I find it very alarming on reading a newspaper to see that yet another child or young person is being presented with an anti-social behaviour order simply for hanging about on the streets. These types of stories are increasing in ferocity, but little regard is being given as to why children and young people engage in 'gang' type behaviour.
Children and young people are in a sense compelled to come together with their peers, it's a sort of internal drive which makes them seek the company of other like-minded individuals and presents itself largely when they become a teenager. The location, in many cases a street, is relatively unimportant as some young people may channel their instinctual drives to join a club or similar focal point. What is important, however, is that we recognise and respect this drive as a natural and sequential part of children and young people's development.
Even if we disregard theories of socialisation for a moment, there are some interesting views about play development having an evolutionary basis.
Apart from Charles Darwin's own personal accounts of children's play, perhaps one of the earliest theorists to emphasise these evolutionary mechanisms was the American psychologist GS Hall, whose recapitulation theory suggests that play enables children to re-enact key developmental aspects of human evolution. This viewpoint was developed further by MJ Reaney, who suggested that children play out these evolutionary stages as part of an evolving consciousness which includes reptilian, savage and ritualistic stages.
The crux of this viewpoint, therefore, is that the essence of each generation is encapsulated in a genetic transference from one generation to another, and that this 'essence' is played out by each generation in the sorts of behaviours identified by Hughes as children being able to dig, build dens, play with fire, make weapons, create languages, and engage in spontaneous rituals and songs; its purpose in development is to enable children to play themselves up to contemporary evolutionary speed.
What this means is that children's play reflects the development of the human species, of our evolutionary advance, starting in early childhood and basic interactions with the elements, leading up to membership and ritualistic associations with clubs and gangs. If this is true then surely this should be taken into account when deliberating the issue of young people hanging about on streets? It would seem that society has become intolerant of what is a very natural process and one that every member of society, according to these theories, would have passed through themselves.
If these theories propose that evolutionary play is fixed within our genes, and that in some way these manifestations are a process for bringing the child up to date with human history, and that through play children discover and explore the totality of human existence during childhood, then what of socio-cultural influences? Are they neither important nor relative to this type of play? I am not convinced that play is mapped on a basis of genetic inheritance or via some evolutionary mechanism, but believe it is conditional to some extent on the child's development within the social and cultural constructs of the child's play in a social world.
For example, I once observed some children engaged in a play theme based upon an historical excavation. It began with a nine-year-old girl who found some broken pottery while digging about in the earth. She washed the fragments and laid them out on a table and within an hour there were about 15 children engaged in this play theme, which had by then extended to include constructing a museum, making signs, labelling artefacts, allocating 'museum' roles, designing and issuing tickets to visitors, and so on. In many respects the play theme had the hallmarks of many of Reaney's evolutionary stages, from elemental play, at which she would have surpassed, to group association, or tribal play.
While for her there was no issue about playing out earlier evolutionary stages, what was fascinating was that very young children were also engaged in all aspects of the play from the elemental to the tribal, suggesting that either evolutionary play is less genetically fixed to stages or sequences, or that other forces were at work also.
Mbendjele children of the Yaka Pigmies in Congo-Brazzaville engage in very early stages of evolutionary play where they imitate animals being hunted.
This play often includes children pretending to be apes, elephants or horned animals who are hunted and speared, only minutes later to leap to their feet to be either other animals or the hunter. Within Reaney's descriptions this would be placed early in a child's play development, yet Mbendjele children use it as a ritualistic learning tool for practising hunting skills expected of them as members of the community.
It would appear then, that even where there is some genetic basis for children's play, we are in danger of removing both the social or cultural world from this process. After all, children develop within a context of many influences, not as isolated individuals.
Play development
Like many theories in child development, evolutionary, or recapitulative, play seeks to match stages of play development against periods of other human endeavours within a child's life. This is a natural and somewhat forgiving process because it enables us to find patterns and make sense of what we are observing. It presents a danger, however, of assuming all children develop along these fixed patterns, and as a result it is easy to become governed by a single understanding without considering other contexts.
Evolutionary play as a specific play type is a difficult one, not only because it is based on some long theories, but also because it doesn't necessarily operate as a singular or identifiable type of play, unlike imaginary, fantasy, or object play for example, but in reality can include most if not all other play types. Playworkers looking to support or even facilitate this type of play will need to be both cautious and encompassing of many processes, including influencing contexts.
Potential indicators to look out for may include children constructing dens or shelters; building or discovering ancient communities; playing war and using weapons; dressing up in historical clothing; engaging in historical role play and narratives; creating languages or using existing ancient ones where they are accessible; engaging with the elements in a multitude of ways, including fire; engaging in ancient customs, ritual and song; growing and caring for other species, such as keeping pets.
As with most play types, the role of the playworker is to be observant and non-intrusive, providing for the play in subtle ways, such as ensuring children have access to resources both manufactured and natural, including fabrics to make costumes, all four elements, tools and consumables, and ensuring permission to engage in such play is paramount. It probably goes without saying that access to varied and suitable environments is a key feature of this play type, especially access to natural environments where much of our evolution until relatively recently has been largely placed - this could be wooded areas, rivers, beaches, fields, caves, rocks and mud.
If evolutionary play is a genetically defined and determined aspect of childhood as purported, then to deny children's access to it could be damaging to their overall development and well-being.
Philip Waters is a playwork trainer and researcher in Cornwall
Recommended reading:
* Hughes, B (2002) A Playworker's Taxonomy of Play types, 2nd Edn. London: PLAYLINK.
* Hughes, B (2001) Evolutionary Playwork and Reflective Analytic Practice.
London: Routledge.
* Lewis, J (2002) Forest Hunter-Gatherers and Their World: A Study of the Mbendjele Yaka Pygmies of Congo-Brazzaville and Their Secular and Religious Activities. PhD thesis, University of London.
