Tiny Big Moments: The Power Of Child-Led Play

Research shows that five minutes of child-led play — where kids are in charge and adults follow their lead — can reduce challenging behaviors and strengthen the parent-child relationship. It also helps children build confidence, improve their language, problem-solving, and self-regulation skills, and reduce stress.

But just because it’s important doesn’t mean it’s easy. In this episode, we unpack the science behind child-led play and hear real stories of why letting go can be so hard, and what happens when kids take the lead.

Tiny Big Moments is a production of ParentCorps, an evidence-based early childhood program housed at NYU Langone Health. This episode was produced by Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven, Lisa Ellrodt, and Cindy Gray, and edited by Shanika Gunaratna. 

For more information on the research presented in this episode check out: 

1. Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life

2. The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds | Pediatrics

3. (PDF) Jeely Nursery project Final Report 2010

4. 10 Things Every Parent Should Know About Play | NAEYC

5. How to Support Children’s Approaches to Learning? Play with Them! | NAEYC

6. Parent Training for Children With or at Risk for Developmental Delay: The Role of Parental Homework Completion - PubMed

7. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for oppositional behavior in children: Integration of child-directed play therapy and behavior management training for parents.

A transcript is included below:

NARRATION

This is tiny big moments, a podcast about the tiny moments in early childhood that teach us big lessons. I’m your host, Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven. I’m the communications specialist here at ParentCorps – an evidence-based early childhood program, housed at NYU Langone. 

Recently, a few of us from the Tiny Big Moments team headed over to our colleague Wendy Haber’s apartment to play with her grandkids. 

WENDY

My grandchildren, all four of them are under, they're three or under. They're young. The first was born, and two months later, twins were born. So, I went from not being a grandmother to being a grandmother of three in two months.

NARRATION

All four of Wendy’s grandkids were there. Ayla, the oldest, decided she wanted to play ‘I Spy’ with us. She told us she spied with her little eye….

AYLA 

Something that is black.

LISA 

So what's my job now? What do I do?

NARRATION

That’s Lisa, one of our team members. 

LISA

What do I do? Do I look for it? 

AYLA

Yeah. 

LISA

Like this whole apartment?! Oh, my gosh. This is gonna be so hard. Okay.

AYLA

Everything is not gonna... Something... The wall is not gonna be black.

LISA

Okay.

AYLA

Because it's gonna be white.

LISA

Okay, so that narrows it down. Great. So it's not the wall.

AYLA

It's not the wall.

LISA

It’s not the wall. Oh, my gosh. Is it this? Is it, this… What is this?

AYLA

Um… well.

EMMET

A whale

NARRATION

That little voice is Emmet, grandchild #2. 

LISA

It's a whale?

EMMET

Yeah.

AYLA

It's a bear.

LISA

It's a bear? This is a bear. 

NARRATION 

If it wasn’t clear enough, we thoroughly enjoyed playing with them. 

LISA

What does a bear say?

Kids 

ROAR 

LISA 

ROAR!!! Oh my gosh there’s so many bears here. Who’s brave enough to hold the bear?

NARRATION

Play is often spoken of as the “work” of early childhood. It’s the main avenue children have for exploring and learning about the world – when they tell you every detail that makes up a firetruck, they’re showing off (and working on) their language and social skills; when they pretend to use a block as a phone, they’re engaging in symbolic play; when they go down the slide, they’re learning about the physical world – how their bodies work in space, how they can slow down to protect themselves, or how they can speed up to create the feeling of butterflies in their tummies. Playing independently helps children learn how to entertain themselves and supports problem solving, while playing with others helps them practice cooperation. 

Play also provides children with an outlet for anxiety and stress. But despite all this, research actually indicates that the time children have to play is declining. That’s thanks to our increasingly rushed lifestyles, and the importance placed on structured activities. 

Even if you didn’t know those details, you probably had the sense that play is important for children. What’s less well known is how important it is for adults to play with kids, and for kids to be ‘in charge’ during this playtime. This is called child-led play. 

In his book, Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray describes that when adults trust and support children to lead their own play, they’re communicating, quote, “You are competent, and can figure things out. You know your own abilities and limitations. Through play and exploration you will learn what you need to know. Your needs are valued. Your opinions count. You are responsible for your own mistakes and can be trusted to learn from them.” 

