Decolonizing Play
Play is a human right.
What happens when we are denied our right to play and be creative as children?
As adults, we wage war.
On ourselves.
On others.
War is a sick game played by men who were never allowed to be boys.
Our human nature is the nature to play.
To be creative and free.
Play really is our first language.
When we as therapists require children (or anyone) to speak about what they’ve experienced we risk dominating their experience.
Play is a neutral non threatening space to express.
Grief as in “lost for words”.
Wonder as in “awe… speechless”.
For neurodivergent people, we use communication differently. We demand creativity and freedom in our self expression, across the lifespan.
This is our divergence, beyond neurology.
When adults pressurize the development of children, to get children to speed up in the way that they exist in the world to match the dominant speed of adults, when adults require children to use words to describe their emotional experiences, we make ourselves as adults more comfortable, and rob children of the essential building blocks of their becoming.
So before they ever have the chance to learn the language of their selves, the child is pressured to accommodate the dominant language and communication style of adults: words.
To be in relationship with children means to speak their language.
To be in relationship with ourselves, means to speak our language.
Art and play allow us as humans to develop and expand our language.
To do so, we must enter into our worlds of play.
Art is wonderful at inviting the freedom of our human beingness to flow.
We can make marks and impact the canvas or paper.
See our impact before our very eyes.
Bare witness to the power of our own physical expressions.
Creativity is the building block for learning. As is such, learning about oneself, in the world.
When we don’t learn to play freely, without control, we end up hurting ourselves, hurting each other.
When we play freely, we know we belong to the world.
We have opportunity to know the power of our hands, and we are able to feel connected to our selves and to each other.
Play across the lifespan allows us to make choices from who we are.
To fail, and learn.
To discover ourselves in the process.
To form and transcend identity.
To be free.
