If you ever sit and watch children play, you’ll see a full range of problem-solving and risk-taking that is rarely seen in our adult life. A new book launching next week is hoping to rekindle your love of play. 

Author of ‘Return To Play: Rebuilding Resilience, Risk and Reconnection’, Brandi Heather says the book is all about reconnecting ourselves with play. “The book is new ideas and ideas about how play gives us the inspiration and courage to confront what we do when no one has the answer. We're really inviting people to take a look at how risking both connection and things that are unexpected and unfamiliar were tools that we built when we were children, and that we need to reconnect to the best parts of ourselves so that we can actually manage change and risk moving forward.”

“I think we've lost our playground skills. I think we've lost some of our ability to navigate change and risk, and the unexpected, because we've actually decreased the amount of play that we have in both our children's and our adult life.”

Heather explains how she has spent a lifetime learning and teaching all about the benefits that getting back to playing can bring. “The book actually has both the research and the science of play as well as some of those experiences. My background is in adaptive physical activity so my career before it was the founder of AMPED2PLAY was that I worked on finding ways in which people of all ages and abilities could actually engage in planning and recreation and movement and sport. What I found was the key ingredient to all of that was actually that when we were in play we were our most powerful selves, we have the most strength to do things that were hard, and we engage this part of our mind and our body that was ready.”

She says this book would not have been possible without her family and friends. “I have the most incredible support system. My family, my kids, and my husband have allowed me the space to create this book and then being able to, you know, find the time with AMPED2PLAY as well. They’re totally in support of the book, obviously, because it really does lay the pathway for what we teach and what we've created there.”

‘Return To Play: Rebuilding Resilience, Risk and Reconnection’ launches January 20, 2021, and is available here. 

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