1KHO 709: Play Is Practice for the Future | Lauren and Mia Sundstrom, National Institute for Play

Oh, it's a beautiful world Ain't nothing on screen that's ever gonna be this view oh, it's a beautiful world and I just want to share with I just want to share with you this beautiful world Such a beautiful.

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Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And you'll never guess who's here today if you're a huge Stuart Brown fan. Dr. Stuart Brown fan like I am, it is his daughter and granddaughter, Lauren and Mia. Welcome. Thank you.

Thanks so much for having us, Jenny. We're so excited to be here.

Yeah, it's a total pleasure. Thank you.

I love this story. And, you know, I think we've gotten away from, like, a family business and like the family economy. It's something we've talked about on our show here and there. And I just think it's such a wonderful thing when there's a, like, this legacy and you've got this book that your dad wrote and your grandpa wrote and like, you've got all these words about his grandpa and his experiences growing up. And now Mia, you are the CEO of the National Institute for Play. I would love if the two of you would take just a moment to share your story, share your story about how you got from, you know, being a kid growing up, being a grandkid growing up to where you're at at this moment.

I love it. I'm gonna let my mom start because, you know, that's the chronological order right in. In the story of Dr.

It's nice of Mia to say since I actually work for Mia, really, I'm the CEO and me as the boss, as it should be. You know, we all learn from our kids best, right? So. So I grew up in San Diego and Dr. Brown, my dad has been obviously a massive influence for many for a lifetime. He's now 93, which is just remarkable. Still loves to talk about play. And I would say that the thread of play for me started in childhood and kind of continued again largely based on what he was doing. But his, his play, he, although he was studying play, sometimes it wasn't as obvious in our lives as it became later. So for me it was a thread as a child, as a student, as a competitive athlete, and then as a professional and then as a parent and now as someone who's really just trying to preserve his legacy, which is so he's kind of had play locked in his brain. He's very much of an academic. He loves to talk about it and he's been really happy to do that for, you know, a number of years. The book is obviously fantastic. And over the last several years I kind of came in and thought, gosh, there is so much here and there's so much to unlock, there's so much to try to put into practice. And so that's largely what we're trying to do now. But that thread of play goes through a lifetime and really for Mia and I have a son, Leo. Also for us, I'm in Boulder, Colorado which is a very playful community, super privileged and lucky to live here. But for me it ended up giving me the faith. All this work and all the science and all the permission to play has given me the faith to kind of take a little bit of an unconventional route with the kids. My husband and I, I always felt like if I were truly a great parent, I would have homeschooled like you.

But I.

But in Boulder there are a lot of alternative schools and we got super lucky to go into this alternative charter school that had kind of no tests, almost no grades, almost no homework and this very self directed learning, very play based. And so I think if without Dr. Brown's influence, going to a bunch of elite colleges and such, I probably would have thought, oh wait a minute, I got to teach my kid to read. And I'm oh, you know, the kinds of the stresses that you hear so much from parents and again, fortunate enough to kind of take that path with Mia and, and Mia can tell her story as it evolved with that. But I just feel really grateful for that and I think it set us both up really well to just try to expand on this work that Dr. Brown has so magically uncovered and delivered into the world.

Yeah, I like to think of myself as like the little play experiment.

Right.

I think my grandpa and my parents recognized early on that I was a mover. I Couldn't sit still. I was hanging from sinks and rolling off the couches and generally do doing dangerous things at home. And they recognized and they were like, huh, this kid's not going to do so great in a traditional learning environment where her natural play personality will probably be penalized rather than honored. And so I was able through this play based learning school to learn science outdoors and to bounce on a ball while I was reading so that I could learn better. And all of these things that would oftentimes be frowned upon as non traditional or not the right way to do it were, were sort of celebrated. And so I learned this about myself and was sort of able to follow that as a through line through my life. And so I absolutely fell in love with the sport of gymnastics again just for the sake of doing it. Like I just loved to learn new things to play, to move my body. That's just my sort of deep seated play nature. And so I was actually able to follow that through a really positive and fulfilling journey all the way to elite level athletics. Competed at the NCAA level and then was able to coach at the NCAA level, which is a little bit of an UN path. And it was always driven by me, it was always intrinsically motivated. It always had those elements of play involved with it. And so I sort of been able to follow that through line and sort of witness that when we actually do play instead of kind of putting so much pressure on ourselves and thinking about the outcomes over the process that we can still have great success with that. And I think that our world is missing that in a lot of areas. And I feel so fortunate to have had that experience. And again, sort of like my mom with that experience, it's like as Dr. Brown is 93, I was like, oh my gosh, this is such a groundbreaking work that our world really, really needs right now. And that's becoming more and more evident every day. And so what am I doing if not to carry forward his legacy? And I think as soon as my mom and I stepped in, it just felt right. It's just felt like the most amazing path. We're both so passionate about the work. We have tons of fun with it every day. It's playful for us and we're at this kind of crux where he's really reaching the end of his life and we're capitalizing on this moment where we still have three generations.

Yeah. Wow. What a legacy. What a legacy. And it worked out, didn't it Lauren? You're like, I sent her to this alternative school and now she's a CEO, so you know, you can trust that path. It's a really nerve wracking time to be a parent. If you read the book Play, which is the subtitle is how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul. What I really like about this book in particular is it wraps in all the ages. This has really got a lot of focus on adult. So often we think about, you know, if someone were to think of the National Institute for Play, it's like, oh yeah, it's a bunch of six year olds. But this is about really this message of play all the way throughout life and how it enhances. When did the National Institute for Play start and talk about when you became involved?

