In the parenting journey, embracing playfulness can feel like an insurmountable challenge, especially for those who have navigated the turbulent waters of personal trauma. Yet research underscores the profound impact that a playful demeanor can have on resilience, emotional regulation, and the parent-child relationship. For post-traumatic parents, integrating playfulness into daily interactions isn’t just beneficial; it’s transformative.

The Science of Playfulness and Resilience

A recent study conducted by Xiangyou Shen at Oregon State University during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that adults exhibiting higher levels of playfulness demonstrated remarkable resilience compared to their less playful counterparts. These individuals actively transformed challenging situations, discovered creative alternatives for lost experiences, and perceived obstacles as opportunities for growth, all while maintaining a strong sense of control over their responses.

Playfulness, it turns out, is not just a cute or frivolous trait—it’s a neural advantage that allows us to emotionally regulate, connect, and reframe challenges in a way that fosters resilience.

For parents, this means that cultivating playfulness is not just about bonding—it’s about building an emotionally safe, co-regulated relationship with our children.

Why Post-Traumatic Parents Struggle With Play

For many parents who have experienced trauma, play can feel unnatural or even threatening. Trauma primes the brain for hypervigilance, making relaxed, playful engagement difficult.

Many post-traumatic parents grew up in households where play was not encouraged, or where survival took priority over joy. Play can feel like a waste of time because, in trauma-driven homes, productivity, and control often take precedence.

Yet, for children, play is never a waste of time—play is how they learn. (For more about reclaiming our capacity to parent after trauma, click here and here.)

The good news? Kids are already the experts in play. If play feels intimidating, we don’t have to invent it—we can just follow their lead.

Why Playfulness Matters in Parenting

Integrating play into parenting serves multiple purposes:

• Co-Regulation: Engaging in playful activities synchronizes emotional states between parent and child, helping them feel safe and connected.
• Skill Development: Children learn best through play. Transforming mundane tasks into playful experiences, like pretending to be pirates on a treasure hunt while cleaning up toys, not only teaches responsibility but also makes learning enjoyable.
• Modeling Resilience: Demonstrating a playful attitude in the face of challenges shows children that adversity can be approached with creativity and flexibility.
• Activating Dopamine for Positive Motivation: Turning tasks into games is a way to leverage our dopamine system for motivation. This is called gamification, and research has shown that it increases engagement and willingness to participate in tasks. Example: Cleaning up toys is boring. But if we turn it into a “pirate treasure hunt” where every toy we put away makes a “ka-ching” sound effect, suddenly, we’re not just cleaning—we’re playing.

How to Overcome Barriers to Play

If playfulness doesn’t come naturally, here’s how to start.

• Follow Their Lead: Your child already knows how to play. Join them at their level instead of trying to structure the experience.
• Redefine Play: Play doesn’t have to mean getting on the floor with dolls or toy cars. It can be silly voices, making funny faces, or storytelling at bedtime.
• Start Small: Instead of feeling pressured to play for an hour, try five minutes of focused, playful interaction each day.

If play feels foreign or overwhelming, I’ve started recommending The Way of Play by Tina Payne Bryson and Georgie St. Vincent to post-traumatic parents. This book beautifully teaches the power of play in fostering connection, emotional intelligence, and lifelong resilience.

One of my favorite concepts from the book is the idea that play is not about the activity itself, it’s about the attunement that happens during it. You don’t have to be a playful person by nature to give your child a deeply playful childhood, you just have to show up with curiosity and presence.

Final Thoughts: Play as a Healing Tool

For many post-traumatic parents, play can feel uncomfortable or unnatural at first. But play is a skill, and like any skill, it can be developed over time.

By embracing even small moments of playfulness, we’re not just helping our children thrive, we’re rewiring our own nervous systems for connection, safety, and joy.

If playfulness has been a struggle for you, try leaning into the small moments—a silly voice, a dramatic “Oh no!” when a block tower falls, or a “tickle monster” moment before bedtime.

Because your child doesn’t need a perfect parent—they just need a parent who is willing to play.