Locks

This chapter contains personal narrative reflections of play and formal, academically styled writings that are interrupted by interjections where a conclusive point is sometimes reached and sometimes not. Ellis, Adams, and Bochner state that auto-ethnographers “recognize the innumerable ways personal experience influences the research process”. Mischievous contradictions in artwork and life have always been both amusing and appealing to the author. The incongruity in the writing styles of this piece, and its multiple voices as represented by different fonts and margins, were a conscious decision. A phenomenological approach is adopted through the focus of the research on the “essence” of children’s outdoor play. In contemplating the rights of children, Mayall discusses the necessity of reconceptualizing childhood as a means to address the marginalization of children and ensure that their voices are included in society as a whole. Gray explored what he calls a “directive-protective parenting style” that has evolved in response to societal changes in both neighbourhoods and families.