Yeah, it started in the early 2000s, but the concepts have been around much longer than that. It actually started when Stuart Brown was a psychiatrist and he was studying mass murderers. And what he found is that underlying theme across all of the histories of the mass murderers was a lack of childhood play. And when he compared that to a control group, all of the controls had healthy play histories. So this finding really was quite incredible and launched him into studying play more broadly with the National Geographic and Animal play in a PBS series. And then that's kind of what started the National Institute for Play in the early 2000s. My mom has been involved a little bit longer than me. She's always been such a great support for my grandpa, even when she wasn't working for him and helping travel to conferences with him and get the message across and all of that. And then I really jumped in late 2024 and yeah, so this is, this is pretty new for, for us.

Wow. Well, congrats.

Thank you.

I mean the world needs this, so it's wonderful. Lauren, you had brought up the Global Play Network as well.

Can you talk about that?

Yeah. So the Global Play Network, part of what we want to do is we want to be kind of the, the hub and the nucleus for everybody who's in this space. And there are a lot. This play can reach everyone as you know, just about. I mean it's, it hits all kinds of professions. There are also play practitioners that are very specifically trying to, you know, make their living by bringing play into the world. There are healthcare practitioners that are trying to weave it into their practice as a doctor. There are corporations that are trying to weave it into their branding. It's, it's kind of become quite, quite a hot thing. At least we, in our minds and we're hoping that to continue to Elevate that platform. And so LinkedIn is a great platform for an interactive kind of messaging. You know, bring. Bring your story to this platform and share your story. And so we've created this group to do just that. We had our first live zoo meeting with, with the, with the group. Again, we didn't know who would show up last week, and we ended up getting a whole bunch of people that were very enthusiastic. So we would encourage your listeners to join it if they have any interest. They can passively listen and learn. They can contribute any, any number of things. So we're just hoping to grow that we can add a link in our.

Yeah.

In your show notes.

Absolutely. We'll do that before we pop into some of these topics, like how play actually helps to make us smarter. And I really do love the emphasis on adult. Adult and how adults just lose this over time. But if we are more playful, it helps with combating dementia. I mean, there's so much here. It just makes our life better and it helps us to be better parents, more joyful parents. So we'll talk about all those things. But the National Institute for Play, we champion play as a lifelong necessity. You talk about how being playful is one of the healthiest ways to spend your time after feeding and housing yourselves. NIF play.org can you talk about, like, your newsletter? And you've got a podcast that has these play notes that. That are the audio version of the newsletter. You've got webinars.

Yeah. We are so thrilled. I mean, we really want to bring the science of play to the world in a way that gives people permission to play.

Right.

The only reason we need the science is because, like you just mentioned, adults won't do it. Our society really does not promote play. It suppresses the natural desire to play and really promotes the ideology of work and being busy and being consumed by addictive escapism, stimulus, and all these different things that we have swirling around us. And so the reason that we bring so much education and content around the science of play is to give people the permission to add it back into their lives. So we're really excited. We're definitely going to be hosting some more webinar series with some of the founding play scientists from across the world. Many of them are in their late 80s now, so we want to make sure to give them that platform. We're going to be launching some products about how to understand who you are in relation to play and how you play in your life and maybe how you might expand on that. We're going to launch our sub stack so that we can grow a following there and have a variety of things related to the play notes and the science of play and also some of the practical applications of play. I'm speaking kind of across the world about all of this. We have a science of play licensing content package to kind of be able to infiltrate what we know to be true into sort of those systems that already exist in the way we run sort of our society, whether that's, that's education or business. So we got a ton of super exciting projects coming up and we're sort of in the launch, the development and launch phase of those. So we'll, we'll have everyone stay tuned throughout this year for what's to come.

Yes. And people can check out your website too.

Yes.

Mia sunstrom.com because you, like you said, you speak and there's a lot of things that you can find there. So let's talk a little bit about play. This is one of the topics that I think is probably the most crucial and why this message, you know, it's like, okay, your dad, your grandpa write this book, Play, and you're like, okay. It's become more and more important since it was written in 2009. So why is. It's because you. Dr. Brown says in the book play is practice for skills needed in the future. So my husband just sent me an article yesterday. 16,000Amazon employees just got laid off because of AI. So more than ever, because the future is uncertain, we have got to be able to pretend to rehearse and imagine this is for kids and adults. So can you talk about the importance of play in this unpredictable, changing world?

