Play and Self-Discipline - Self-Direction

It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.

Vygotsky said that in play, children do what they feel like because play is connected with pleasure. Early on, play is more about the imaginary situation than the rules

At the same time, they learn to obey rules. Children learn to renounce what they want - obey rules and delay immediate desires in order to experience maximum pleasure in play.

Play continually creates demands on the child to act against immediate impulse. I’m playing hide and seek and I’m IT. I want to run off and seek at once, but the rules of the game order me to wait and count to twenty. Why do I not do what I want, spontaneously and at once? So that I can have fun! Because following the rules of the game provides greater pleasure than the gratification of an immediate impulse.

The will and sense of self-discipline that people develop originates in, and develops from, PLAY with rules. Children exhibit their greatest self-control in play. They achieve the maximum willPOWER by following the rules and resisting temptations to act impulsively. As they grow up and the imaginary situation is removed, the rules remain, and they behave as they did in play. They follow life’s rules as a choice – self-discipline.

There are famous studies of self-control where researchers have a child in a room with a bowl of marshmallows. The researcher tells the child not to eat the candy yet and then leaves the room to observe from behind a two-way mirror. Many children are unable to resist the temptation and eat the marshmallows, others use strategies like sitting on their hands or looking away in order to resist the temptation.

Now imagine another situation. A couple of kids are playing a game, using marshmallows as game pieces. In this game the children are not allowed to eat the marshmallows because they represent something inedible. In play, these children can exhibit enormous self control, and maximize learning when adults are there to scaffold the learning and help them learn more and make life connections.

Play is the primary source of development in children. Children develop positively through play. Play gives children practice figuring out what they want, coming up with goals and ideas – essential skills in self-disciplined adults. In play, children make decisions and determine the course of what happens in the imaginary situation. Play is the essence of childhood learning, the leading activity that determines the child’s development. Self-discipline, the formation of real-life plans, and decision-making motives all appear in play. Play gives children new forms of desires – to their role in the game and its rules. Therefore children’s greatest achievements are possible in play – achievements that tomorrow will become the basis for their life decisions and their morality. From a child development perspective, play is a means of developing the cognitive POWERS of abstract thought and self-discipline.

For more information on our training topics and FREE resources - click here!