The above saying might sound as a cliché to us that nonchalantly reads this but a simple message is shown and conveyed in this truism.

What is play? For a child, play is their world, their life, their way of exploring and learning from their environment, their means of coping with life's complexities. For them, in their own childish realm, in the midst of their play activity, "Playing is Living and Living is Playing!" For others, play is practically engaging in an activity to have self-gratification and enjoyment. Some may find play as a hobby and a form of exercise. It is getting away from the daily stressors and involving themselves in any form of relaxation and fun.

Play is synonymous to FUN. The first thing that enters my mind when someone asks me what play is, are my children. They love to play from the time they wake up not thinking even of breakfast. Both of them always look forward to weekends as their day when they are out of school and their only time to play their PS 2. Their not so gentle and sometimes boisterous laughter can shake the house down especially when their cousins get together. My husband and I find it an obligation to give them this time during weekends to play, relax, bond with each other as well as with their cousins and friends. They are only young once and we would want them to grow up not withholding from them their developmental stage of Play and Exploration. As parents, we want them to experience the joy of first riding the bicycle and getting the harsh bruises from learning to ride and to balancing it. We want them to explore the thrill of lackadaisically bathing in the rain, practically drenching them from top to toe. We mediate in their first fist-and-fury fights with their playmates, carefully reprimanding them and then teaching them always to say, "I'm sorry." We support our son in his quest for non-venomous spiders and let these blood- suckers strangle each other while hanging dearly on my son's stick. You can see in his eyes the excitement of such experience. We let him and his sister play "hide-and-seek" with the neighboring kids just to get the high of it.

My son is already 10 years old and we are molding him to learn slowly from the evolution of play.... That play is no longer at our beck- and -call when we are growing up unlike the days of pre-school and kindergarten. He is such an active and playful child. For him, he can play all he wants, day and night not getting tired at all. When he is at play, he acts like as if he is "driven- by- a- motor". He is enrolled currently in football training in his school and my husband and I believe that this is my son's form of PLAY, a more complex version of using his oozing energy positively.

One constant that we can always count on, regardless of cultural or social situations, is that young children will always play. If you ask a child why he plays, he'll probably say, "Because I like it!" or better yet, "Because it's FUN!" We, as adults, should not withhold play from them because it is their world and it is how they explore and learn. Of course, when a child grows and matures, he will definitely have a different perspective of what Play is. It may no longer be Playing is Living and Living is Playing. It will evolve from fun or play of toddlers ... from play to likings of kindergartens ... from likings to favorites of graders...from favorites to hobbies of High-school students... from hobbies to sports of college students, from sports to even career of professionals and then back to FUN! For as long as someone is happy and having fun, play will always exist although in a much highly different light.