Get on the Floor: Why Play Tells Kids They Matter
There is a stage of parenting when getting down on the floor with a child feels completely natural. Matchbox cars appear everywhere, blocks cover the carpet, somebody wants to build a train track across the living room, and you somehow become the voice of three stuffed animals before breakfast. Then the kids get older, we get busier, our knees get less cooperative, and play begins to change. Sitting beside a child while they play can start to feel like enough, especially if we are also answering a message or keeping half an eye on something else. But one of the most encouraging ideas in a recent Celebrate Kids Podcast conversation was that kids may not need hours of elaborate play. Sometimes ten fully present minutes can communicate more than an hour of distracted coexistence.
That matters because play is doing more than filling time. The research discussed in the episode connected playful parent child relationships with attachment, security, emotional regulation, cognitive development, trust, and even the parent’s own sense of meaning and competence. A child who sees a parent get down on their level receives more than entertainment. They experience attention that is specific and difficult to fake. The parent is not merely watching from the edge of the room or documenting the moment with a phone; they are entering the child’s world. That communicates, “What matters to you matters enough for me to come closer.”
Kids Can Tell When We Are Really There
Dr. Kathy shared something she learned while working on Screens and Teens: children often told her that their parents watched them play, and they wished their parents would actually play with them. That distinction is worth sitting with. Watching says, “I see what you are doing.” Playing says, “I want to be part of it with you.” Both can be loving, but they do not communicate exactly the same thing. A child can feel the difference between a parent who is fully engaged and one who is physically present while waiting for something more interesting to happen on a screen.
That is one reason I have tried to ask myself a simple question as a dad: when my kids go to bed tonight, can each of them remember some evidence that Dad was actually with them today? Maybe it was playing catch, reading a book, sitting on the edge of a bed, or asking three real questions about their day and staying long enough to hear the answers. In a family with a lot of kids, that question can feel daunting, but the ten minute idea makes it more hopeful. Connection does not always require a giant family experience or a perfectly planned outing. A small amount of focused attention can carry a surprising amount of relational weight.
Play Should Match the Child
The other important part of this is that play does not need to look the same with every kid. One of the strongest ideas from Dr. Kathy’s work in the 8 Great Smarts is that knowing our children changes how we connect with them. A body smart son may come alive when Dad throws a football with him for ten minutes. A self smart daughter may feel deeply loved when Mom or Dad sits quietly on the edge of her bed and allows a few minutes of silence before three minutes of conversation. The time can be similar, but the experience is completely different because the child feels known.
That is why “family playtime” is good, but it cannot always replace individual connection. Word smart kids often enjoy talking, reading, storytelling, or language games. Logic smart kids may light up over questions, puzzles, facts, science, or strategy. Picture smart kids may want to draw, build, imagine, or explain what they saw in their mind during the day. Music smart children may want to play a song, sing, listen together, or talk about what music has been running through their head. When we choose something that fits the child, we communicate something powerful: “I know how you are made, and I am willing to enter your world.”
Knowing Them Is a Parenting Superpower
Dr. Kathy made an important observation on the podcast: technology increasingly seems to know our kids. Algorithms predict what they will like and learn their patterns quickly. That means one of the great superpowers of a parent or teacher today is not merely knowing the child, but making sure the child knows that we know them. “I know you like quiet.” “I know you need to move.” “I know you love questions.” “I know you enjoy surprising plans more than structured ones.”
That kind of knowing builds security because it removes some of the pressure children feel to constantly translate themselves. The child does not have to explain from scratch why they would rather take a walk than sit across a table or why building something together feels more connecting than talking for thirty minutes. We have paid enough attention to know something about them already. That knowledge can turn ordinary play into an experience of being seen.
Structured and Spontaneous Kids Need Different Invitations
Even beyond the smarts, some children experience play differently because of temperament. Some want to know the plan before they begin. They want to know where we are going, what we are doing, how long it will last, and what happens next. Other kids feel like the fun disappears the moment the experience becomes predictable. They want surprise and enough room for something unexpected to happen. Neither child is better at play. They simply experience freedom differently.
Knowing that can save parents a lot of frustration. We do not need to force the spontaneous kid into a rigid activity or assume the structured child is being difficult because they want to know the rules. If we can give one child enough predictability to feel secure and another enough flexibility to feel alive, we have already made play more relational. The goal is not to demonstrate that we know how to have fun. The goal is to help our child experience that we know them well enough to invite them into something they can genuinely enjoy.
Dads Do Not Have to Play Like Moms, or Anyone Else
This is especially freeing for dads who sometimes hear “play with your kids” and immediately imagine sitting on the floor with plush animals in a pretend tea shop. If that is genuinely your thing, wonderful. But play can also look like wrestling, throwing a ball, fixing something, riding a bike, building, hiking, cutting wood, creating a model, or teaching a child how to use a tool safely. The point is not performing somebody else’s version of play. It is bringing your real self into a real relationship with your child.
