a phone call like that and I pick up the phone and it's Deborah. And I'm like. And he goes, just listen. And so he said to me, you need to call it this, this name. And I'm going to tell you why. Because people assume that maturity is a foregone conclusion. And it's not. When you say anyone who acts like one, you're already alerting the reader to the fact that maturity can get stuck and that this is a book about human development in the deepest sense. It's about making sense, how the pieces come together and how they can come apart. And I said, okay, I'm sold. And I'm so grateful that he did talk me into that. But it came from my mother in law who was sick with dementia and realizing immaturity is immaturity no matter what age. Right?
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A
Yeah. I had this bolded in my notes. This was part of his forward. It says the fundamental, the fundamental human problem is that we don't all grow up as we grow older. And kind of like what you were talking about earlier, which is like you're seeing these adults that are having these struggles. How can we guide our kids toward maturity as they're in these younger years and as they start to grow up? So you talk about that they're misunderstood a ton in this book about place. So we're going to be talking about that as well. This tears of futility is a phrase that I've been using all the time now. So a lot in here. And then you go through things that are just very specific like bedtime and separation and anxiety in young children. So you are going to learn so much from this book. Can we kick it off with this seven? Because you talked about sort of like these first seven years and you said in here research, you have a whole section about preserving the spirit of childhood. And you wrote research has examined the efficacy of starting formal schooling at age 7. So can you talk about the time that kids need to just be kids?
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B
So when we look at that magical age of five to seven, there's a shift that Piaget, well, his work, someone typified as the 5 to 7 shift, where basically the prefrontal cortex integrates and so the child is then able to have impulse control, emotional regulation, think twice doesn't live in the moment and is capable of work because work requires a delay of gratification, meaning that the activity may not be fun, but the outcome is fun. And so you can, you can hold two things at once. Now if you take a young child and you try to make them live in the outcome, they get very frustrated, they get very upset and it can actually turn them into a position of defense around learning and around schooling. And that is why most of the wisdom, the developmental science, the practices of countries that are based in developmental science and understanding the development of a young child, place play at the forefront of development because young children are not built for work. And this is about brain development and for the last hundred years, when you look at, you know, Dr. Jessel's work and all the developmentalists, we're not growing brains faster, right? The bottom line, kids are built for play, not work. When the brain is in a place of integration, then we can introduce work. It doesn't mean that we don't learn through play. But if you want to preserve the spirit of childhood, which is this, they live in the moment they learn through play, then we need to have a play context that is in a play sanctuary for them where they unfold in the most robust way possible.
- [07:46]
A
Oh, what a book. There's so much in here about play, and you say that it's the, you know, they're really starting to get rid of it in some preschoolers and kindergartens. I want to read what you wrote. One of the biggest issues in education today is the preservation of play in preschool and kindergarten settings. Preschools and kindergartens have become the final battlegrounds for the preservation of early childhood. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that we would have to defend children's right to play. And there's so much beautiful information in this book about play. We're going to talk about that soon. I just want to be clear. You talk about preserving the spirit of childhood. We can train a child to do a lot of things at early ages, but we shouldn't mistake this for maturity. So you talked about David Elkind, how, like, even in the 70s, they were like, this is too hurried. You know, what would David ELKINE Think about 2026 with all of the things that kids are exposed to, including technology? But part of this preserving the spirit of childhood also includes keeping children's hearts soft. We've actually really never talked about this on the show, Deborah, like, having the charge to keep their hearts soft. Can you talk about the problem of thwarted emotional expression?
- [09:00]
B
Yeah, well, we talk a lot about attachment, but I don't think we understand that the ultimate purpose of attachment, besides having our kids depend upon us. Well, what's the purpose of dependence? The greatest challenge we have as human beings is we get hurt. We emotionally get hurt, we get wounded, we don't fit in. We don't belong. Unkind words. Someone doesn't like us. We feel rejected, we get. We make mistakes. I mean, the list goes on and on. So as human beings, our greatest strength is our capacity to care. However, that also comes with the ability to be wounded. So what is, you know, what is attachment's greatest purpose is to take care of the human heart. Like, we don't get to all the. We don't trace attachment and its purpose all the way to the roots. And so we know that the emotional system in the human being is responsible for most of the growth in terms of the early years in the prefrontal cortex. And the architecture of the brain is really built upon this emotional center. And so the greatest task that we have as parents is to keep our kids heart soft so they can feel their vulnerable emotion. They could put words to it. They can have their tears for the things that do not work, which ultimately shapes the emotional system and brain development and helps unfold the child. I would say the other thing, though, and if I were to go back, I mean, this. I wrote this 10 years ago, and you know, Gordon wrote his book 20 years ago, if you can believe it. And. And there's still. Because they're built in developmental science, the science hasn't changed. But what I would say I would advance in terms of this knowledge is that we take care of our children's emotions by also delivering them to play. Play is the untold hero here when it comes to emotional development. And so part of attachment is, yes, to keep their heart soft and not be a wounding source, but at the same time to also deliver them to the context in which the ultimate expression of emotion can happen, which is play. A tree never yelled at you for being too loud. You know, the mother Nature is huge in her invitation for play and being outside. I mean, you're a whole podcast, you know, you just can feel the expansiveness of what can hold you and your own emotions that can feel too big, too much, too difficult. And so, yes, keeping their heart soft is fundamental to human development. If they're, If. If they can't feel their vulnerable emotion, we have developmental arrest. They don't grow. And that is at the heart of why some people grow up and some people fail to mature. And if we had to go in, as most of my work is as a counselor is to go in and get that emotional system moving in the right direction again so that growth continues.
