Acting the part

Children use play to explore emotions, but these may be too strong for them to deal with at times. Psychologists from the Anna Freud Centre show how adults can help. Young children play because it is the only way they know how to express and understand their feelings about themselves and their world. Though play has many meanings and functions, here we shall focus on how children use play to register and contain feelings. Play involves all the human emotions Shakespeare put into his plays - love, jealousy, shame, betrayal, sadness and rage. When a child is able to explore...