Contents
Podcast
Panelists
Additional Resources
Transcript


These days, resilience is needed more than ever, and one simple, underrecognized way of supporting healthy and resilient child development is as old as humanity itself: play. Far from frivolous, play contributes to sturdy brain architecture, the foundations of lifelong health, and the building blocks of resilience, yet its importance is often overlooked. In this podcast, Dr. Jack Shonkoff explains the role of play in supporting resilience and five experts share their ideas and personal stories about applying the science of play in homes, communities, and crisis environments around the world.


Panelists


Andres Bustamante, Assistant Professor, University of California Irvine School of Education

Laura Huerta Migus, Deputy Director, Office of Museum Services at Institute for Museum and Library Services

Lynneth Solis, Researcher and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Erum Mariam, Executive Director, BRAC Institute of Educational Development, BRAC University

Michael Yogman, Pediatrician, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Hospital




Additional Resources
Resources from the Center on the Developing Child



Video: Play in Early Childhood: The Role of Play in Any Setting
Video: How-to: 5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return
Handout: 5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return
Video: Building Babies’ Brains Through Play: Mini Parenting Master Class (from UNICEF)
Report: Three Principles to Improve Outcomes for Children and Families
InBrief: The Science of Resilience



Resources from Our Guests
Panel



Learning to Cope through Play
UCI STEM Learning Lab
Playful Learning Landscapes
Understanding the Social Wellbeing Impacts of the Nation's Libraries and Museums



Play in Humanitarian Settings



5 Takeaways from Supporting Refugee Parents to Help Children Learn and Thrive During Covid-19
BRAC Humanitarian Play Lab: when playing becomes healing
BRAC: ECD and Play
“I try to take their pain away through play”: A healing experiment in Rohingya refugee camps (Quartz: membership required)



Prescription for Play



The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children
Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress: Partnering with Families and Communities to Promote Relational Health



Transcript
Sally Pfitzer, host: Welcome to the Brain Architects, a podcast from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. I’m your host, Sally Pfitzer. Our Center believes that advances in science can provide a powerful source of new ideas that can improve outcomes for children and families. We want to help you apply the science of early childhood development to your everyday interactions with children and take what you’re hearing from our experts and panels and apply it to your everyday work.

So in today’s episode, we’re going to get serious about the topic of play. For children, play is a fundamental building block of child development, but its role in supporting resilience is often overlooked. And after the past few years, we surely need resilience now more than ever! For me, as a former preschool teacher, I’m especially excited about this episode and speaking with today’s experts, because I’ve seen first-hand how important play is for young children’s development. But what can science tell us about it? And what can be done to support more play in everyday life, even in crisis contexts? In this podcast, we’ll dive into the science of play and resilience, and then we’ll explore how people are using that knowledge to support child development around the world. To explain the science, we’ll start with Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Professor of Child Health and Development and the Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. So Jack, what do we mean by resilience and what do we know about how people develop it?...