What is Article 31 and why does it matter?
A child’s ‘Right to Play’ must be integrated into our pedagogical decisions.
Have you heard of Article 31? This important United Nations declaration may be the key to addressing rising depression, anxiety, stress and irritability in children - even if only in part.
Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child details a child’s right to rest and recreation. The International Play Association (IPA) issued a Declaration of the Child’s Right to Play in accordance with Article 31. It states: “the child has a right to leisure, play, and participation in cultural and artistic activities”.
The Declaration emphasises that play is not meaningless or a waste of time. It is deeply educative and critically important to physical and mental well-being. Threats to beneficial play include commercialisation, competition, lack of access or engagement with the natural environment, erosion of community and culture, and technology overreach.
This is something that every parent and every educator needs to take seriously: natural, unstructured, spontaneous, creative play is fundamental to healthy development. Yet, it’s being increasingly withheld from children in favour of a focus on formal schooling, iPad learning, and organised sports, which is occurring at earlier ages than ever before.
Hyper-intense academics and competition may be hindering childhood happiness and preventing intrinsic motivation. We should consider whether or not learners are “checking-out” to avoid school stress. How much concentration should we reasonably expect from them?
A technologically-driven, micromanaged, overstimulated childhood is detrimental, but it’s the stuff of brochures. We risk damaging childhood when we over-schedule work and staged activities for their own sake. We need to re-evaluate what it is children really need, and place it at the centre of our education decisions.
Children must be given opportunities to invent and imagine.
Let them think for themselves by allowing self-directed play with elements of their environment. Let us not underestimate the mud-pie and make-believe.
Give them time and space to make up their own games and rules - to interact with their peers without certificates, medals and surveillance.
Let them dress up and role-play and act the clown.
Let them paint and make a mess.
Let them build.
Play is a natural way to socialise, problem-solve, relax and de-stress. Suppressing physical and emotional energy by restricting sufficient free play will only cause disruptions in the classroom or at home.
To be absolutely clear, leisure and recreation is not endless permission to watch TV, Tik Tok and play video-games. This is the very commercialisation the IPA warns against.
The Declaration emphasises the opposite: natural play. Not the manipulated, passive arresting of children’s attention through dopamine hits engineered by tech or toy companies.
We must also caution against monopolising play with hours of homework that essentially creates a “double-shift”: a full school day and then a repeat at home. No child needs to be on academic duty fifty hours a week. It’s harmful and educationally unsound.
Ethical teaching means incorporating play into our pedagogy, without fixating on outcomes and measurement, to enable a happier and more balanced childhood for all.
The Declaration of the Child's Right to Play
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