Love and Play for Building Brains 

Play is the occupation of children; it is how they interact with the world, and how they learn their part within it.  Play has a significant impact on a child’s future outcomes and ability to meet their full potential not only in childhood, but in adulthood too. 

Play is a vital part of early childhood development, enabling children to thrive by promoting exploration, movement, problem-solving, responsive relationships and having FUN. When a child engages in playful interactions with a caregiver, a responsive two-way interaction known as “serve and return” occurs. This interaction is crucial in building a baby's brain.

At birth, babies’ brains are around 20% developed; by the time they are one, their brain has doubled in size; by age three it has reached around 80-90% of their adult size brain; and by five it is nearly fully grown. The growth is the result of the connection of axons and dendrites that have been stimulated by the sensory experiences received through touch, movement, and loving playful interaction: babies’ brains are built through their experiences of the world.  Genes provide the blueprints for the architecture, but nurture offers the experiences the child needs for these genes to be expressed. 

This brain sculpting supports the foundations for the rest of a person’s life and helps us to survive the environment we are in. The more responsive, safe, secure, and loving our environment, the more the child’s brain will be sculpted to expect this type of experience. Thus, the child becomes more confident, curious, and eager to explore the world.

Children are most susceptible to environmental influences from 0-3; this is when parent-infant relations are crucial. The neurological biology of the human brain is built for social interaction first and foremost. This is how we learn how to be human; by interacting with the humans around us. It is paramount to have access to loving, interactive and responsive humans (parents or caregivers) over and above the latest baby gadget or toy.

Exposure to touch, movement, and early playful interactions such as talking, singing, giving eye contact, and enjoying moments together helps to release feel-good hormones or neurochemicals such as oxytocin that help to build the brain. These chemicals facilitate increased resilience, supporting children with far better outcomes when it comes to physical and mental health, as well as improving immunity, and enhancing their ability to form relationships well into adulthood. This is why it is crucial to work with and empower parents, who ultimately make up an infant’s environment and their world of experience. As a baby grows and develops, they build up pictures and maps in their mind based on the experiences received, and so any deprivation of these experiences restricts and prevents connection.

Early development and play

Playful interactions can start as early as in the womb. Babies respond, enjoy, and are soothed by talking and singing from familiar voices before they are even born, exploring their movement by pressing their limbs against the uterine wall, feeling out their womb world whilst toning their muscles, and experiencing new sensations.

Once a baby is earth side, play begins in the form of natural, loving interactions - facial expressions, sing-song sounds and the creating of anticipation such as peekaboo. It can become more object orientated as they grow more interested in the world around them and can physically interact with age-appropriate books, toys, and objects. 

Babies learn everything through play and interaction with others, themselves and their environments - in order for babies to strengthen not only their physical bodies, but also their fine motor skills (skills coordinating the hands and fingers), gross motor skills (skills coordinating larger body parts mainly the limbs), problem solving skills, visual perceptual skills (ability to make sense of the information we receive through our eyes – more than just seeing), and sensory processing skills (registering and accurately interpreting sensory input from the environment and from the body itself).

Play is all about being able to explore and experience sensations and movement. As babies are born with limited coordination, a lot of their early movements are reflex based, which helps the birth process and acts as a protective mechanism. However, as a baby learns to explore through movement, higher functioning postural reflexes can start to take over, building the connections between their brains and body. This helps them to learn where their limbs are in relation to one another, and how their bodies can move. They begin to explore the cause and effect that moving their body has, as well as learn to judge distances, adjust their movements dependent on the activity, and understand that objects are separate or can create a whole. Exploring through movement helps to practice coordination and isolation of body parts, as well as support the development of the skeletal system – something that has a lifelong impact.

In our western society, babies and children are living increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Babies spend more time in “containers” than ever before – car seats, buggies, walkers, activity saucers, Bumbo style seats, all of which impact on crucial time that could be spent in free (supervised) movement play. Of course, in reality, sometimes children need to be contained – car seats for safety reasons, or simply for those moments when a parent needs to know that their baby is safe whilst they attend to another task. However, baby containers force babies into positions that their bodies aren’t developmentally ready for yet and do not encourage the recruitment of muscles required for sitting or standing. Therefore, supervised tummy time, as well as side lying and back play, are essential for the development of these skills.

When babies are given opportunities to explore movement freely, to push up and move against gravity and to receive multimodal sensory stimulation it will support all of their physical milestones, sensorimotor skills, coordination with the skills that motivate to learn and move more. Movement allows for vestibular input (the balance mechanism inside the inner ear that provides information about head position and balance) as well as proprioceptive feedback (deep pressure to receptors in the joints and muscles that feeds back to the brain about body awareness and how to judge force of movements) which enables a child to feel safe in their body and with their movement.

Getting down onto the ground with babies, or in the early stages, using parents’ body for positions such as baby’s tummy to parent’s chest, is a great way to encourage babies to begin the journey of developing their bodies and minds through movement and sensation, whilst also enjoying the love and connection of being close to their caregiver. 

Play for Emotional Regulation, Confidence, and Joy

Dr Stephen Porges reports that play helps to tone the vagal nerve – this nerve has a huge role in our recovery from stressful events, and in enabling us to come back to a relaxed rest and digest state (a calm nervous system), helping to support our mental and emotional wellbeing as well as our physical health. In his polyvagal theory, he suggests that play enables us to enter our social engagement system – or connection mode - allowing us to read and respond to invitations to play and helping to regulate the nervous system. Studies have shown that in play, our fight or flight responses can be activated but without the release of cortisol – stress hormones. This helps us to practise handling danger and dealing with intense emotions which supports our emotional resilience in the long term. Porges (2015) describes play as “mobilisation without fear” downregulating fight/flight behaviours and allowing us to feel safe and confident to explore, play and learn.

Sadly, not all babies and children have the same access to quality, loving, safe play or to a sense of playfulness. Trauma, generational trauma, PTSD, systemic racism, poverty, war, and disability can all impact on access to play and playfulness and the feeling of safety that a young child needs - when we feel safe, loved and like we have a place in the world, we feel confident to discover our place within it. We feel secure enough to be creative, to take educated risks, and to try again. Babies and children who have limited access to play are at higher risk of delayed development, difficulty adapting to change, poorer self-control and regulation and a greater risk of anxiety, depression, and tendency towards addictions.

Supporting children to play and be playful, as well as to interact with themselves, others and the world knowing that they are loved and safe is, in my view, incredibly important, and something that those working in the Early Years, and Health and Social Care sectors must continue to promote amongst the families they support.

Playfulness is joy, it is hopeful, it is an openness, it is a feeling and it is action. Yet it does not come naturally to all. Encouraging parents to be curious and invite babies and children into their world can help to bridge the gap for those who find being playful more challenging. Going for a walk, talking about what they see, looking at books together, singing to songs in the car, making a game of folding laundry, and bringing playfulness to the mundane are some of the ways we can achieve play without it feeling forced or structured. In this way, parents are constructing playful connections, building their babies’ brains with love and play, supporting their own wellbeing as well as that of their child’s.

To create a more loving, playful and connected society, it is my belief that we need to allow and support parents and children to connect through play, however that looks to them. Play is unique, it changes, it grows and it has the potential to change lives: play is a serious business, and one that we can all benefit from.

With love and play,

Carly Budd

Specialist Children’s Occupational Therapist

Founder of Carly Budd Developmental Play Academy