Child-led play supports more nurturing adult-child relationships - one of the most important factors in healthy child development. But it’s not always easy. It can kick up a lot of emotions for some of us grown ups. 

KYLE 

I really try to bring in my own examples. 

NARRATION 

That’s Dr. Kyle McGee. He’s a clinical social worker at ParentCorps. He facilitates some of the groups we offer for the parents and caregivers of young children across New York City. One of the session topics in our program is called ‘The power of play.’ 

KYLE

It’s really a powerful thing for me, and I hope for the group, you know. My dad was very playful with me. He used to take me to Roy Rogers fast food. I grew up in Washington DC when I was really young, and I remember going there with him and I would get french fries. And you know when french fries are really burnt and crispy, I would chew them really hard, and my dad would be like, ‘Ah!!!!’ Like he’d get scared. It's just fascinating that I remember that, and those are tender memories. So I say that to the group to try to emphasize that when we connect with our children it’s such a beautiful gift, for them for us, but particularly it stays with children. 

NARRATION

What we hope you come away with today, is that there's room for you to be you in playtime, and that, in fact, your personality, your values, your experiences – that is the important part. For your child, you being you – and you allowing them to be them – is what makes playtime so valuable. 

Though playing with your child can be really impactful, sometimes it can also feel really hard. There are lots of different barriers. Some come from our history, like our experiences as a child of being played with by adults (or not), or about the cultural narratives we have about play. There are also the stories we tell about ourselves, such as, “I’m not fun,” “I’m not playful,” or “I don’t know how.” If we feel stretched way too thin, that can also stop us before we even start. 

One person who has experienced lots of these barriers is Kim Tortora Gabriel. Kim is our colleague at ParentCorps. Playing, in her experience as a kid, was a solo activity. 

KIM 

I grew up in a very strict, old-fashioned Italian house. I lived with my mom and my grandparents, and I'm an only child. So there was not much play. It was, ‘Go play by yourself.’ So I learned at a very young age that if I wanted to play, I collected my Barbies, which were my most prized possession. I set them up – I had the house, I had the pool, I had the car – and I would just make my whole world.

NARRATION

Kim’s five year old, Nicholas, is also an only child, and he has a similar relationship to his toy cars that Kim had to her Barbies. But there’s something about playing with Nicholas and his cars where Kim gets stuck. 

KIM

I don't know all of the car sounds that my husband knows. I don't know all of the parts of a car to be able to describe them in detail. So I think the thing that I am self-conscious about is not the rules, but not being fun enough.

NARRATION 

In the parenting programs we facilitate, some version of Kim’s feeling invariably comes up. 

KYLE 

Sometimes the idea of playing with your children and reflecting on how that was for you as a child can bring up some feelings, like a little bit of loss.

NARRATION 

That’s Kyle again. 

KYLE

I spend a good amount of time coaching and facilitating with site partners in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn, which is a very predominantly West Indian, Caribbean group of folks here. And there was a saying, ‘Children are to be seen, not heard.’ The idea being that kids do kids things, adults do adults things. You go keep yourself busy. We don't make trouble, this and that. When we started to talk about play and the benefits of it, or just what ways we could think about playing with our own kids, thinking about that in that way about how that experience was, had feelings – some feelings of loss, some feelings of what if it were different? 

NARRATION 

Ying Duan is another ParentCorps educator who facilitates the parenting program. Ying grew up in China, and her groups are conducted in Mandarin. 

YING

Play back then in my generation, especially with my parents, became something they don't like me to do because they feel play will interrupt learning. They even have this Chinese phrase about that. If you translate literally, it’s almost like, ‘if you play too much, you will lose your motivation for learning,’ it's called _______. 

NARRATION

Ying’s memories of playing as a child are mostly with her friends, and mostly before she started school. A lot of the families in Ying’s groups have similar memories. 

YING

I want to say that 90% of those families were saying that the play they remember are mostly with their peers, with their friends. And then we also thought about, ‘Why is that?’ And then a lot of them, like I share the same feeling, is that the parents are so busy making a living. And so there’s no way the adult has the time or have this concept of be playing between parent and child together. And then the difference is, as they’re coming into the session, all of them share how they want to make a difference now. They want to do something different from their parents. 

