{"id":36056,"date":"2026-05-21T11:37:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/?p=36056"},"modified":"2026-06-01T09:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:39:08","slug":"valley-parents-column-give-children-the-freedom-to-play-valley-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/2026\/valley-parents-column-give-children-the-freedom-to-play-valley-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Valley Parents column: Give children the freedom to play\u2014<em>Valley News<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dartmouth.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=e2de137c4974374fa3c312663&amp;id=5404ce9bae&amp;e=abffd9bbab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Read article<\/em><\/a>\u2014A parenting column by Miriam Voran, a clinical assistant pr<span class=\"outlook-search-highlight\" data-markjs=\"true\">of<\/span>essor <span class=\"outlook-search-highlight\" data-markjs=\"true\">of<\/span> psychiatry, discusses the importance <span class=\"outlook-search-highlight\" data-markjs=\"true\">of<\/span> unstructured play in children's emotional and social development, including for their mental health. \"Through play, children practice emotion regulation, self-control, social skills and problem-solving,\" says Voran. \"Play is a child\u2019s work; it\u2019s their path to growth.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dartmouth.us1.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=e2de137c4974374fa3c312663&amp;id=5404ce9bae&amp;e=abffd9bbab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Read article<\/em><\/a>\u2014A parenting column by Miriam Voran, a clinical assistant pr<span class=\"outlook-search-highlight\" data-markjs=\"true\">of<\/span>essor <span class=\"outlook-search-highlight\" data-markjs=\"true\">of<\/span> psychiatry, discusses the importance <span class=\"outlook-search-highlight\" data-markjs=\"true\">of<\/span> unstructured play in children&#8217;s emotional and social development, including for their mental health. &#8220;Through play, children practice emotion regulation, self-control, social skills and problem-solving,&#8221; says Voran. &#8220;Play is a child\u2019s work; it\u2019s their path to growth.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","author-15"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-9ny","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36057,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36056\/revisions\/36057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}