- [11:45]
A
Wow. I have never heard of any of this. I mean, it's critically important to know what a book, and you explain it so well. So, you know, we talk about preserving the spirit of childhood. This is like about not pushing things too early. And then what you just said about their emotional expression, you say emotions will take more than a mile. And if you try to press them down, parents fear that the emotional expression will never stop. It will take over and there will be no end. But really, it's the Opposite. And I thought this was an incredibly large ramification to consider. You wrote when emotional defenses. So kids can become hardened. Part of the job here to protect the spirit of childhood is to, is to try and keep things soft. But children can become hardened when emotional defenses have been erected. A child is less likely to see or hear things that could hurt them. This includes not being able to see one's mistakes, not remembering events that would bring back vulnerable feelings, not being able to see trouble or rejection coming, and significant attention problems. In short, anything that makes you feel bad cannot be seen or heard. How it's going to affect your whole life.
- [12:56]
B
Well, look at the rates of attention issues and alarm problems that we have in our kids today. You can't just say this is about screens. It's not just about screens. That obviously contributes, but this is about something more fundamental to human development, which is the capacity to feel your vulnerable feelings. And that, that doesn't come from just teaching them feeling words. It doesn't come from, you know, reading them books about emotions. I'm not saying any of those things aren't wonderful things to do, but the brain has reasons for why vulnerable emotion can be felt or not felt. And it is all around our survival. If you have to walk into a wounding classroom every day, if going and sitting at the table is a wounding affair, if your brother or sister bully you or whatever the situation might be, or there's conflict or tension in the home or in your outside world and you don't feel safe, the brain takes its ultimate sacrificial play to press down and inhibit emotion so that those emotions don't get in the way of your survival. The brain is not broken, it is not dysfunctional, and it certainly isn't disordered when it does this. It has order in its own way that we've lost insight or wisdom into.
- [14:09]
A
Wow. I mean, it's just a jaw dropping book. Then you say adults don't typically even notice when vulnerable feelings have gone missing in a child. But you do have in the book a list of signs that the child might be erecting emotional defenses. So it's so important, it's on page 140. So the book is called Arrest, Play, Grow, and you're going to get so much out of it. I want to stick with this emotional. I mean, I guess, like for me, I remember when we've got five kids and I remember when our oldest was, I don't know, eight or nine, and I was like, why is he still crying? You just don't even know you're Like, I thought the crying was going to stop, you know, when they're two or, you know, they're not a baby anymore, they're four. I have.
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B
I haven't stopped crying. I mean. Yes. Yeah, right.
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A
I don't know why I was thinking that. And, you know, I. It was maybe more about like, just small triggers. Like, my hamburger has cheese on it, and I didn't want it. Have cheese on it. But this. This language. I'm talking about this all the time now, Deborah, that I never had heard before. It's in Gordon's book and it's in yours, but yours goes in much more depth. Is this phrase tears of futility, tears of utility? I was like, oh, my goodness. Okay. This is such a great phrase, tears. Because there are so many things in life that you cannot change. And so you're saying that one of the jobs of the parent is to walk a child through the futilities of life. So can you talk about, you know, you're talking about tears and tantrums. Gordon said early childhood is a violent time. Good thing that they're small and they have bad aim, but they're frustrated. And so instead of which, I feel like the tendency is like, stop, stop. You know, like, trying to get them to stop having these tears and these tantrums. Our goal, actually, is to come alongside of them so that they can learn to accept things that are futile.
