Why remembering how you played as a kid is important for your next life decision

How did you play as a kid?

Did you play with legos, build a dream castle, paint a portrait that your parents thought belonged in the Louvre?

Did you write stories and pretend to be in an imaginary world?

Play is a developmentally appropriate way for children to express what they are going through in life. Ever witness a child role play their life story with Barbies? Play is how we process as children. It helps us tell our stories.

Children are less likely to sit down and talk about what is going on in their lives. They don’t always know how to put words to their experiences. Their vocabulary is limited, and even when we know the right words, words only do so much in helping them express their truth.

So it’s not surprising that play can reveal their deepest desires as humans and help them get back into alignment. Even as adults, reflecting on how we played helps us understand, in some sense, our truest self.

What do we mean by this?

For children, play therapy helps us understand the big events our children are navigating, and it helps us as parents support them effectively.

For adults, remembering how we used to play can help us understand what we enjoyed before we were molded to society’s expectations. It can help us reconnect to what we innately value and what we are naturally good at doing.

So before you make a big life decision, think about how you played. Did you pick up legos? Did you run around the house nonstop? Thinking about the environments you thrived within and your natural propensity can help you understand if a job is the best fit, or if a career path is your choice or more to impress your parents and friends.

So before you make that next decision, reflect on the ways you played:

What is one of your fondest memories playing as a kid?

How would your parents describe your play?

Which did you do more: physical play (running around, dancing, using a ball), social play (playing with others), imaginary play (pretending you were a tiger or coming up with a story), constructive play (building legos)?

When you know how you used to play, it helps you understand yourself more fully, keeping in mind that you do change over time. But it is key to understand which changes were dictated by you and which were constructs of societies expectations. On the flip side, when you understand how your child plays, it helps you support them in their development.

To get support with big life decisions for you or your children, contact Lauren Weiner.

To inquire about play therapy, talk to our play therapist in training Rebecca Self.