Kolb – play problem solving

So what we’ve got now is two things: we’ve got experiments with nature, early stress early exposure to drugs, I didn’t mention brain injury, early brain injury, all change play and they all change the way animals behave as adults. And we’ve also done is we’ve manipulated play directly, and shown that it seems to have a real impact on brain plasticity. So the logic here is that the function of play is to make the brain more changeable. Now why would that be? Well, according to Fraser Mustard, play is problem solving. So if you’re problem solving then that makes you better at problem solving later. When I described the data, that was how he explained it, and I think it’s probably right. So it’s not the play per se, it’s what play is: problem solving. We’re having this tussle, and so if you’re a rat what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to nuzzle the back of my neck, and I’m trying to do the same to you, and so you get this what I’ll call popcorn behaviour, if you’ve seen kittens, when they play, it’s all rolling, they’re doing the same thing, they’re trying to nuzzle, it’s not fighting, they’re not fighting, because if you’re fighting, the last place you’re going to put your mouth is anywhere near the other animal’s mouth. You don’t want to be near the teeth, you going to go after the butt, there’s no teeth there. So when animals fight, they bite one another in the rump. When they play, they play around the head.  

So our thinking here is that it’s problem solving practice is what play is. So when you look at in adulthood problem solving, the more problem solving practice you have early, the better you are at it later. And it just so happens that play is the mechanism Mother Nature has chosen, or one of the mechanisms, and early experiences that alter play behaviour are going to alter as a result, problem solving in adulthood. Now one can be, perhaps, not p.c. here and say oh, so you’re saying that if children are one-child families there’s going to be less play, and if in those one child families they have home schooling, you can see where I’m going here, there’s going to be less play, are they going to pay a price for that, and the obvious conclusion is that if the rat studies are correct, they might. So what it’s really important to do in situations where you’ve smaller number of kids, which is the demographics now that these kids have to be involved in activities that encourage play. And of course we do that. We’ve got kids; if you’re a parent you drive them all over the place for all sorts of activities. So the more activities they’re in, the more play they’re engaged in, the more problem solving and so on. So although the number of children has gone down and there’s less play probably in the household, there’s been compensation by having play outside the house. But any situation that’s going to reduce the chances of that child engaging in play outside the house is going to be detrimental, and that’s why programs like Kids Sport that, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Kids Sport, but Kids Sport where the agency, actually started by my sister, will pay for the entrance fees or registration fees for kids in soccer and so on to get them out playing. It’s so important because this is getting kids out doing what’s necessary to make their brain plastic as adults.