Oh, my gosh, yeah. We are polarized. We are lonely. Despite being more connected than ever, which is paradoxical. The World Health Organization just came out with a report that said one in six people experienced loneliness in 2025, and over 60 million adults worldwide experienced challenges with mental health. We are, we're struggling. We're struggling. Despite being more advanced as a soc than ever before, we have information from AI swirling all around us to the point that it's overwhelming. And it's less about acquiring the information and more about sifting through it and discerning what matters and what doesn't and what's real. What's real, what's not right. And we're locked on our screens. We're spending six to nine hours a day on our phones, and our teens are spending even more time than that. And so we're in this really interesting cultural moment where things are changing, and we're starting to feel the effects of that. And I heard someone say, who's really smart, and this really stuck with me, that any business over the next 10 years that reminds us how to be human, the things that we used to know, how to do easily, how to sleep right, how to eat right, how to play, how to talk to each other. Right? That's going to be a great business in the next 20 years because we're sort of losing our way when it comes to those things. So play, and the fact that it is hardwired into the most ancient part of our brains, into our subcortex, actually, in a space that's called the periaquine, that space. And the reason why play is located there, it makes it a necessity for us across the lifespan. We can't be fully, joyfully human if we don't play, even as adults. And that's such a societal misconception. My grandpa would like to say he thinks of play as oxygen. You don't really notice that it's there until it's missing, but it's vital for life, and it's all around us and it's swirling around us. So we need to be kind of intentionally aware of where we're missing that and how we can integrate it back in. So I think play sort of meets the moment of this complex pressure cooker of the 21st century that we're living in as a way to reset, as a way to reregulate our emotions, to build social competence and to support cognitive growth. And we can get into kind of what happens in our brain to support those things. But those are all really key aspects of being a flourishing human being on an individual scale, but then also on a community, in a societal scale. Because play is contagious, right? Just like a bad mood is contagious, a good mood is, too. And so we can use play sort of as a catalyst to transform cultures. And the other aspect that you just hit on is how you mentioned that it's like practice, right? We like to say play is practice for life. It helps us to build the strengths of character in a safe environment so that we can pull from them when they're challenged. Because it's really not a matter of if our strengths of character are going to be challenged. It's kind of a matter of when. Things like resilience, things like adaptability, creative problem solving, empathy, right? All of these things can be practiced through the safe environment of play, so that we form the neural pathways to say, okay, I now know how to use this when it matters most. So when we lose out on those practice opportunities, we end up anxious and lonely and all of these things.

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Lauren do you feel like you see it firsthand by having this childhood? Like, so Mia gets to have this childhood that's steeped in play and movement and now she's a CEO. Like, I'm like, our oldest child is 17. And you know, like when you have a little kid, like they're a toddler, even a baby, you're like, you can't, you can't imagine them at all. You can't imagine, like, what are they going to be like when they're 14 or what are they going to be like? And I think it's sort of similar when they're at this sort of end of high school age where you're like, like, I don't really know how this is gonna go. And, and then you're like, I mean you're like, you can I imagine my child is like a CEO of a company, you know. But like, you see Mia, it's like she's got her own website, she's speaking all over the place. Do you feel like the, that childhood play is a factor for being able to step into adulthood and be able to do a multitude of different things?

Most definitely. Most definitely. I think the, you know, the self directed learning basis, again the K through 8 where you're kind of. For conferences, for example, the kids would run the conference instead of the parent teacher conference with the parent and the, and the teacher talking and the kid either absent or maybe there but not saying anything. This school had kids leading that conference. Well, what do you want to do next? What are you going to do next? And for some kids it works and for some it doesn't. And it just again, it feels like a rare gift to have had, had this kind of opportunity for Mia. And I mean truly, as I said at the outset, I'm completely, this is completely authentic answer of learning from your kids. I feel like Mia always really had a good sense of who she was and for me it was just kind of stepping back enough and letting her take the reins and run with it. And you know, she's just done remarkably well throughout her life in that regard. So I'm sure I made plenty of mistakes along the way and again, lots of societal pressures. I do feel grateful that we, we skipped a little bit of the full on head on social media era because Mia's now in her. In her mid, mid, late 20s and so we weren't. I think that would have been really hard to navigate. It was hard enough as it was, but now I think it's, you know, it's more central in the lives of kids and that's a really hard thing for parents. I do Mia and I do laugh because she skipped a whole bunch of key kind of Disney movies and things that we just never got around to and she got to college. Like I didn't watch any of this stuff. I didn't know this stuff was out here. And I thought whoops. Like oh no. But I think now it's not even that. It's like these kids, you know, are, can be so locked on the screens and oh wow. I mean, I know I couldn't have handled that as a kid and even more difficult as a parent. So I'm happy to see that getting some Attention now. Jonathan Haidt making great progress in getting social media, you know, happening later at a minimum. I just saw that Australia decided to not allow social media till age 16. I think that's, that's fantastic. It's just hard to bring in. Like Mia said, there's so much information out there and that we just need to return to the basics. And so when you see people outside playing catch on their lawn, you know, like your guest from last week said, she said her best memories from, from childhood. We're playing catch with her dad. And you think, well, that makes sense. That's what we need.

Yeah, it can be so simple, but we can discount it because it's so simple. So I want to read a little bit from your dad slash grandpa's book. He wrote, in an unpredictable, changing world, what we learn from play can be transferred into other novel contexts. We seek out a variety of new contingencies through play, allowing us to thrive anywhere in the world. And this is really important. Like, he even talks about daydreaming. Daydreaming might give rise to new ways of doing business. So more than any other book that I've read and with the National Institute for Play, like you go on the website, you see all these pictures, you are including all of the ages of people. Yeah, sure, it's babies for sure. And also though, you know, it's grandparents and it's mothers, so. And it's fathers, it's, it's teenagers, it's all the ages. So let's talk about this too. There's a lot of information here about animals. So this is a cool thing, you know, like, you read about how the bears who play the most are the ones who survive the best. You read about rats. You know, play is the true key for rats, brain development. But the sentence is animals that play a lot quickly learn how to navigate their world and adapt to it, which this is what we want, right? We want to quickly learn how to navigate our world and adapt. In short, they are smarter. So I think this message is getting out there. I think for parents, even though it's still hard to push back against all of the extracurricular stuff, you know, the onslaught, you know, I think some stuff's good, but if it's too much, obviously they don't have time for play. But what about for older adults, you know, like, okay, I'm like, oh, yeah, kids are smarter, but as we, as we age, we want to include play as well for our brain function.