- [16:02]
B
Yeah, well, that's how the brain is shaped. It's shaped by things that it realizes can't work, won't work, never, ever can come to pass. And so, you know, their brains are not wired up at birth to understand the world and the limits and restrictions and futilities that exist. So that's such a big of our early years, is representing the world to them as it exists, but also maintaining our relationship and attachment and keeping their hearts soft. So if you take a heavy hand here, if you become an adversary, if you wound at the place of relationship, how can you lead them to tears? You have to feel safe enough to be able to feel. And so this is the challenge that we have as parents. So, yes, they have many futilities. They can't always win. I mean, I'm sure we could all tell stories about our kids playing games, you know, four or five, and you think, oh, we're gonna play a card game. Won't this be fun? Oh, no, it won't be, because someone's gonna win and someone's gonna lose and. But they're, you know, they want more cookies. Than they can have. They want to stay up later. They wanna, they don't want anyone to be upset. They want to change your mind. They have all these ideas, they're resilient and resourceful, you know, because they just, they have this perseverance and tenacity to know what they want. Go for it, that's not a problem. But the reality is, is that the world isn't shaped around what you want and your desires. And so you have to be able to settle into when things don't go your way, when it doesn't come to pass, when adversity is on your doorstep. You know, a 3 year old who doesn't get a cookie is a 13 year old who doesn't, who has a friend who disappoints them or a teacher who says no, that is a D. Or you know, you fail your driver's test. I mean, these are the building blocks for resilience along the way. So how do we help to get them to their tears? Well, simply saying it's okay to cry won't work. In fact, they'll probably not cry at that point. It's not through the head, it's through coming alongside. Which again, when we have to turn these things into words and into science, it loses some of the human element of it. Like if you saw someone who was needing to have their tears, what would you do to make it safe for those tears to come out? You know, maybe they need to hear the futility, which is. I don't think that's going to happen now. That's going to be a no. This is going to be hard to hear whatever your words are. I'm not going to give parents words. I think it's just, you know, people can find that within themselves. But the whole thing is to make it safe enough to feel what isn't working. And every kid has a different temperament. If you have five kids, you know that they each get to this place differently. And so it's an art and a science, but you're walking beside them. And some futilities are really, really big. Some really mean a lot to them and some are very minor. And so, you know, the constant goal is if a child really can't handle a no in something, then what is our lesson? To learn about what they're struggling with, to learn about the world.
- [19:06]
A
The amount of futilities in here is, the list is lengthy. And you call them common childhood futilities. And, and I was like, I think these are adult futilities. As well, they are, so I'm going to list a couple of them. The futility of trying to hold on to good experiences. The futility of wanting to make something work that doesn't. The futility of wanting to send a sibling back. The futility of wanting to be smarter, to be perfect, to control circumstances, to turn back time or undo what's been done. The futility of trying to defy the laws of nature. To want to win all the time. To be bigger than one is to be best and first at everything. The futility of wanting to be wanted where one isn't. You are. It's very important that young children be able to read where they are not welcomed and respond accordingly. The futility of wanting to know what's going to be hap what's going to happen. Your outdoor space should feel like you. And for the longest time, ours just didn't. 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IXL is an award winning online learning platform offering interactive practice in math, language arts, science and social studies from Pre K through 12th grade. It adapts to each child's level, keeps them engaged and gives parents clear visibility into progress. What I really appreciate is how simple and organized it is. Everything is laid out by grade and subject so you can quickly find what your child needs, whether that's staying sharp or over the summer or getting a head start for the next year. And because it's personalized, kids can move at their own pace, which helps keep momentum going in a natural way, make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now and 1000 Hours Outside listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com 1000hours. Visit ixl.com 1000hours to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So Deborah, I was like, I've never heard of this. And I thought, you know, I think so often we try and like cover it or like, oh, it's not that big of a deal, but that's the wrong path. And even the crying, right, like you're like so often is trying to get the crying to stop. And what you said was when children cry, the hurt has already happened. Crying is not the hurt, but the process of being unhurt. Like what? Yeah, crying is the process of being unhurt. Tears are the best indicator of an emotional system that is functioning well.
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B
That quote actually came from Althea Salter, who's an incredible developmentalist. And it's, it's really about, again, not being, I think so many times what happens is that we equate a child's sadness and upset with a responsibility in us to cheer them up or to be happy, or it triggers our own emotions about guilt or whatever that might be going on for us and, and our own frustration in having to stop and pause to make room for the frustration. There's so many things that a child's emotions can stir up in us. And so I do think that we have a, you know, particularly in North America, we have a culture that tries to make it better, pursues happiness. Calm down, cut it out. It's not so bad. Think positive thoughts. Let me give you something. You know, just think happy thoughts or, you know, this, that, as if we could talk ourselves into emotional health and well being. If that were true, we'd be there.
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A
Right?
