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Amy begins with a memory from her first years of teaching, when she wanted to join in during school assemblies but often held back. Candace connects that hesitation to her own experience of avoiding something after embarrassment, then trying again years later.
From there, they explore how play changes as we move through adolescence and adulthood. The conversation looks at competence, comparison, evaluation, vulnerability, relationships, and the growing awareness of how we are perceived by others. Amy and Candace also consider the many forms adult play can take and why we often feel pressure to make play useful, productive, or justified.
The episode returns to a quieter idea: we may not outgrow play at all. The conditions around us can shape where it still feels available.
Key Question:
What makes play harder to enter as we get older?
Topics Discussed:
How play changes from childhood into adolescence and adulthood
Identity development, peers, belonging, and social evaluation
Beginnerhood and the discomfort of being seen doing something badly
How evaluation and performance pressure can change an experience
The many forms adult play can take
Trust, relationships, and Stuart Brown’s idea of “play signals”
Why adults often feel the need to justify play through productivity or outcomes
Noticing the conditions that make play easier—or harder—to enter
Readings & Resources Mentioned
Practitioner & Teaching Perspectives
National Institute for Play — Resources on play across the lifespan and the work of Stuart Brown.
https://nifplay.org/
Research Sources Mentioned in the Episode
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2019). The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/25388/chapter/1
Venticinque, J. S., McMillan, S. J., & Guyer, A. E. (2024). “Expanding understanding of adolescent neural sensitivity to peers: Using social information processing theory to generate new lines of research.” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 67.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929324000562?via%3Dihub
Layland, E. K., Hill, B. J., & Nelson, L. J. (2018). “Freedom to explore the self: How emerging adults use leisure to develop identity.” The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(1), 78–91.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2017.1374440
Foundational Research & Further Reading
Brené Brown — Daring Greatly
https://brenebrown.com/book/daring-greatly/
Stuart Brown with Christopher Vaughan — Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/303738/play-by-stuart-brown/
Brian Sutton-Smith — The Ambiguity of Play
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1q16s5b
Peter Gray — “The Playful Mind Is a Creative Mind”
https://petergray.substack.com/p/33-the-playful-mind-is-a-creative
Related Second Look episode:
Does Play Still Count as Learning?
Episode 16 begins this two-part conversation by looking at what children learn through play and what happens when schools struggle to make room for it.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/does-play-still-count-as-learning/id1879331024?i=1000788806312
Try this after Listening:
Parents:
Ask your child or teenager: What is something you would try if you knew no one was judging you?
Teachers:
Notice a moment when you or your students hesitate to try something new. What about the setting, relationships, or expectations might be shaping that hesitation?
We don’t outgrow play. As we become more aware of how we’re seen, competence, self-consciousness, and relationships shape where play still feels available.
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