Play, along with the basic needs of nutrition, health, shelter, and education, is vital for the development of all children from birth to 18 years.
 

Play is integral and necessary for social, emotional, cognitive, language, and physical development.
 

Play facilitates brain growth, especially in the frontal cortex, where essential cognitive functions reside, including attention, self-regulation, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, all known as executive function.
 

Many foundational skills can only be developed through play and thus justify the essential need for recess for younger children and breaks for older children.
 

Play opportunities are needed for children both indoors and outdoors.
 

Play needs differ among the age groups: birth to age 2, pre-k, early elementary, upper elementary, middle school, and high school.
 

Schools, especially pre-K and elementary schools, need help understanding that young children learn best through play. 
 

Schools need help and support in providing meaningful and appropriate play opportunities, such as experiential, inquiry, integrated, and emergent approaches to curriculum.
 

Families need help recognizing that play is necessary for healthy development, and that family play also bonds the family and helps build happy childhoods.
 

Community services and regulators, such as parks and recreation, city planning, playground inspectors, and housing developments, need help understanding why opportunities for risky play should be included in their planning.
 

All types of play are essential (e.g., physical play, such as running, climbing, swinging, etc.; block and construction play; play within art and music; games with rules; rough and tumble play; risky play; nature play; role-playing; etc.), but child-directed, spontaneous play is the most important type of play during the early years of birth through age eight.
 

Children have the right to play as guaranteed by the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.