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B
So we need to get to the, the vulnerable emotions, which, let's, let's be honest, it's, it's hard to sit in sadness. It's not like, oh, I'm going to wake up today and make some nice time for sadness and just sit and dwell in it. And I mean, it is especially if you have highly sensitive kids or are highly sensitive yourself. These are big emotions, not to be toyed with and not to be underestimated in terms of their power, but even more so that they need to find their way into expression. And that could be through play, that could be through words, that could be through tears. It's not just one pathway here.
- [25:30]
A
Yeah, I know. I'm focusing on this one a lot just because the wording was so helpful for me to read and I'd never heard the language before. And you talk, I mean to say that tears are the, the, when you're crying, you're becoming unhurt in that like tears are threatened. Their, their expression is not equally supported for boys and girls. And you talked about like, okay, during these small encounters when they're crying about it, that these small encounters with the futility are helpful in setting the stage for the bigger issues that will come. So I just thought this is a really useful thing to read. I wish I would have read it 10 years ago. Rest, Play Grow. I, you know, I think it just, it helps you understand yourself better. Like even my, in my own mind, I'm like, I'm just going to cry some tears of futility.
- [26:19]
B
Like, you know, it's not going to change you.
- [26:22]
A
It's not going to change. And to know that tears are good indicators, the capacity to cry tears in the face of emotional distress, you write, is uniquely human. Tears cried and sadness shed toxic waste products from the bloodstream. When tears are shed, there is also a release of oxytocin. I know we spent a lot of time here, but I never heard anybody talk about the tears of futility. And it makes a lot of sense and I think it gives you a little bit of a road map as you're trying to help protect the spirit of childhood in your home. So. Okay, now we, we can switch topics. We've been on that one for a while. Let's go to what you talked about earlier. Play is the untold hero. There is so much in this book called Rest, Play Grow about play. Young children cannot thrive or flourish in a world without play. The very essence of who they are will be come. Who of who? Man, I'm really struggling with my reading today. The very essence of who they will become is defined by it. Can you talk about what has changed? The drop in play is dramatic even just recently.
- [27:23]
B
Well, I used to be on faculty, a tenured faculty at a university. So I used to see students, university students and their parents who are coming in to university and the shift in the numbers of kids coming into university, parents worried about kids future, the shift to global economy, knowledge based environment that you, you need to have some knowledge, some skill set has absolutely exponentially contributed to this idea that knowledge, intellect, learning, problem solving is of paramount importance. I don't think we can deny that coming from an academic perspective. I've seen that push and I think it is a huge driver because it puts pressure on play because in play the outcomes are not obvious. What is happening is developmental. And so you'd have to have a lot of wisdom and understanding of the purpose of play in order to protect it in a world that's very outcome driven.
- [28:23]
A
Yes.
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B
And very quick now in terms and expedient in terms of those outcomes. And so it's put a lot of pressure on those environments where early learning is now pushed. You know, how early do you read? You know, the skill sets, you know, Gordon always jokes, you know, wait till they get into the womb to try to do learning. And I Mean, you know, we say it jokingly, but I mean, yeah, I actually think that would be the case. There's this prevalent myth over the last 50 years that earlier is better. And there is, I think, a fear in parents where people give a lot of lip service to. Yeah, play is important. Play is important. And then they don't protect it because they're worried about the outcomes for their kids if they don't protect it in a world that is so driven in the opposite direction. And the other thing I will say that happens is they say, oh, we're doing play based education, but they've turned play into work and it's not true play. And so I think we're really, we're lacking an understanding of the purpose of play and the science of play. If we did, we'd understand that the best outcomes for learning, creativity, brain development, emotional development. I mean, the, the creative problem solvers that you want tomorrow are not built through worksheets, they're built through play. But people have not connected the dots or if they have, they're terrified to trust them.
- [29:45]
A
Yeah, yes. The, the decrease, I mean, just 50 decrease from 1997 to 2003. That's before screens. Play is not urgent, you wrote, and therefore is easily lost in the activities of daily life. To protect and preserve time and space for play, use routines or rituals or the 1000 hours outside challenge. That will help you as well. I actually spoke at this early childhood education center once and they, it was a play based, you know, no screens. And they had directives, I guess from the government, I'm not quite sure. They had to fill out this paperwork. And so they always had to be saying, like, what were the kids learning? You know, this was for like really young children. So they had these worksheets of like, how to teach a kid how to kick high, how to teach a kid how to kick hard. And it will be like, place your left foot on the ground and make sure no one is close by. And they're like walking the kid through. I was like, what are we, what are we doing here?
