ABSTRACT
Children commandeer play when facing troubles, even without the guidance of formal play therapy. Preschoolers who survived the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing played “hospital” using play figures with missing limbs. Children who experienced Hurricane Hugo in 1989 were observed to play with broccoli at dinner, pretending that the broccoli sprouts were trees, then dousing the broccoli with gravy to represent rushing flood waters (Sleek, 1998). Children in a hospital outpatient waiting room, stocked with toys, awaited their own surgery by throwing themselves into playing doctor: listening to the doll’s heartbeat, taking the doll’s temperature, putting on a curative bandage, and all the while reassuring the doll-or sometimes a human playmate-in the most gentle tones: “This will be alright. This won’t hurt at all” (L. Thomasen, personal communication, November 26, 2003). Youngsters in need of gentle reassurances, or in want of control amidst chaotic threat, enact on playthings forms of self-consolation. Children’s creative and unguided uses of play are salient reminders that play holds important power for coping.