NARRATION 

Reflecting on things that didn’t happen, or things that you didn’t get as a child can be painful. Kyle touched on this.

KYLE

It's hard stuff to sit with. But it has felt important to try to be with that in a group atmosphere and work with it in a way to try, not to push anything into a positive, but just to be with what is for folks. And then trying to look at not only the benefits of playing with children that we know from the evidence, but also how they may feel more motivated to do that now because of their experience before, and they don't want to recreate that.

NARRATION 

Maite Covas, who is also a ParentCorps facilitator, has done some similar reflecting and evolving since becoming a mom to her nine year old identical twins, Stella and Eva. 

MAITE

I grew up, was born and raised in Puerto Rico. I was an only child, pretty much, until I was around 11, and that's when my baby brother came along. And playtime was, I think, very much alone time for me. I remember doing a lot of pretend play. I was lucky to have this really big backyard, and I would set up restaurants and sell rocks. And my dad would, because of our big backyard, he would have his friend's boats there on hold, and that was like a kid's dream. I would just go on the boat and – it was fun, but it was very much me doing my own thing.

LISA

Did you, do you have any memories of playing with your mom or your dad or your grandparents or any of the adults in your life?

NARRATION 

That other voice is Lisa, who you met earlier playing ‘I Spy.’ 

MAITE

Not really. I think if we ever got together as a big family, we would play dominoes, we would play card games. Board games were something we would play together, but I don't recall playing with my parents, playing dolls with my parents or playing with any toy in particular with my parents. No that was not…

LISA

Do you find yourself playing with your own girls now that you're a parent?

MAITE

I do, but I think I, too, kind of mimic what my parents did – I love playing games that have a clear rule for everybody. Pretend play, ironically, is not my forte. I think that's where my husband comes in. He's very good at pretending to be a monster or a scary horse and screaming and running around. I get flustered. I'm like, I'm out. But what I do like to do is invest in their world. If they're telling me they're building a fort, I'm like, I'm going to get you more cushions. I'm going to get you the broom – I'm going to do everything I can to make your world fantastic. I'm not going to join you, but I will help you build this fantastic world for y’all so…

NARRATION 

What I hear in Maite’s story is that, when it comes to playing with her girls, she shows up as herself. And Stella and Eva feel that. They told us. 

STELLA/EVA 

I love to. She’s so fun

LISA

She's so fun? Tell me more. What's fun about playing with mommy?

STELLA/EVA

Well, she comes up with great ideas we can play, and I love playing with someone I love. 

NARRATION 

Children love spending time with someone they love. You’re not always going to be aligned in terms of what you want to do. But the value of child-led play is that, for short periods of time, you enter their world. And the role this plays in building your relationship is far more impactful and memorable than what you’re actually doing.

All children need positive attention to feel safe, nurtured, and to grow and develop. If they’re not getting positive attention, they’ll often resort to annoying or challenging behaviors. 

In our programming for families of young children, we talk about child-led play as an opportunity to give children some of the positive attention they crave. One key strategy here is something we call FUN skills. FUN is an acronym: F stands for ‘Follow the child’s lead,’ U for ‘U do what they do, and N stands for ‘Narrate what the child is doing.’ 

During FUN skills, adults avoid correcting children, or asking questions. It’s a very specific kind of play that serves a distinct purpose from other kinds. 

When we introduce this idea to parents, sometimes there’s pushback. In Lisa’s experience, who also facilitates some of the parenting programs, she hears a lot of worries that if parents aren’t correcting their children’s mistakes, they’re not setting them up for success. 

LISA

I’ve heard some really powerful cultural reflections about that, about the pressure you feel as the parent of a young kid, to always be teaching them. To if they’re saying something, making sure it’s the right thing. You don't want them to think that clouds are pink if they're not going to be pink. But, I think that we start the conversation that there's power in giving yourself permission to not have to be ‘on’ all the time. It's not going to be that your kid is going to be 30 years old and think that clouds are pink or grass is blue. This is really about immersing yourself in your child's world, and that's where the connection comes from.

NARRATION

In Ying’s groups, families sometimes worry about the idea of letting their child be in charge. 