Yeah, I mean, that's so true. We can come back to the animal play in a second because that's like so fun to talk about. And there's some pretty miraculous examples, examples of animal play in nature that are inspiring. But I think for adults, the number one thing to recognize is that because of neuroplasticity, our brain's ability to adapt and reorganize and change over time, we are still constantly learning and growing from birth until death, right? Like the developmental age is slowed, like it slows down, whatever that is. But like there is still capacity for us to learn and grow and we forget that many times and we kind of get stuck in our rigid little boxes, play like bursts open all of those rigid boxes because of the way that it helps form new neural pathways in our brain, because of the way that it calms our stress response down. And so it lets us to kind of see through our stress and our anxiety into sort of what's possible instead of what our limitations are. And then from a social perspective, right, as adults, one of the ways, and especially when we get into older ages, to combat some of that loneliness and depression and anxiety, is to connect on such a fundamental level and play. We like to think of sort of as a universal language, right? When we're playing with another person, we become attuned to that person. We build a sense of trust, a bond, a sense of community, of belonging, right? We're able to sort of tap into each other's rawest emotions in these moments that sort of build us up and give us a sense of community. And again, based on the fact that that's what we're lacking. And especially as we get into older adulthood and, and even old age, right? Some of the loneliness stats at old age are pretty staggering. Play again offers us sort of a solution to those things and a way to engage with ourselves and with the world that really reminds us who we are.

Right.

Hey, I just want to add something because I read about this study last night and it's so amazing. It's out of South America and it basically it's a full on legit scientific study and it showed that adults who, who are deeply engaged in creative, challenging activities like dance, music, art, even strategic gaming have brains that function five to seven years younger than the chronological, chronological age. And these scientists use these so called brain clocks across, you know, 1400 participants in 13 countries. And they found that sustained intrinsically motivated engagement strengthens the neural efficiency and resilience. So it's just these things that Mia's talking about and the benefits appear long term. They don't appear Just like in the moment, but this is going on. So I thought that was super groundbreaking and really, really important thing to mention.

Yeah, that's cool.

I love that, Lauren. I'm like, I would like to have neural efficiency. That would be something I would hope to have. We're talking about the animals. And one of the animals that your dad, Grandpa Dr. Brown puts in this book play, is the sea squirt. So the sea squirt is one that's like, you know, it attaches it like it's born or whatever, and then it attaches to something, a boat or a dock, and then it just stays there. And I think it's such a. A great, like a parallel to. I mean, we can totally do that in life. You know, you get your job, you just stick, you know, and you don't do anything else. And so what he said about the C square is it eventually eats its own brain. That's great. It's such a good imagery, right about, like, what you're saying, Lauren. It's like, no go do creative stuff. Do dance and play strategic games. It says in the book, studies of early dementia suggest that physical play forestalls mental decline by stimulating neurogenesis. People who play games who continue to explore and learn are not only less prone to dementia, but they are also less likely to get heart disease and other affiliations that seem to have nothing to do with the brain. And These are high percentages. 63% less chance if you do puzzles, if you like to read, you know. And he talks about how the brain really starts to change in the 60s and 70s. And when we stop playing, we stop developing and things fall apart. You're like the sea squirt, but another part with the adults. And I love that this is touched on in the book because like I said, so many of the books are just really focused on the kids. Is about when you're in love.

Yes.

Play is the most important element in love. He talks about how dating is designed around play. Then you get married and you're like, who's gonna do the laundry? So can you talk about that part of it? I mean, I think it just enhances the whole of life, but especially our relationships in adults when we're like in these kind of doldrums of, you know, parenting and work and all the things.

Absolutely. Can. Can I go back to the C squirt for a second? Because he loves talking about this, Mia and I just laugh because he will get a corner us and just want to talk about the most, you know, truly Somewhat obscure part of clay. He'll take it back to the big bang and say this is where it started. And he'll talk about the latest thing that he really, really believes and he really wants studied is epigenetics. He believes that just as people's genes change through terrible hardship, he thinks that if everybody played it would transcend the next, transform through the next generations. So that's his dream, is to have a study of epigenesis and play. But I would say what I've heard him say also about play and love is that they're really, really hard to define and that they're similar in, in the, in their feeling, but they're both extremely hard to define.

I. Yeah, I think kind of what we're talking about, about, you know, the, the benefits from the social connection standpoint, but you also just think about really in a romantic relationship or in any relationship having a sense of surprise of something that just like instantly sort of triggers that pleasure and joy and glee and awe and keeps it fresh and exciting. Right. As you mentioned, sort of we are creatures of habit. We get stuck in our routines, we're in the mundane, and play sort of takes us out of that. It brings us sort of into this alternate state of being where we can connect with the person in a really different way. And that's super positive and healthy. Right. So that's, that's like a really cool thing. I think the other thing that comes in to play, no pun intended, I always do that with, is that think about like having a really difficult conversation with someone, whether that's a partner or co worker, a child, even having that conversation, say over a game of ping pong versus sitting across, staring at them, into their soul. Again, it takes away the emotional defensiveness. It sort of makes that you feel that connection as you're talking about something that's challenging. So I think it can be really helpful as a communication tool as well, kind of across different types of relationships.

