Play to Prepare for Aging

Most of this course has focused on play in our growing and formative years. But when do we stop growing? When do we stop forming?

One reasonable response to those questions is when we stop playing!

As we’ve seen throughout the course, how we play shifts at each stage of life. Toddlers play differently than infants. Pre-schoolers play differently than toddlers, and so on right up to and including adulthood.

As rich as childhood is in growth, most of spend the majority of our lives in adulthood. Erik Erickson identified three stages of being an adult: early, middle-age, and aging years.

Dr. Roger Gould refined the first two of Erickson’s stages in terms of individual’s “fears, preoccupations and assumptions, which they acquired during childhood and in their relationships with their parents.”1

Gould speaks of adulthood as a push and pull between safety (or the illusion of safety) and growth. He defines adult development as “the gradual replacement of the child’s sense of safety (which is now an illusion) with actual grown-up safety anchored in mature decisions.”2

Gould’s stages further delineate early adulthood into the ages 22-39:

• Exploration
• Permanency
• False Euphoria

Middle-Age includes the ages 40-60:

• Mid-life crisis
• Acceptance
• Mellowing and Ambivalence

Gerontologists insist that lumping the over-65 age span does not acknowledge significant differences in wants and needs throughout the potential 30-plus years of Erickson’s aging years. They divide the over-65’s like this 3:

• Young-Old – 65-75
• Old – 75-85
• Old-Old – over 85

Play – types, quantity, opportunity – shifts at each stage of adulthood just as it does in childhood. It’s unlikely that a 22-year-old will want to play in just the same way as an 82-year-old, or vice-versa.

But that doesn’t mean that they both don’t want and need playful opportunities. The need to play has no age limit! Nor does the need for that play to be self-selected according to individual wants, needs, abilities, and challenges.

This module explores activities that all but the very young might embrace and find joy in, but that may be most suited to adult enjoyment: lifetime sports, hobbies, and travel. These are intended as a sampling of adult play. What other types of play do you believe are particularly appealing to adults at various stages in their lifespans?

References

[1] Retrieved from http://www.drrogergould.com/results/press/adult-de…

[2] ibid

[3] Retrieved from: http://www.cooperativeaging.com/2009/03/three-stag…

A hobby is defined as “an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as an occupation.”1 Sounds a lot like play, right?

While hobbies can certainly begin in childhood, and are often of special interest to children in the 9-12 age range, adulthood is when hobbies flourish most. Children’s hobbies tend to be multiple and short-lived as they explore lots of playful interests. Adults, on the other hand, tend to have longer-term relationships with their hobbies. You might say that children dabble; adults delve.

Adult hobbies often become passions! Even when time is limited in some phases of adult life, adult hobbyists seem to find time for their passions. Instead of putting their hobbies on hold, they might build vacations or outings around a hobby. Family life might revolve around a parent’s passion for boating, music, or spectator sports as the hobby takes on an intergenerational spin. At other stages of adulthood, hobbyists might take advantage of increased leisure time to pursue their passions with full force.

When adults delve into a hobby, they often dive deep! Many hobbies can be pursued without great sums of cash, but even so, The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts typical hobby spending at about $50/month.2 When you add that up over the years (and sometimes decades) adults might pursue their passions, you come up with an impressive investment of both time and money!

Many hobbies require some sort of up-front costs – tools for woodworking, dance lessons, camping equipment. But once started, maintaining the hobby might be less costly. Other habits though – travel, collecting and restoring antique cars, coin or stamp collecting – can take all the resources an adult is willing to devote to them.

And many would count their monetary investments in hobbies worth the price! Like all forms of play, hobbies can contribute to physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and overall well-being.

Many hobbies get us off the couch and out the door. And even more sedentary hobbies usually require some movement. Hobbies help us balance work and leisure time and give us reasons to get up in the morning.

Hobbies often bring us together with like-minded people who share our passions. Deep friendships or even more casual connections we might develop with fellow hobbyists help us meet our basic human need to belong.

Hobbies often require learning new knowledge or skills. Whether we take lessons or learn remotely from books, YouTube or other online sources, we learn! We stretch our minds and gather information that makes us more interesting companions and conversationalists.

Hobbies can help us maintain a sense of balance when the rest of our lives seems out of control. Concentrating on a hobby even briefly (even at the end of a busy college term) puts us back in charge of ourselves and our time on the planet. Hobby-focused play can put our stressors to the side, regain perspective, and stay sane.

Hobbies are play!

