Play: Beyond the Preschool Years

In this paper, an attempt will be made to investigate the common properties between play and research findings on motivation through integration with the Self-Determination Theory (cf. Deci and Ryan, 2000b, p. 68). This paper asserts that, consistent with the Self-Determination Theory, properties of play must be nurtured within the contexts of children's developmental timetable. In these contexts, opportunities are afforded for assessment sympathetic to the specific personality of each child. Moreover, children so nurtured will grow to develop means of finding "deeply embedded life interests (which, in their later lives, will emerge as) ...long-held, emotionally driven passions, intricately entwined with personality" (Butler and Waldroop, 1999, pp. 145-146).