Such a good point. Such a good point. Even, even throwing a puppy into the mix. I mean, think about how that, what that does for the mood, for everyone's mood and, and ultimately your effectiveness.

Yeah. So I love it. I've said it several times. But I'm like, I read all these books about play and they're so focused on the kids and oh my gosh, this one has such good information for adults. Your, your dad, grandpa. Oh my God, I gotta stop saying that. Dr. Stuart Brown, he wrote, so without play skills, the repertoire to deal with inevitable stress is narrowed. So you Think about your adult life. It's like, filled with stressors. Without play, romantic love tends to naturally drift into territoriality. I don't even know if I said that right. Possessiveness, dominance or aggression. So this is just such important reminders, information, if you haven't heard it before, that adults are supposed to play two do. And he said that, like, people will get mad. You know, he'll be speaking at these conferences and they'll come up and he said, I am taken aback by how strongly people block play by outright hostility toward it. There's like this aggressiveness because it appears purposeful, purposeless, and people think it's unproductive. So, you know, we shame ourselves into giving up. Play is a wonderful book. And the Institute, it's like, it's helping to remind all of us that this is important. And can you insert it back? Insert it back into your romantic life? Insert it back into your family. Anything else to say there?

Yeah, I just think bringing us kind of back to the origin story, this kind of comes back to it. Right. My grandpa stumbled into this because of a finding about play deprivation. And actually, one nod back to the animal kingdom. Jane Goodall, who just recently passed away, is a great friend of my grandfather's. And on our board, she studied two homicidal chimps named Passion and Palm. And what she found, similar to my grandpa, is that they too, didn't play as kids. And so when they didn't play, that deprivation led to unhealthy socialization within their troop, made them outcasts, it left them aggressive and then eventually violent. And so she kind of was able to follow that through the animal kingdom too, to see sort of the consequences of play deprivation is actually what gives us the most insight into how important play actually is.

Yeah. So for the people that are hostile, you're like, well, first home, maybe.

Probably need to play. That's not surprising. Right. If they don't believe in it or they've forgotten how or they don't understand what that looks like in their lives anymore, or they're just too stressed and too busy with work and they don't think there's time, like. Yeah, that would make me hostile too.

Yeah.

They're like, let me tell you about the Texas Tower massacre.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not funny. I shouldn't laugh, but, I mean, this is probably the first. First time I heard about Dr. Stuart Brown was about these studies.

Yeah.

So they're, you know, they're studying murderers. And what he's connecting it to not only is lack of play but in particular is rough and tumble play.

Yeah.

And I read a book recently that said something like, oh, gosh, I'm gonna look back to find the exact thing. But it was basically like, women. Women are like, they're not comfortable with it at all in general. She was making a generalization. Her name's Heather Shoemaker. She's got a fantastic book called it's okay not to Share. But that, like, we kids really need, in particular, the rough and tumble play.

I am so glad you brought that up. I'm not a parent, so I'll probably let my mom answer this one more. But there's a trend in parenting sort of this over protection a little bit. Right. And watching the kids and dictating what they do and over structuring their schedules to protect them, to keep them safe. But it turns out from a developmental neurological standpoint, rough and tumble play and risky play actually are really fundamental to learning because it gives the kid the space to test the boundaries, to find those lines on their own, to learn from those experiences, to make mistakes, and then to try again and to understand again, like, how to socialize with another person again. We saw this in the rat studies. Or you can see, we have play cues, right? You can tell generally when someone's in the state of play because of their laughter and the banter and the vocalizations and the way they're moving and all of that. If you're wrestling your friend on the playground, say, and all of a sudden you tackle them a little too hard, they instantly exit the state of play. All of a sudden, they go into stress mode. For you to be able to pick up on those cues, to recognize what's happening with the other person, to be in tune with that, and then to stop and to show that you respect them. Okay, we're not playing anymore. Let's reset. All of these messy learning moments only happen through the experience, not being told what to do specifically, not being told what not to do. Right. So I think it's this tricky balance. And again, with what my mom was saying about the protection versus giving space for experimentation for kids to find who they are, I think that's a really messy, tricky balance right now. But for parents, especially, to know that rough and tumble and risky play are super important developmentally.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll add from Dr. Mark Beckoff, who's here in Boulder, one of the leaders in this space of animal studies on play, and also a super good friend of Jane Goodall, and they've written a bunch of books together. He talks about how animals intentionally play and knock themselves off balance so that they are then prepared when they are, you know, facing this in their natural world. And they're completely off balance when a predator shows up. Or they're, you know, they literally, you know, tumble over and land on their backs and then get up and figure it out. And so I love that, that image. And I think it's really, really similar in humans.

Yeah. And that there's a connection between the lack of rough and tumble play and adhd. Yeah, that's important to know. Play reduces impulsivity, so this really affects how we set up our schools. Recess, art, music. These are all things that kids need.

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Another thing that's talked about a lot. So it's like we've gone through the gamut of ages, right? I'm talking about adults, babies, just even the attunement of this is in the book, like just the looking at each other and with phones, that's happening less and less. There's less eye contact, but that is play. I mean, that could be considered play for young children. Attunement, which is. Is considered the base state of play, buffers the growing infant and child against excessive surges of emotion. Well, that's another thing I want. I would like my excessive surges of emotions to be buffered. That'd be great. You know. Right?