YING 

The pushback is that they're worried about if the child is in control, what if sometimes the child will start to have bad behaviors? Then are they still letting them stay in control? One thing I emphasize, I think it's very important for Chinese families is, what's the purpose of it? It's to help the children develop their imagination, help them to have different types of perspectives on play. Then actually also through the play, they solve their problems, and then they become much more patient as they're playing. All of those things, the parents really want the child to have those qualities. 

NARRATION 

Even some early childhood professionals feel a bit skeptical when we introduce FUN skills – particularly, the no questions part. 

GERALD

My name is Gerald Smith. I'm the Assistant Director of the PEDALS program out of Buffalo, New York. And we train and support early childhood teachers in building their kiddos' social-emotional skills.

NARRATION

Gerald came from Buffalo to attend our professional development this summer. On the last day of the training, when we introduced FUN skills, Gerald listened closely, and then raised his hand to share some pushback. 

GERALD

For me, a part of that free play is digging deeper when possible. So asking questions of the kiddo while they're drawing, while they're building with blocks – not the academically framed questions – I don't care about whether they know their shapes and colors in that moment. I'm not quizzing them, but digging deeper. If they're drawing a picture, I may be asking what they're drawing. I may be asking about the emotions that they see or why that person is going through that thing – trying to build out my understanding and exploring the context of the kiddo in their community. 

NARRATION 

This is such an understandable perspective. Asking curious, open-ended questions is often important to help understand what a child’s life is like outside of school. 

And asking children questions, even ones that don’t have a right answer, can feel like pressure. Research shows that when adults ask children questions or give commands during play, it can induce anxiety. When adults simply notice what they’re doing, and describe it, children relax and feel that their voice matters. 

You can think of FUN skills as a sort of valve you can press to depressurize the situation. It’s not the way you always need to engage when playing, but it is a valuable tool for both child and adult. 

During the training, Gerald volunteered for a demonstration to see what it feels and looks like to use FUN skills. 

CINDY

Gerald was the four-year-old, and I was a teacher. 

NARRATION 

That’s Cindy Gray, one of the facilitators at the training Gerald attended. During the demonstration, the two drew together.

CINDY

Gerald started drawing himself. And so I started drawing myself, and then he started drawing his family. And then Gerald started saying, ‘Oh, my mom is happy.’ And you drew a happy face. And then you said, ‘But my brother is angry.’ And I repeated, ‘Oh, your brother is angry.’

GERALD

Yeah, I said, I took his ball and he doesn't like to share. So that's why he's angry. So if I had prompted a student to explore that feeling a little deeper, but I just went there on my own because I felt comfortable in the moment. And when you narrate, there's a feeling of being seen, of being understood that I certainly acknowledge that kiddos will absolutely adore. We're all thriving to be understood and seen, so I can see how the narration would get you there.

NARRATION

Just like Gerald, lots of families try out FUN skills at home, and many find that something significant happens. 

YING

They had much more fun. Especially a lot of parents share how much fun and imagination they start to notice their child having when they're letting go of that control and letting the child be wild, basically. They're also quite cheerful about playing doctors or cooking and then seeing how children kind of take a caretaker role in their play, doing the things they do for them on a daily basis. They were checking with their parents like, ‘What food do you like?’ Then, ‘How do you want me to cook for you?’ When they were sharing that in the group, I can hear their voice just light up. Also, they feel like there's a much better relationship between them. 

Another thing I want to mention is that when we introduced the FUN skills, the parents did also mention that the play they do are mostly in their home language. I think that's quite important because they have this shared fun pleasure time in a language that is very dear to where they come from. 

In addition to the experiences we see in our groups, FUN skills are evidence based. One study found that five minutes of child-led play per day, when completed as part of homework in behavioral parent training, predicted lower levels of aggression, defiance, impulsivity, and hyperactivity in children ages 1.5 to about 6.  

There’s another study I find quite impactful. This one was conducted at a community agency in Scotland that offers support services to children and families. The study looked at the impact child-led play can have on the parent-child relationship for children with traumatic early life experiences. 

Many of the parents involved had struggled with addiction, and the bond between caregiver and child had suffered because of it. The researchers, who were play therapists themselves, were testing to see whether agency staff engaging with children in child-led play AND supporting their parents to try these techniques at home could begin the process of repair. 

