Why Do Kids Love To Play?
My daughter has recently learned to disappear. She will cover her eyes with her hands (sometimes for a few minutes at a time) while my wife and I begin to call out to her and tell her to come back because we can’t find her and we miss her. After my daughter decides she has been gone long enough, she will burst out from her handmade hiding place as my wife, and I act surprised and delighted that she has returned so suddenly.
Anyone who has ever spent time around children knows how much they love games. But why do children love to play so much?
This article will consider two types of actions: repose and labor.
Repose is an appetite’s rest in a desired end. It is the term of movement and what movement is for. Repose naturally refreshes.
Labor is an activity done for the sake of an end. In labor, the agent works to attain the end, producing weariness. Labor naturally fatigues.
Aristotle expresses something similar this way:
We are busy in order to have leisure, and we wage war in order to attain peace.
The means fatigue while the end refreshes. Means are chosen only for the sake of the end, while the end is chosen for its own sake. Work is for the sake of leisure, just as war is waged for the sake of peace. Labor and war are for the sake of something else; leisure and peace are for their own sake. In this life, we can only have leisure and peace imperfectly, but in the next life, we will have them perfectly.
After laboring arduously in this life, repose is needed to refresh body and soul.
Thomas says:
…leisure and play and other things pertaining to repose, are pleasant, inasmuch as they banish sadness which results from labor.
It is incredibly important to ensure we get enough leisure and play because “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” If we labor constantly and do not get enough rest, then our minds and bodies will not work the way they are designed.
It is especially important for children to get copious amounts of play because their bodies are constantly laboring to grow.
Thomas says:
…young people are most inclined to seek pleasures; on account of the many changes to which they are subject, while yet growing.
The bodies of young people are constantly laboring by growing so, they need lots of play in order to “banish sadness which results from labor.”
If someone fails to get enough play or leisure in their lives, they will not develop as quickly as they should. To make an analogy, someone who bench presses as much as they can every day without taking any rest days will not get stronger; rather, they will injure themselves and grow weaker. Labor must be balanced with sufficient rest, or else weariness will accumulate over time.
While everyone needs sufficient rest, children are constantly growing and learning, which is a lot of hard work! In order to balance out the work their bodies are doing, they need copious amounts of rest and play.
Thanks for reading,
Cameron
Reference:
https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.I-II.Q32.A1.Rep3
Leisure and repose are different I think. Have u looked at Josef pieper on this?