Yeah.

Foundational things. So talking about little kids and then the rough and tumble play, but then there's all sorts of really good information about adolescents. Adolescents grow a new brain. Do you talk about that much?

Oh, yeah.

Talk about the teen years because this is really a time there was a really funny. It was like a quote off of an article that was in a newspaper or something. And it was like, there's a child, they take 15 AP courses, they play the clarinet and three orchestras. They run a Cambodian refugee camp in the summer. They don't eat lunch all winter so that they have a better chance of getting into college than the kids who just plays kickball after school in the empty lot next door.

Oh, we could talk about this for hours. Yeah, this is the crux. I mean, I do think this is the crux because those are the years where we tend to lose track of play because as a society we no longer see it as valuable. Oh, you're done with the developmental years. Check the play box. Take away the recess. Because we need to prepare you to succeed in this crazy hyper achievement focus world where more production and more consumption and more busyness is the definition of success. Right. And the awards that you get and how far you get in your sport is what matters, not how much you're enjoying it. So like, get your priorities straight. That's where that shift happens. And it's sad, honestly, it's really hard to see because I mean, there's even a stat like we can take the sports world for an example right now, just because that's a huge piece, sort of a lot of the teen years for many people. 70% of kids in the United States burn out by age 13 from their primary sport and only 1% actually end up making it to the division one professional level. So that's pretty staggering when you think about. And it really illustrates how the priorities shift is not right. Because what's happening is when you take that intrinsic motivation, that play drive that's deeply embedded, that is there to just do it for its own sake and to love what you're doing, and you say that doesn't matter. What matters is the extrinsic factors and the outcomes, you really stamp that out and it ultimately leads to burnout. And so I think that's what we're seeing in the numbers that are pretty staggering. And so I think it's interesting, anytime I go and talk to a school principal or something, maybe it's even like a K12, they're like, oh, you're interested in early childhood, right? And I said, actually no, the early childhood people, they've got it pretty figured out. There's recess, they use play based learning. I'm pretty happy with what they're doing. I actually want to talk to your high school teachers. I actually want to talk to your late middle school and high school teachers. And they look at me like I'm crazy. They're like, what do you mean? They're doing AP classes, they have their sports figured out. They are already on the next track. And I'm like, yeah, but that's the problem. So I think that space of development is really where the biggest misconceptions lie. And when we lose it as a teen, of course we're not going to remember how to do it as an adult. So that's, yeah, a good crux to highlight.

This is critical.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you must know this too from the time, you know, you as the parent and all of the things you're advocating for. I'm sure you have a really, a good front row seat to this. I just another thing that I was just reading about a survey that was done in the uk, surveyed adults and kind of said, okay, at what time did you lose track of your play nature? When did you, when did you lose track of this? And people would kind of give differing answers and they'd say, well, it's like I didn't lose track of it, but I was afraid to play because I thought it was like the wrong. I didn't, I wanted people to think I was being really productive. And then ultimately they said by 29 they completely had no, no idea how to play anymore. And that was the average age, which is just, you know, again, a bit heartbreaking. And, and as Mia said, we need to kind of return to the things that make us human at the moment. There's so much happening and there's so much information and there's so much to figure out and achieve, but we can't do it if we, if we can't just cover the basics.

I think that this is probably one of the most important statements that could be in any book. It says at a level unmatched since our earliest development in the womb, adolescents grow a new Brain.

Brain.

Yeah.

So that's your whole point, Mia. You're like, well, everyone's like, yeah, birth to three, early childhood. And you're like, no, this is an unmatched level since early development. I mean, I remember being in high school, and so mine was before cell phones. And, you know, it's like we played ultimate Frisbee. I mean, we. We did play.

Yeah.

There was just less to do. Even though you had a job, even though you had a boyfriend, even though you had homework, there just was still time because there wasn't so much excessive screen use.

Yeah.

And I think one of the important things that comes up with Institute for Play, and in this book, Play is. And you brought this up at the very beginning, Mia and Lauren, you both brought it up. You're like, okay, Mia moves a lot, right? So naturally, she's like this gymnast. She's climbing on everything. And one of the play personalities, which this language has gotten brought up a few times, like, what's your play nature? One of the play personalities is a movement one. And this is in the book, so people can go and read more about these different. Different types of play personalities. But I just can't get past the fact that if you're trying to reinvigorate your play, like you just said, Lauren, it's like, age 29. Or did you. You're the one that said that.

Yeah. Okay.

Age 29. You know, like, people have forgotten how to play. Like, well, one of the ways that you reinvigorate is you think back to, what did you love as a child? But is it possible that people are not going to have those things to pull from because they didn't play much as kids. Yeah.

That's the concern. Right, right. Is that everyone, uniquely. And this is where I feel so lucky, has sort of these natural predilections and is born with. And then those either flourish or diminish through their environment. You know, these different predilections for various activities that help to trigger that state of play. Now, it's important to bring up, like my mom mentioned this earlier, that the definition of play is actually really tricky. What's play for one person is totally not for another. What's playful for you one day might totally not be the next day. Think about running for the mover. For some people, running is genuinely play, and they enter a flow state, and they love it. And their brain is having all these benefits. For some people, that's the most dreadful activity in the whole world. So I think there's this complex mesh of Environments about what is play, what is not play. How does that look for me? How does that look for others? That's where our play personalities come in. That's where this is. Just hopefully not a rigid or profiling or highly scientific framework.