- [30:39]
B
Oh, hi. I agree completely. The. I was in a school the other day and they said someone there had was an early child care provider, early educator in Ireland. And she says we have lots of learning outcomes through play, but the way that we do it is we watch children play and then we just check off what they're learning. The kids are never wiser and we trust that it's going to unfold and play. So there's no instructions needed. They're Just, you know, observing and providing the conditions which are really important, providing the environment, providing the safety and the conditions where kids can unfold and play. Because, yes, they are learning lots. If we need to have outcomes demonstrated, we can do that without interfering with the play that is unfolding.
- [31:24]
A
Right. Okay, so let's talk about some of the reasons why this is incredibly important. One of the things that you talk about in Rest, Play grow, is that play is the birthplace of personhood. Can you elaborate on that?
- [31:37]
B
Well, I mean, to become your own person is an act of discovery, and you can't discover who you are without the. With pressures of getting it right or pleasing other people or what the world expects of you. You have to have a bit of a. A sanctuary where you can unfold in and can experiment. And, you know, when I was thinking about play and listening to my kids play and. And my life was shaped, I had a mother who protected play for me, which is the greatest gift she ever gave me, was basically, go outside and play or help me do the laundry. And it's like, I'm out of here, Mom. And she basically, I lived my life outside quite feral. It was wonderful. And I remember in those moments of watching my kids play or being in play, it was like I was listening for what is inside me to be echoed in the world around me. And I would feel that draw towards that. And so it is that resonance between who you are expressing it and finding it in the world. It was my bike that delivered the speed I needed and the adventure I needed and the world that made sense. It was the imaginary worlds I created with my sister. The music, the stories, the skits where I unfolded, everything I can see in who I am today, I can link back into those days of play. I've got one daughter who's going in into environmental science and wants to study the land and earth and silviculture and how we grow stuff and carbon capture. But I have pictures of her as a young child digging up potatoes in my backyard like it was all there. I've got another one who is loved potions and puzzles and putting things together. You know, she's three and she's just, you know, covered in dir and all sorts of stuff. And what did she go into? Chemistry. I mean, the roots of who you are is discovered in play. You can't give someone personality. You can't give them their interests, their desires, their passions. These things are born from within and they're born in play, which is a protected sanctuary where we discover who we are. Like if we got this, we would just stand back and deliver the space, knowing this is where this comes from, this is where this unique gifts that get realized come from. We would stand in awe of it.
- [33:55]
A
And that's just one reason of why play is so important. You're right. Play has become suffocated under an adult centric quest for speedier development. Despite research demonstrating that children's brains reach the same cognitive benchmarks today as I did 100 years ago. So play is the birthplace of personhood. How about this? You talk about their brain. When children are playing, their brains are being sculpted by their interactions with the environment. The complexity of the actual brain is enhanced most of all by hours spent in play. Play is nature's answer to growth. So basically we have this backwards by pushing all this early academic work, which what people are trying to like enhance their kids brain, but you're like, no, no, it's enhanced most of all by hours spent in play. So can you address that sort of like early academic push in terms of seat work and worksheets and how that is totally the wrong direction?
- [34:51]
B
Well, yeah. The brain isn't built on information, it's built on discovery. Like if we understand that those first six years, the brain is really open. It's an open ended system that is being built by the feedback is in the environment. Right. And so it's wiring up in response to the environment. If you're only putting in narrow information and, you know, narrow channels of understanding the world, then you're not going to get a very robust integrated problem solving network system. You know, it's like the knee bones connected to the, you know, leg bone. Yeah, it's just like they're all connected. And so you need to have that exquisite feedback loop being built. It's like language, it's movement, it's your sensory system, it's the emotional system. Nature just doesn't say, okay, it's time to wire up your body, it's time to wire up your emotions. Now it's time to wire up your language. I didn't know nature was sophisticated. We're gonna do it all at once. Let's just go out into play and boom, you got this massive feedback system that's happening and it's recalibrated over and over again. So what do you want to do? You just want to pick a channel and sit down, sit them down with a worksheet and just plug in repetitive exercises? Sure, you'll get some enhancement in that particular brain area. But when you look at the outcomes in Grade three or grade four, you don't have better problem solvers and you push, you know, you push literacy too soon. Like learning how to read too soon. These, and I've had kindergarten teacher tell me over and over again in grade one, you keep pushing reading too soon. They don't have reading comprehension. In grade two and three, you see a lots of reading comprehension. They might understand, I know what the, the word is. But when you're, you're ramming in information that's decontextualized and not integrated, you don't build a more robust brain and problem solving apparatus. You limit, you truncate and it's such, it's such an important period of time for brain development. Why would we, why would we do this? No early learning reading programs I found could ever worked. And then, you know, like grade five, sorry, grades six years of age is usually when most kids, the brain is integrated enough, they can put words into sentences, into context and then you get this push forward. But then I get people pushing back and saying, well, their brains are ready for early literacy, you know, at three years of age. And the Nobel Peace prize winner said, well of course they are, but that's why we, we read to them, we talk to them, we sing to them, they play, they chatter. I mean it's not like we're not building literacy and we're not building upon those brain network. But why does it have to look a particular way where you've got to sit down and do drills and outcome based learning? It doesn't work for kids under the age of six. They're not like us. And we need to stop applying our adult psychology onto young children. We are, we are robbing them of what they need to grow.