By the end of the evaluation period the authors explain, quote, “More secure patterns have emerged during the course of the project and the development of resilience behaviour has been observed consistently among this group… the outlook is certainly more hopeful than before and the potential is well supported in the literature.”

Playing using FUN skills can sound kind of theoretical or unusual, so let me show you. In the recording you’ll hear me playing with my five-year-old brother Rowan. 

CLARISSA 

We're going to play Magnetiles.

ROWAN 

Magnetiles. Oh, Magnetiles. Meg, meg, meg, meg, meg, magnet. Magnetile. I'm gonna make a magnet tile castle.

CLARISSA 

You're trying to make a castle.

ROWAN 

Yeah. I've made one of these before.

CLARISSA 

You have made it

ROWAN 

But they're very hard, so.

CLARISSA 

Yeah, it sounds hard. Let's see. I'm going to try and make one, too.

ROWAN 

I'm making a giant magnet tile castle.

CLARISSA 

We're making a giant magnet tile castle.

CLARISSA 

Yeah, it needs to be giant.

Okay.

ROWAN 

So we need a big base.

CLARISSA 

Let's make it giant. We need a big base.

NARRATION 

In this example, I narrated Rowan’s actions and parroted back to him most things that he said or did, and followed his lead. 

The important part of this approach is not that you do it perfectly. When I listen back to this, I hear how my voice goes up, like I’m asking a question, a lot of times when I’m attempting to repeat back to Rowan what he’s doing or saying. So, there’s always room for growth. And, in all seriousness, it’s just playing. If we mess up, we can just try again. 

With FUN skills, the important part is that you do your best to enhance these areas – to follow and to notice – which are ways of being with your child that might not come naturally. 

Matie – mother of Stella and Eva – explained how this comes up in the groups she facilitates, which are in Spanish.

MAITE 

I think we all agree that it's tough. It's really hard to be silly sometimes, especially after you've had a long day at work and you still have to cook. You're like, I really don't want to make voices right now. I really just want to lay down and have a cup of tea. But the connection that happens when you do that and the happiness that comes out of a child, our attention, there's something about it that they love. 

It’s special. It’s a really good session. I do hear a lot of feedback towards the end being like, ‘Oh, who knew that 10 minutes could really change the way we talk to each other,’ and how much I know and learn from my kid. 

I use that time to get the gossip from the girls. I'm like, ‘What's going on at school? What's happening? Who's friends? Who's not?’  It's a time to get to know your kids and just connect with them.

NARRATION

When you’re using FUN skills, you’re introducing a new dynamic: one where your kid gets to be in charge – something that doesn’t happen all that often. It helps them feel important and it builds their confidence. More than in adult-led activities, they get to use their imagination. They get to be creative, practice making decisions and mistakes – they also get to learn from those things. 

Engaging in this type of play takes the pressure off the adults. Ultimately, that’s one of our favorite parts of FUN skills – it allows parents and caregivers to let themselves off the hook for a moment. During child-led play, you don’t need to worry about what comes next, or what skills or information needs to get packed in. You can just be together. Wendy framed this in a way that I loved. 

WENDY

My favorite this is not, I don't know if this counts as play – I like to take them on adventures. I love, I mean New York City, there's so much to do with all your senses. And I take them on buses and subways, and we go places. I mean, they're three – they find the letters of their name in signs. I will say all four of them do love puddle jumping. It's just, if you call it an adventure, it sets the day up for this fun experience. 

NARRATION 

Being out in the world for an adventure, and letting the day unfold in silly and joyful ways without a plan, to me, is the perfect metaphor for child-led play. 

Thanks for listening. Tiny Big Moments is produced by me, Lisa Ellrodt, and Cindy Gray, with editing support from Shanika Gunaratna. A big thank you to Maite Covas, Ying Duan, Wendy Haber, Kyle McGee, Kim Tortora Gabriel, and Gerald Smith for sharing their playtime stories with us. And the biggest thanks to our tiniest Tiny Big Moments contributors, Ayla, Emmet, Sadie, Arya, Stella, Eva, Rowan and Jackson. 

To learn more about ParentCorps, visit our website, we are ParentCorps – with an S – dot org. You can donate to support ParentCorps programming at the link in our description box. A list of research references is also available there.