Right.

But just this way to better understand. How do I like to play? What did I like to do as a kid, sort of before the world told me who I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to do, I loved to explore new places, whether it was my backyard or the stick that I found or would like, whatever, like little tiny nuggets that we can find. And that is. And you know, my grandpa would say, no matter how much someone has been through in their life and no matter how much the play has sort of been stamped out or trauma has taken over or all these different things have happened, everyone can somehow reconnect with their play nature. And that. That is the goal. However, that gets a lot harder if you don't play as a kid. Right. If you don't have these vivid childhood memories of doing anything other than scrolling through a screen. So that is. Is absolutely a concern. And it will be interesting to follow the trends as we kind of, as this next generation sort of grows up, for sure.

And I love these eight play personalities. I'm sure that you can find them on your website. But they're also in the book the Joker and the kinesthetic and the explorer and the Competitor. This will help you better understand your kids. It'll help you better understand yourself. I loved that the Collector was one.

Yes, absolutely.

You know, you think about that as little kids, but I'm like, I've got friends. They collect rocks as adults.

Yeah.

They'll buy special tools to like, scoop them.

And what I love about that, too, is that we think about outdoor play. You all are in the outdoor play space, which is the most lovely, in my, you know, biased opinion, play space that there could possibly be. But what's interesting is sometimes, again, even within the outdoor play state space, we narrow in what play has to look like. Well, it's physical activity. It's a sport. It's. Whatever it is, is. No, it could totally be collecting rocks by the side of the river and turning them into some creative design like that is outdoor play just as much as a game of soccer is. So I think that's where it's important to kind of bring. Bring that in. And I also love that you highlighted the collector, because that is such a fun one.

It is a fun one. The Storyteller is one the artist creator. We. I sometimes speak at this homeschool conference in Florida. And the.

There's.

It's like a couple hours away from this beach called Venice beach, which our friends named Shark Tooth Beach. And so we'd known these friends and they're like, they go to Shark Tooth beach and they're like, the sunsets are amazing. So it was like the conference was just finishing up and we had like two hours. If we could just get the car and go, we'll make it to Sunset. So we're like going there as fast we can. We park, we're like running to the beach and it's Shark Tooth Beach. So like everyone's like, oh, hopefully we find shark teeth. Well, what I didn't know was that, I mean there was adult talking about adults and it's not just a kid thing everywhere. And they had all these contraptions that they had built out of PVC pipes and mesh and there was like looking for all these shark teeth. And I was like, I love that the play personalities included the collector. And it just opened your mind, like, okay, if I've lost my drive to play, there's a lot of things that I could do to help get it back. So that's information. I'm sure on your website it's for sure. In the book.

Book.

Can we wrap it up with one last topic which is self direction? Actually this kind of brings it back to the beginning because we're trying to make sure that we can survive in this world of uncertainty. So Dr. Stuart Brown talks about how it used to be that self organized play was all kids did. I mean, there wasn't. My mom talks about that. She was like, she was like, I grew up in this neighborhood. It was like most of the people had big families, they had one car, they were on one income. She was like, nobody was doing anything. You know, like you just went to school and you came home and you had all this evening, afternoon time to organize yourself. And there was a story in the book about like, it was like an Outward Bound story where they go like, they, they have all these kids and they're like, like, here's a bag of alive chickens.

Yes.

And some potatoes. And this is your dinner, so go build a fire and cook it. My friend Nelly, when she went to college, that's what they did. I was like, I've never heard of this. It was like their first freshman get together. And she was like, you had to chase these chickens and like, no one knows how to cook them. And that's all you have, you know, we got a couple onions. So I would, I would love for you to talk about this self reliance, the independence that kids need and how they can get it through self organized play.

Oh yeah. I mean I think this comes back to what we were sort of talking about as a trend of sort of over scheduling, overstructuring, you know, organized sports, organized music, organized theater with like an outcome related goal which doesn't give that exploratory time, that unstructured or we could think of that as like internally structured time and space to just be given an environment. And I think where that comes from is actually boredom. We talk about this a lot, right? Like we're not bored anymore. There's no space to be bored when we're bored. We fill it with our phone when we're bored. That's actually a really uncomfortable feeling. And a lot of that self directed sort of unstructured play comes from that, like I don't have anything to do right now. Let me actually open my eyes to the environment around me and see what I can make of it. And so one of the things that we have sort of added to the play personalities framework, if you will, is sort of the dimensions of play. So if that's social versus solo play, high intensity or low intensity, structured, unstructured, novelty seeking versus familiarity seeking. So these kind of different nuances of the state of play. Because what we recognize is we're kind of play is becoming more one dimensional. So we need to reinvite sort of these dimensions of play into the equation to say no, you can't just do like all solo play, video game all day, that's very structured. Right. Like we need that unstructured time, that social component, that high intensity, like whatever that looks like with the risky and rough and tumble. So I think the dimensionality of play is really important. And that structure that you just mentioned and that and kind of like what we do with that is one of those dimensions.

Absolutely. And it's all really very personal. And I think people just need to be really honest with themselves about what do they love to do, what it makes, makes them feel really good when they're done doing it, like over the long term. You know, what makes them truly lose track, a track of time. You know, one of the other things that I heard someone say recently is that you can't play tag unless you have like the boundaries of the tag. And so sometimes for some people they need a little bit of boundary. Not like, you know, over structured, but a little bit of like understanding the rules. Enough that they have the freedom to kind of really let themselves be fully immersed in the play. So again, it really depends on who you are.