- [37:49]
A
Wow. Yeah, wow. The complexity of the brain is enhanced most of all by hours spent in play. So we cannot be suffocating it with this adult, adult centric quest. I love the wording you even talk about in this knowledge based economy. We want kids to have lifelong learning, you know, to be enthusiastic about lifelong learning and creativity and innovation. Play is the answer for that. Let's hit one more thing. Although there's more than we're even talking about in this book called Rest Play Grow about the importance of play. But you, you brought this up earlier when you use the phrase play is the untold hero talking about emotions. Play is therapeutic for young children because it allows them to express deep emotions safely. You wrote we ought to foster play sanctuaries for young children as a means of promoting a mesh emotional and mental health so if we look around at this youth mental health crisis, would you relate some of that to lack of play in early childhood?
- [38:51]
B
It's screens got in the way of relationship and play. And those two things are most important for children to develop. Well, how are we going to grow and develop when screens have taken down the two primary dynamics and, and context for growth. Play to release emotions, discover the self, grow more robust, a sense of agency and relationships that help anchor you in safety and rest so that play is possible. So you put screens in there and you've taken down to the contexts that are required for growth. And so here's the thing. Yes, we can take away screens and adolescence is way too late. But we've got to think in the early years, how are screens now infiltrating into early childhood? And I actually recently went back and did a presentation on screens and young kids because I now have 10 years worth of research and it's worse than I thought.
- [39:41]
A
Oh, wow.
- [39:42]
B
It's worse than I thought. The outcomes, I mean, you can, you could have predicted and did predict that, you know, across the board we'd see developmental losses. But the degree to what has happened is it's devastating.
- [39:58]
A
I read a statistic recently that said in the 1970s, the average age of screen exposure, of first screen exposure was age four, like a four year old. They hadn't seen a screen at all until age four. And now. And it's just been 50 years, right. Just a 50 year gap. It's four, four months.
- [40:17]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [40:18]
A
It is a wild. Yeah.
- [40:20]
B
And, and it's also about, it's, it's not just what kids are also watching. There's. It's twofold, actually. They found that the greatest deficits were kids, young kids who had two, two hours or more of screen time a day. And the rates of that were quite high. But the other factor is that when we're on our screens, our kids can't find us. So it's twofold because of course they're calibrating to us. They're anchoring into us. If they can't find us behind our screens and they're also behind their screens, then we've got this. We don't have the context for relationship and play. We just don't.
- [40:58]
A
Are you thinking about writing another book?
- [41:01]
B
I have a few in mind. Right. It's just so hard to know which one.
- [41:06]
A
About all of these things are so important.
- [41:09]
B
Yeah. And I do have. There's three in particular, three key areas that I think are so key right now that we don't have the science we need. We're taking some really serious wrong turns. And, and I think without the developmental science and putting those pieces together, I don't think we're going to find our way through. And so, you know, I mean, I feel so grateful because I've been gifted this robust integrated theory and research and evidence based practice of human development from Gordon. And it can explain and make sense out of and also pave the way through our problems today around human development and well being. But we have to put the pieces together. And so much of what's happening right now is piecemeal, it's fragmented. People are providing antidotes here and there. And so we're confused. Well, what is the path here then? How do these pieces go together? And I think that's the great challenge is that we don't have largely our developmentalists have to come really out and, and really put that roadmap out there. Like, you know, you talk about David Alcott, you talk about Althea Sulter, you talk about Gordon Neufeld child. I would throw gabber in there as well. You know, Jessel, he's a, another great developmentalist. But people who had the whole picture and could see the trajectory and explain when things were working well or when they got stuck, it's become so fragmented and disorienting for parents. And that's what drew me to this work is I'm like, okay, I can rest in this. I can make sense of it. I don't have to remember someone's script or what they're telling me to do or, or like, oh, I could get so frustrated with that. Well, just say this. And like, I can't remember that first of all. And second of all, I don't know why I would say that to my child. I haven't even made sense out of it. And I don't want to be someone's parrot. And you know, that's what play delivered was a very, you know, robust sense of self. I have to understand it before I do it. And, and don't suffer fools gladly. So it's like I need to understand why before I'm going to do something. So I. It's the scripts and tips and techniques never, never worked for me. They frustrated me. And then I found Gordon. I'm like, well, why? Well, why I was that student. I'm like, well, why Gordon? What about this? And when I did my two years of postdoctoral internship, I'd come in, he's like, deborah, we could talk about this for the next week. And I'm like, well, that was just number one on my agenda. And I think because you just, I just wanted to make sense of it and understand. But as my sister says to me, deb, not everybody needs to know what you're curious about. You just need to know what to do. Only a sister can say that to you, right?
