ABSTRACT
A cherished belief among many play specialists is that play enhances the development of creativity. Play experiences will almost certainly help to make non-creative children and later adults. This chapter demonstrates the roadblocks with a general model of the stages, or choice-points, involved in play. It outlines the model and its implications for play, not to display or defend the theoretical development of the model, which is being done in a more formal paper. If children are presented with optimum amounts of novelty, intensity, distance and barriers in a play situation, they will be inclined toward curiosity; they will resolve the approach-avoidance conflict in favour of approach. The first condition for creativity, the ability to make novel responses, comes primarily from the exploratory-play experiences of the person; the attention and approach experiences are critical as well, but mainly because exploratory play cannot occur without them.
