In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Children who play regularly with their peers are most likely to achieve the highest levels of adjustment as adults.
You can play older than yourself. You can play younger than yourself up to a point, and then that just becomes impossible because you carry a weight with you that you can't shift, unless you have very boyish looks.
In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don't try to play younger than I really am.
The kid who can play imaginatively doesn't tend to be violent. It's the same with adults.
Unlike me, a lot of child actors are very short, which is why they work. So when they're 15 they can play 11 or when they're 18 they can play 14. They look young for so long, they have abilities a much younger kid wouldn't have.
I've always played with kids that were five, six, seven years older than me.
There's this assumption that all children have the luxury of a childhood where their innocence is always respected and their main occupation is pleasant play - at the age of 18 or 21, they are then thrust into the real world and shown its uglier side, but not before.
There must be such a thing as a child with average ability, but you can't find a parent who will admit that it is his child.
There were some super-lean years, yeah. I'm six feet four. And I entered into this period all of a sudden when I was too big to play a kid and I was too young to play an adult. Like, I couldn't play the lawyer, but I couldn't play the high school kid anymore.
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.