Play is an important part of children’s lives. We all agree with that. But when it comes to practice, play is often considered to be something that gets attention when real work or learning is done. This is particularly true in many schools now. According to our research most Australian parents think that children play less today than before and that too often we adults are expecting our children to grow up too quickly. In this short article, we explain what play is, how we all benefit from letting the children play more, what Australians think about play, and what parents and teachers can do to get our children, and all of us, to play more and better in and out of school. We advocate for a ‘golden hour of play’ for every child every day.