- [43:57]
A
That's so funny. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Your family, they just know you so well. I love that. I love your sister. Picks up on that. Well, what's interesting to me, intriguing to me, and I talked to Gordon very recently, like within the last two weeks. And, you know, I've recorded probably 750 episodes for this podcast in the last four years. And before that we've been just. All we're doing is prioritizing, getting outside. That's the end all, be all. But for me, it's been a journey of learning why this works, why it's helpful, you know, why we're not really experiencing a lot of the modern day parenting problems and why it works for a 2 year old as well as a 12 year old, as well as a 16 year old. And not everybody I've interviewed has a book, but the majority do. So let's say I've read 600 books in the last four years. Wow. I didn't know about the Tears of Futility. I didn't know about the peer orientation. I didn't know about the collecting. I hadn't read about any of that yet. So think about the people who have read way less books, you know, like, maybe they've read four or five parenting books. I'm like, you could really miss this. And this is, this is the foundation of everything that attachment is the foundation of everything. The cloud, collecting these, you know, allowing your kids to have emotional expression and, and walking them through that. And so I'm thankful that I read it now, at least, and I'm thankful that you agreed to come on and talk about it. And I, I just, it makes me wonder, Deborah, how many other people are like me who are like, wait, wait, I was missing that whole entire piece. Like, I would have been the type that's really pushing my kids into peer relationships because everybody talks about socialization and we homeschooled. So I think just based off of them being around, if there was a buffer there, yeah, they're like stuck with us for a lot of time. But that wasn't my intention for doing it. I didn't know. So do you think that there are so many people that have no idea?
- [45:53]
B
I don't know. I wish I knew. I'm so glad you do and I'm so glad that you invited me and Gordon on to share that, what it means to you so people can, you know, make choices about, you know, what resonates for them. I think the developmental agenda gets lost because again, we're very quick to want fixes and answers. And so we've lost patience with natural development. We've lost patience with the wisdom that all things unfold with time and, and good care. I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm just a hundred year old grandmother talking. I really do because I think it's just, it's common sense. I think there's a lot of wisdom in, in just slowing down and thinking through things. But again, I guess that people feel a lack of confidence around what to do as parents today. I know I certainly did. And the more I made sense of what my kids need, the more I understood human development, the more relaxed I became. You know, it became because I understood that I, I had what my kids needed. We are going to make mistakes. We can disagree with what we did yesterday and do something different today. I used to say to myself, okay, well there's a new sheriff in town and she's going to look like this tomorrow and she's going to do something different around that temper tantrum or that resistance or whatever it was. And so I just don't know if parents hear that. I, I today. I hear a lot of parents who are really confused, who don't feel they are enough, get so many messages that you're not enough and everybody's inventing new ways to parent. It seems in different ways. I'm like, well, I don't know if we need new, a lot of new ways. It's just really some new insight and, and we have what it takes inside of us. We are deeply feeling, thinking, caring beings. And I think those are the answers. And so while you may never have read these books, there was a side of you as a mother that knew what you wanted to do and knew that being outside was important. You didn't need to read the Science of Play to know that that was critical for your kids. And the fact that you were driven to homeschool and that you saw benefits in that and believed that this was enough and you were enough to be able to deliver them to a robust education, Education and learning that was already inside of you that you allowed to be realized. You listened to that, right? So you didn't need to read the books and, and great that you didn't I did need. I do turn to, you know, knowledge. I do turn to, you know, science because, I mean, I got a PhD. It's just. It was ingrained in just to. To go and do that. And, you know, I'm a very curious kid who's always asking why, why, why? And so if the pieces don't fit, I have a harder time following, you know, in line. That way we're all built differently. So I don't know why we're struggling, but it's my hope, just every day that I show up to do the work that I do is that a parent discovers that they're the answer and that they. They wrestle with that, and they know that that was nature's plan for us all, you know, and I. And I think about, you know, it was really interesting when I was writing Wrestle Growing, the. The first and the last chapters, I just knew automatically, and the first one was how we Grow kids up. And the last chapter was how kids Grow us Up. And the last chapter was probably the easiest and fastest to write. It just flew out of me. And, you know, one of the things that my dad had said stayed with me over and over again, which was how grateful he was to enter, to be alive as long as he had been alive and is alive, to see not only have to, not to. Not only have known his own grandparents, also to be a grandparent to nine. And I thought that's it. That's a developmental trajectory, is to never forget your place in that story of human development and what you are delivered from and who you're meant to be delivered to. And so I just wish everybody could rest in that developmental story again. That's my, my greatest wish for us all.
