Photo: Chris Cessford
It's Play Week in New Zealand, and play experts want to turn our cities into more fun and joyful places, not just for children.
A play expert says that it is time to make play riskier.
"Our playgrounds are incredibly safe and well designed in New Zealand, which is both a blessing and a curse," Auckland Council's play portfolio lead Jacquelyn Collins says.
In her role, she is responsible for bringing more play into Tāmaki Makaurau.
"What we're trying to do is encourage a little bit of a return to maybe climbing a bit higher if you're a little bit older and you're capable of it, maybe learning to listen to your instincts.
"I want my child to learn that when she's climbing a tree, I don't want her to learn that when she's 15 and some guy who's had six beers at a party is offering to drive her home. I want her to already know how to listen to her instincts and trust her own decision-making."
This week is Play Week, a Sport NZ initiative designed to encourage and celebrate play. It runs from 26 October to 1 November.
On today's episode of The Detail, two experts in the area of play explain why it's such an essential part of life, starting with their definitions of what counts as play - and the definition is broad.
"I'm really unacademic when it comes to play," Collins says.
"I just describe it as stuff we do mostly just for fun. And I think if we think about it like that it is much easier for us also to expand what play is, because otherwise we just think of play as something that just children should do but actually if we think about it as stuff we do mostly just for fun, we all do that."
Dr Alex Bonham, who has done a PhD and written a book about play, says that play is fundamental for children's development, but it is also hugely important for adults.
"It's how we keep on adapting to a changing world by being really interested in changing technology or new things."
Bonham agrees that play can be anything we do for fun.
"It's doing something perhaps that you don't do in your normal day job," she says.
"Say you work on a building site and you're really physically active, it may be that you want to do some gaming on the weekend with your mates. It's having that change, never getting stuck in a rut."
She points to one study that says even violent video games, when played with friends, can have a positive impact, but that the same isn't true when those games are played with strangers.
But, she says, it is important to get out and into the community.
"There's all this stuff about how play has to be voluntary and actually I sort of think we should really push our kids to do it whether they like it or not."
Collins says this includes more than just playgrounds.
"It feels like play has become a little siloed into playgrounds and I'm keen for everywhere to be playful," she says.
For her, that means more playful spaces, and more playable spaces. Playful spaces are those that evoke positive emotions in people, like a treehouse or a mural.
"It gives you a little boost, a little endorphin boost, even if you don't choose to climb up into the tree or have a go on the swing or have a go on the hopscotch.
"I think we can evoke playfulness in our city through all sorts of things, both through adding those kind of things into our environment deliberately but also just making it clear we welcome that kind of interaction with our environment," she says.
Playable spaces are places that inspire people to interact with them.
Bonham says that her neighborhood, which is walkable, shady, has a large park and a great community feel, does an excellent job, but points to some other countries as good inspiration too.
"I think traditional countries often do it really well, and often ones with a Catholic tradition.
"In South America you've got these amazing carnivals that come out of the Catholic tradition."
She also says East Asia has some great examples.
"If you go to a park in China and you go there early in the morning you will see older people dancing in the plazas or playing shuttlecocks and throughout the day all these different people move in and enjoy it."
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