“Children are natural players, right from the beginning. ‘It’s hard to imagine when an infant or a toddler isn’t playing,’ said Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, a professor of applied psychology at New York University who studies play and learning in babies and young children. She cited, for example, the joys of mushing food, pulling books off a shelf or making noises rattling a paper bag.

“‘I don’t like it when scientists think children are playing only when they sit down with some toys,’ she said. ‘Almost all the learning that goes on in the first years of life is in the context of exploration of the environment.’”

“But though play may be intrinsically present, and intrinsically playful, those who study its importance in children’s lives point out that it can also be threatened, either by too little attention and responsiveness from distracted adults or, in another sense, by too much attention and teaching, of the not-so-playful kind.”

“Taking Playtime Seriously,” Dr. Perri Klass, The New York Times, January 29, 2018