- [50:11]
A
It is a fantastic book, a fantastic book about parenting and really about life. You wrote, children are not meant to work for love. They are meant to rest in someone's care so that they can play and grow. This is why relationships matter. Expect young children to make relentless demands of parents, especially when they're frightened or upset. This is a natural process. The early years are hungry ones. Young children are restless seekers. You know, they want to feast on human connection and, you know, exploring the world. So you talk in this book also about collecting rituals, which was another thing I'd never heard of. Also in Gordon's book Hold on to your Child. Do you want to read this so that you can understand that as well? I'd love to wrap it up with what you just brought up, which is how I just thought this was so beautiful. Deborah. Okay, so you Talk about becoming your child's best bet. And you say, as we endeavor to become a child's best bet, Perhaps I was like, this is so beautiful. Perhaps they are also ours. Their immaturity calls forth our maturity. This whole passage, actually, if you don't mind, I want to read it real quick. I was like, this whole passage is so moving. This is right at the. Toward the end of the book, their intense need for relationship forces us to live in communion with others and to help raise them. They remind us daily of the mystery, splendor, and roots from which we unfold as humans. Some say nature is mad in delivering us such immature beings. Yet I cannot help but think her wise. As adults, we face forward into aging and separation. But in holding on to our children, we are forced to look back to our beginnings. Like the grandparent to the grandparent, nature ties the ends of our life cycle together. The old connected to the new, the endings fused to the beginnings. Opposites entwined, the paradoxical rendered seamless, endless. These invisible ties of relationships hold us together, the human life cycle unfolding generation after generation as we endeavor to become a child's best bet. Perhaps they are also ours. What a book. I hope you write another one. It's so good. Wow. I highly, highly recommend, Highly recommend. This is a book about how brain development is spontaneous, but it is not inevitable. Deborah, I so appreciate your time. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside,
- [52:43]
B
playing outside? First of all, thank you for reading that passage. It was one of my favorites, too. Oh, my favorite childhood memory. I think it was playing on the swing set with my sister in the backyard with the two Doberman pincers that were in the neighbor's yard behind us. And I would tell her if they ever jumped over the fence, because they would come and they would scare us, that I would run in and grab the sword that was on the wall. It was some Kirpan or something my parents had from some trip they'd done. And that she was to stay there and to wait. And I would go get the sword. And this story that we unfolded, it provided a bit of a shield around our play area in the backyard so that we never felt unsafe because the dogs were there and could jump over. And we would pick the leaves, leaves off the trees, and we would get on our swings. And sometimes she was the conductor, sometimes I was the conductor. And I'd say, where are we going to go today? And we have our leaves for tickets. And we would invent all the places that we would go, and you'd have to give a ticket, and then one of us would tell the story where we're going. Playing with my sister outside in our backyard. I cannot believe the amount of adventures we'd have every day. It was just. Yeah, it was just amazing.
- [54:07]
A
There's this man named David Epstein who has a book coming out in May. It's called Inside the Box, and it's about. I think the subtitle is How Constraints Make Us Better. And it's really like, it's aimed toward adults. Like, Johann Sebastian Bach had all these rules for what he could compose. And this, you know, this one basketball player only had half of a basketball backboard growing up, and it made him, you know, be more creative with his shots. Like, these constraints make us better. But I was like, oh, this so applies to childhood, doesn't it? Like, especially if we're not handing over a screen that goes to a limitless world, if we're just playing outdoors. And your leaf can be your ticket. It's like the constraints that are already built into nature. Forced creativity and imagination.
- [54:55]
B
Absolutely.
- [54:56]
A
And what a gift that is for kids.
- [54:59]
B
Yeah. So little distraction. You can listen to your own voice within, and you can create something from that voice.
- [55:06]
A
Yeah. Deborah, this has been such an honor. Thank you for saying yes. Thanks for being here.
- [55:10]
B
Yeah, thank you. Well, I so appreciate your generous words and your time and reading the book and being so knowledgeable about it and asking such, you know, thoughtful questions, you know, and being obviously so singularly minded about play and the value of it, because, you know, what you do. Prevention wise to support families and parents. Like, you know, you could. You could have a hundred counselors, but if parents got the message in your podcast here, like, you're doing so much prevention, you have no idea.
- [55:39]
A
Ah, thanks for that. Yeah. Thanks for saying nothing. I hope we stay connected.
- [55:42]
B
Thanks so much, Ginny. I really enjoyed this.