O. Fred Donaldson, Ph.D.

Building play relationships may be one of the most high-leverage actions we can take to create and ensure more healthy and peaceful children, families, communities, and nations.  This is what ten year old Anna said about ‘Original Play"®.  "Play is being able to tell the world that you don't like what it is doing to you and not harming anyone while you do it. "Original Play"s® safety, love, and belonging re-pattern the habits of aggression, violence, and revenge that disrupt children's attachment, decision-making, and threat perception abilities.

The idea that a pattern of kindness and unity lie at the heart of our world and can be discovered and experienced by us is the fundamental principle of "Original Play'®.  "Original Play"® reshapes the brain-mind-environment connection.  By means of this dynamic transformation a person undergoes potentially concrete and sustainable changes that are profound.  This pattern change has two important qualities: enrichment, or capacity for choice, and plasticity, or capacity to change.

Original play's® benefits are not limited to children but are available to all of us.

The benefits of "Original Play"® include:

1. An ability to recognize good and bad touch
2. Improved self-esteem, emotional flexibility, and increased acceptance of differences
3. Reduced anxiety, stress, and defensiveness
4. An ability to think beyond contest
5. An active habit of kindness
6. Development of an inclusive sense of belonging
7. A decrease in the energy used for self-defense, tactile defensiveness, body fatigue, and injury
8. Improved range of motion, fine and gross motor exploration, balance, resilience, flexibility
9. Positive effects on immune, cardiovascular, and endocrine systems
10. Increased brain plasticity