That also means play can contain appropriate risk. A child may fall off a bike, scrape a knee, lose a game, or discover that a project does not work the first time. Those moments are not automatically failures of parenting. They can become opportunities to learn resilience, cause and effect, competence, and trust. We should absolutely protect children from dangers they are not ready to handle, but protecting them from every possibility of frustration or minor injury can also keep them from discovering, “I fell, and I got back up.”
Rough and Tumble Play Still Has to Know the Child
At the same time, Dr. Kathy wisely pushed back against the idea of turning rough and tumble play into something every child supposedly needs in exactly the same way. A highly sensitive child may require a different approach. Sensitivity is not weakness; it is one of the genius qualities Dr. Kathy often highlights, and Jesus Himself showed profound sensitivity to people. A sensitive boy does not need his sensitivity trained out of him to become strong. He may need a father who understands him well enough to gradually introduce challenge without communicating that the child's natural temperament is disappointing.
That is where knowledge and explanation matter. A dad can say, “I am challenging you because I believe you can do hard things,” while also paying attention to whether the child is actually growing through the challenge or simply feeling overwhelmed. Some kids need more explanation because explanation builds security. Other times parents are exhausted, and the explanation is simply, “You need to trust me right now, and I will talk with you more later.” Healthy parenting has room for both.
Play Is Good for Parents Too
One of the most interesting findings discussed in the podcast was that playful engagement appears to benefit adults as well as children. Parents can develop a stronger sense of meaning and efficacy when they actively engage with their kids. That makes sense to me. Parenting can easily begin to feel like an endless series of management tasks: get everybody dressed, feed them, move them, correct them, schedule them, remind them, and somehow make sure the laundry does not become its own civilization. Play interrupts management. For ten minutes, the child is not another responsibility to complete. They become a person to enjoy. That can remind a parent why all the work matters.
Exhausted Parents Need Grace, Not Another Burden
Still, there are seasons when even ten minutes feels expensive. Parents grieve. Work becomes overwhelming. Babies do not sleep. Marriages go through difficult seasons. Bodies become tired, and sometimes getting on the floor is less challenging than figuring out how you are ever going to get back up.
Dr. Kathy’s counsel was full of grace: know your limit. It may actually be better to say, “Not tonight,” than to agree to play and spend the next ten minutes irritated and resentful. But if tonight is no, try to make tomorrow yes. If tomorrow is impossible too, look for the next opportunity rather than turning one depleted season into a permanent pattern of distance.
And if active play is beyond your capacity on a particular day, be in the room. Sit nearby. Watch with real attention. Ask a question. Laugh when something is funny. Presence still matters, even when energy is low.
Accept Today and Look for Growth
Parents can turn good research into another impossible standard if we are not careful. We hear that play matters and immediately begin measuring all the ways we failed this week. That does not help anybody. The goal is not to become the most playful parent on social media. It is to grow in availability and connection from wherever we are today.
Maybe that means putting the phone away for ten minutes after dinner. Maybe it means initiating instead of always waiting for them to ask. Maybe it means learning that your teenager’s version of “play” is sitting together, driving somewhere, shooting baskets, playing chess, or talking about something they care about. Growth can be very ordinary. And ordinary is where most relationships are built.
David Was Willing to Look Undignified
Second Samuel 6 gives us a surprising biblical picture of wholehearted engagement. David dances before the Lord “with all his might” as the ark is brought into Jerusalem. Michal watches and despises what she sees because the king appears undignified. David responds that he is willing to become even more undignified in his celebration before God. I love that image when thinking about parents and play.
One of the barriers adults sometimes face is a lack of dignity. We have work to do and reputations to maintain. We are serious people doing serious things. Then a five year old asks us to crawl across the floor, pretending to be an animal; a ten year old wants us to throw one more pass; or a teenager challenges us to something we are almost certainly going to lose. Sometimes love looks a little undignified. The parent who plays is communicating, “I am not too important to enter your world.” That message may remain in a child's memory much longer than the game itself.
Engaging Play Through the 8 Great Smarts
Word Smart: Read together, make up stories, play word games, tell jokes, or simply ask questions and let conversation become the play.
Logic Smart: Try puzzles, strategy games, science experiments, trivia, chess, building challenges, or anything that lets you figure something out together.
Picture Smart: Draw, doodle, build models, take pictures, create with art materials, or ask them to describe the pictures they see in their imagination.
Music Smart: Sing, listen to music, play instruments, create rhythms, or let them introduce you to the song they cannot stop thinking about.
Body Smart: Wrestle appropriately, play catch, shoot hoops, bike, hike, build, work with tools, or do something physical side by side.
Nature Smart: Explore outside, garden, walk a trail, watch animals, collect interesting things, or simply sit somewhere outdoors together.
People Smart: Play cooperative games, invite others in, talk, act things out, or let connection itself become the activity.
Self Smart: Do not assume play must be loud. Sit quietly together, work on individual activities in the same space, take a peaceful walk, or give them room to initiate deeper conversation when they are ready.
Remember: However your child is smart, remember this: play is not really about the activity. It is about communicating, “I know you, I enjoy you, and I am willing to come into your world.”