Recently, the Educated by Nature team helped organise an event organised by the Play Matters Collective – Conversations with the Play Matters Collective – Celebrating International Day of Play 2025. The event provided an opportunity to revisit and reflect on ideas and conversations sparked during the 2024 conference. It created space to reconnect with others in the sector, celebrate shared progress, and continue important dialogues around children’s right to play.
Crucially, it was another opportunity for a panel of young people to voice their perspectives on matters that directly impact them, in line with their Article 12 rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).
Children’s voices
With child-centric thinking at the forefront, rather than offering a chronological overview of the event, I’ll begin by exploring the key issues raised by the youth panel. The panel consisted of Molly, Rahni, Arlo and John.
Unsurprisingly, the discussion highlighted a potential disconnect in discourse around play. While adults often frame play through developmental or educational lenses, the young people spoke about it in terms of fun, freedom and connection. Here are some important future considerations for parents, educators, play advocates, planners, and anyone invested in play and childhood.
Play is both serious and frivolous
The idea that play is frivolous continues to cause confusion about its role in childhood (Sutton-smith, 1998). As adults, we strive to make sense of children’s behaviour, and in doing so, tend to over-analyse or ‘academicise’ it. As Molly pointed out, play is a serious topic with real benefits to children, but the behaviour itself is anything but serious most of the time.
John reminded us play is meant to be frivolous, and that it shouldn’t need to be justified by outcomes. Children have a right to play, for the sake of play. Nonetheless, play is diverse in character and content and sometimes touches on serious issues. It can be calm or chaotic, happy or sad; social and solitary; serious or frivolous. Brain Sutton-Smith & Kelly-Bryne (1984) refer to this as “bipolarity in play”.
Children want adults to worry less about their safety
Young people voiced frustration at being overprotected. They asked for more trust in their capabilities to navigate risk, test boundaries, and learn through experience.
Play deserves more value in schools — especially secondary
The panel challenged the idea that play is only for young children. They spoke about the lack of playful opportunities in high school as well as academic pressures which limit choice and control. Molly suggested we needed an overhaul of the current curriculum.
Designing better community play spaces requires greater care
Too often, playgrounds feel generic or uninspired. Children asked for more natural spaces that reflect their identities, interests, and need for challenge and connection. Rahni raised a point I doubt many adults in the room had considered. She spoke about adult gym equipment in public spaces and how it might send a message to young people, particularly those already feeling insecure about their bodies, that they are somehow not good enough and must use the provided equipment to make their bodies more acceptable to today’s standards. She went on to say, “the addition of nature play equipment instigates imagination and provides open-ended spaces for all people to feel confident in their bodies as they use them to engage in playful behaviour”.
Digital play is real play and it’s all about balance
Arlo encouraged adults to recognise the social potential of digital play, as well as its value as a form of escapism. He acknowledged the importance of balance, calling for a fair distribution of time across both digital and physical worlds.
Adults need to play too
The panel urged adults to reconnect with their own playfulness, not only to understand children better but to improve their own wellbeing. Play, they said, shouldn’t stop at a certain age.
Important developments
Jacqueline McGowan-Jones, Commissioner for Children and Young People, spoke about the significance of the occasion taking place on International Day of Play, a global recognition of children’s right to play, and a timely opportunity to centre their voices in conversations that affect them. Her presence reflected an ongoing commitment to championing play and supporting the work of the Play Matters Collective.
Next, Sabine Winton, Minister for Early Childhood Education; Child Protection; Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence; and Community Services, made an announcement that has been a long time in the making: the state government is developing a play strategy. This is something play advocates from the Western Australian branch of Early Childhood Australia (ECA) have been lobbying for since 2013.
While this is undoubtedly a positive development, the inferred focus on early childhood also raises questions about the scope of the strategy and what is being done to address the barriers that older children and young people face in realising their right to play. The youth panel discussion served to highlight these realities.
Future advocacy and action
The play strategy announcement is a testament to the passion and dedication of core members of the Play Matters Collective and ECAWA. Their long-standing commitment to play advocacy has played a crucial role in keeping the issue on the policy agenda.
Moving forward, there is much to learn from the issues raised by the youth panel. When advocating for play, we as a sector, need to be more assertive in expressing that play is an outcome in and of itself.
We also need to ensure we are using rights-respecting language. Current definitions and theorisations of play are largely adult constructs, and we must take care not to inadvertently prioritise certain types of play over others when we communicate messages. We need to listen to children, to better understand their subjective experiences of play.
Beyond advocacy, it is time to take further action to address the barriers that constrain children’s play opportunities. The voices of the young people on the panel made it clear that many of these barriers are persistent and complex. Much still needs to be done to ensure that all children can access their right to play. Efforts to remove barriers must be informed by children’s perspectives.