I think the one other interesting piece of that is just for parents to know. And again, I hope I'm a little bit of an example of this or like other people are too. Like, Steve Kerr is a good example of this. He gives his players like, unstructured time for them to like, play and experiment with new ideas and whatnot. Like at the highest level of professional sports where the pressure is as high as they could be. What sport? Basketball? Yeah. Golden Warriors. Yeah. So I, I think, think it's what's helpful for parents potentially is again, you're wanting your kids to achieve, to be set up to succeed in this world that we've all created for ourselves. But to know that there is so much value in that unstructured time and that actually when you're in that unstructured time, when the kid is deciding, here are the rules. Here's my imaginary friend that's on my team of this. Like, whatever you're doing, you know that actually they're gonna have the desire to sort of gain mastery of that thing. So we like to say that play can lead to mastery because again, when you're doing it unstructured for its own sake, when you're creating the rules, when you're able to test those boundaries yourself and figure out where the lines are, you're actually gonna want to become a master of whatever that thing is because you created it. Like, who wouldn't? I think that's one thing just for, from like even an educator side, a coach side, a parent side. That's one of my main messages is like, we see play as a break, a break from learning, a break from working. But actually it's not. It is learning, it is working. So.

Right.

Right. Sleep and dreams appear to be the organizers of higher brain function.

Both.

So when you think about sleep and how critical sleep is, right. Everybody talks about that. You're like, play is the same. Because these are the organizers of higher brain function. And that play deficit is much less like sleep deficit. And also you're building yourself your sense of self. Your grandpa talks about this, your dad talks about this. You know, like, he was like, I this built who I was to have all of this self organized child organized time when I was a kid. It's how I it, it affected how I see myself.

And I was gonna say, and continues to as an adult, I mean continues and continue to redefine yourself through your Play as an adult.

Yeah.

Stop.

Isn't that great?

Yeah. I love this mother, daughter, duo. What a duo. Lauren and Mia. I love it. I'm like, Mia, dude, are you. Did you ever say mom the whole time?

I think.

I think I did.

Figured that part out so well. It's kind. That's. That's the one thing where people are like, wait, who are you?

Yeah, I. I think I said it like quite a few times.

Oh, yeah, you did. My mom this, my mom that. I love.

I love it.

Yeah, you did. I just. I love, love this. Mother, daughter and carrying on the legacy of Dr. Stuart Brown. The book is called Play how it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. Founder of the National Institute for Play, of which Mia is the CEO and Lauren. Is that what you say? Cfo.

Coo.

Coo. I'm the worst.

Oh, yeah. You know, we're really. We're really important, Jenny. We're organization.

I just talked to this guy who was like, I'm the CMO at all these companies. It's the chief medical officer. I was like, I'm not even even heard of that.

I would get marketing.

No, I'm like so out of the loop with all these C whatever acronyms. But incredible work you're doing. People can check it out@nif play.org also the Global Play Network on LinkedIn. If you want Mia to come speak, it would hear how incredibly well spoken and knowledgeable she is. Her website is miasunstrom.com and I'll make sure I'll put the link in the show notes. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood?

That was outside.

Oh, since we were just talking about my grandpa, one of mine is he walks his talk and he lives in this whimsical forest house with a giant tree house and the largest rope swing I've ever seen in my life. And so every time we go visit him, as a kid, I would spend hours swinging on the rope swing, climbing to the top, going to the treehouse, coming back, so. So his backyard is my play memory.

Wow. Those rope swings are the best.

They're so fun.

Our friends the McGowans have one. It's like it's in Tennessee and it's like you gotta go down to the back of their property and they've got this rope swing that they put in the tree with a drone. That's how they got it up so high and it swings out over this ravine.

Oh, my gosh.

I mean, you really gotta hold on for sure.

That's risky play. That's good.

Yeah, yeah.

Mia's done plenty of that too. And for me, I would say I was lucky enough to have a backyard pool growing up and I loved swimming outside, especially if the whole family was there, friends, neighbors, I loved that. And I still love to swim, especially outside. And I, I do think that every time I jump into a pool, even if it's a chlorine filled lap pool, somewhere in the back of my mind I, I hold that, that, that play nature from being a kid.

So it connects you. That's how I feel about it with Rivers. It really does connect you. And so that is, that is a, I think, a critical reason about why you want to make sure that your kids have all these experiences so that they have those connection moments as they become adults. What an honor to meet the both of you working for the National Institute for Play. Incredible work that you're doing and lots to come, like Mia brought up at the beginning. So make sure you're following along. Thank you to both of you for being here.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you, Jenny.

Get outside, open your eyes Feel that sunshine kissing your skin Throw your worries out to the wind Climb some trees Skin your knees Feel that grass on your feet in get out there and take it in

oh,

it's a beautiful world Ain't nothing on the screen that's ever going to be this view. Oh, it's a beautiful world and I just want to share with you.

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Calling all trivia nerds, Brittany here and I host the family Road Trip trivia podcast with my best friend Meredith. Is your next car ride looking like a snooze fest? We've got the Cure. Three rounds of awesome trivia every week. Harry Potter, Disney Science, science, sports, you name it. No more Silent car troubles. The family road trip Trivia podcast. Connect, laugh and learn with your kids, big and small. New episodes every week. Wherever you get your podcasts, search for the family Road trip trivia Podcast.