What kinds of hobbies interest you? Are you in the market to start a new hobby? Get inspiration from extensive lists at:

• Discover a Hobby – Our List Of Hobbies
• NotSoBoringLife – List of Hobbies

References

[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hobby?s=t

[2] Rawes, E. “5 Very Expensive Hobbies” Retrieved on December 9, 2016 from http://www.cheatsheet.com/personal-finance/are-you…

Image: Model Railroad Club of Toronto By veggiefrog http://www.flickr.com/photos/veggiefrog/ [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Last modified: Friday, December 23, 2016, 11:01 A

Active play need not end as childhood wanes. Indeed, it ought not! We need to stay active throughout our lives. Physical activity contributes to cardiovascular, muscular, and skeletal health, releases stress, and helps us feel good!

And how do we adults stay motivated by these long-term health benefits when today’s tasks seem to claim a higher priority? Let’s think of activity as play! Let’s not work out. Let’s play instead, reframing how we think of physical activity so that we look forward to and happily make time in our lives for active play!

And let’s find ways to play actively that we love! If we love playing volleyball, let’s find a league! If we always wanted to try tap dancing, let’s find a class! If we look forward to more solitary activities to re-charge, let’s tune up our bikes or find a place to kayak on wild or quiet waters.

Let’s engage in lifetime sports! These include active play that we can begin and/or enjoy at any stage of life as well as activities we can pursue – with excellence – at any age.

Options are many. We can choose solo play, group play, and learn new physical skills. We can even compete in running and tri-athlon racing, master or senior games and and more.

Watch the trailer for the British documentary “Ping Pong” (2:34), about men and women who compete in the over-80 division of the World Veterans Table Tennis Championships.

Read the Daily Mail article: “Shot of the century: Ruth Frith claims victory at World Masters Games – at the age of 100!.”

Now start planning. How will you enjoy active play at eighty and beyond? What will you do now so your body will still be ready to play later?

Image: Tai-chi exercises performed early mornings in Malacca. By Rudolph.A.furtado (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Last modified: Monday, December 12, 2016, 9:54 AM

To step beyond your daily world, see new places, taste new foods, hear new music, imagine lives of other peoples, to re-imagine your own life – these are just a few of the benefits of one of the great Kahunas of play – traveling!

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson1

Lucky are those – of any age – who have, find, or make the opportunity to travel. Few other activities succeed so well at putting the stressors of daily life into perspective as simply getting away. And like any other type of play, travel brings with it opportunities for new learning.

Travel bends the brain! From a new take on the history that shaped a place and its people, to discovering ways we are both like and not like those who occupy other corners of the planet, travel is rich in learning. And these are just the part of what we might call the ‘product’ of the arriving in some place.

Think of the learning involved in the ‘process’ of getting there. Choosing where and when to go, figuring out what to take, how to get there, where to stay, how to pay for it all, planning what you want most to do with limited time – all these tasks involve learning! Reading, studying maps, comparing prices, making choices – it all bends the brain. And because the process reaps great rewards, these tasks take on a spirit of adventure and fun. “Getting there is half the fun!”2

Options for travel are as broad as the earth itself. Affordable day trips or luxury cruising, tent-camping or five-star hotels, coach or first-class, bicycle or limo – these are all part of the travel and tourism industry. Whether you sign up for a group tour (at a wide range of price options) or travel alone, your experience can be just as satisfying. Tailor travel to your at-home interests or take the opportunity to learn something brand new with an eco-, agri-, or cultural-tourism experience. Or let you mind wander the globe from the comfort of your arm-chair!

Travel is indeed a great Kahuna of play!

Expand Your Learning:

Explore a non-profit education organization dedicated to helping adults – and sometimes their families discover the joys of travel at The Road Scholar Experience. They even offer enrichment grants to those who otherwise could not afford a Road Scholar trip!

Be an arm-chair traveler! Take 30 minutes to explore a corner of the world you’ve always wanted to visit. Look at online maps, tourist information, videos and more. Close your eyes and dream of what you’ll do when you get there someday.

Create or revise your bucket list. Where do you want to go? What do you want to experience? When will you whittle down your list to make the most of your precious time on earth?

References

[1] Karsten, M. “50 Best Travel Quotes for Travel Inspiration.” Retrieved on December 9, 2016 from https://expertvagabond.com/best-travel-quotes/

[2] Quote from Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) in the film National Lampoon’s VacationRetrieved on December 9, 2016 from http://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/national-lampoo..

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