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Hospitals are boring places, especially for kids.
When a child has cancer, stays in hospital can last weeks and sometimes, every day can feel like a lifetime. There are appointments, procedures and treatment, but there can also be hours of waiting in between, often confined to one room and away from friends, school and the usual routines of childhood.
Screens can be useful for passing the time, but even the biggest Bluey fans get sick of staring at a tablet. Play gives children something active to do, and building play in particular can help them use their imagination, solve problems, make choices in an environment where many decisions are being made for them, and forget the world around them as they become immersed in something they can feel and see.
Play is one of the ways children learn about the world. It gives them opportunities to experiment, test ideas, make decisions and work through problems without the pressure of getting everything right.
It can also support creativity, concentration, communication and social interaction. Just as importantly, play is part of ordinary childhood. For children spending long periods in hospital, having opportunities to play can help preserve some sense of normality when school, sport, friends and familiar routines have been disrupted.
Hospital care is necessarily focused on treatment, but children still need opportunities to do the things children normally do. Play can give structure to empty hours that feel endless and offer something enjoyable to focus on outside the dreariness of the day’s medical routines.
Building with LEGO bricks brings together several kinds of play at once. Children can follow instructions or create something entirely of their own, and both approaches involve using and developing a range of skills.
Building can support problem-solving as children work out how pieces fit together and how to turn an idea into something physical. It can also involve spatial reasoning, hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, as well as patience and concentration.
There is also value in what happens when a build does not work. A tower falls over, a structure is unstable or a particular piece will not fit, and the child has to reconsider the problem and try another approach. That process of testing, adjusting and trying again can help develop persistence and flexible thinking.
Creative building adds another dimension. A child might start with a few pieces and end up with a spaceship, an animal, a house or something that does not have a name at all. Open-ended play gives children room to make their own decisions and create something that reflects their own ideas.
Freedom to choose can be particularly valuable during a hospital stay.
Much of a child’s time in hospital is structured around things they cannot control. Appointments happen at set times, treatment follows a schedule and medical staff need to make decisions based on what is best for their care.
Building play operates differently. The child decides what to make, how to make it and when to change direction. They can follow instructions closely, ignore them completely or pull everything apart and begin again.
It is a small form of independence, but one that can be meaningful when so much of the day is organised around treatment.
Building activities are also practical in a hospital setting because they can often be done from a bed or bedside table. A child does not necessarily need a large space or a group activity to become absorbed in what they are making.
LEGO play can be independent, but it can also be shared. Parents and siblings can help with a build, suggest ideas or take on a challenge together. Visitors can join in, and a finished creation can become something to talk about with family, staff and other children.
That social side of play can be valuable during long hospital stays, when families are spending large amounts of time together in an unfamiliar and often stressful environment. Having something enjoyable to focus on can create a different kind of interaction from the conversations that naturally revolve around treatment and medical care.
Camp Quality works to bring fun, play and positive experiences into the lives of children facing cancer, including during time spent in hospital.
Through its partnership with Camp Quality, the LEGO Group has donated thousands of LEGO sets for children in hospitals, helping provide hands-on, creative play during long stays.
The partnership recognises that the hours around treatment matter as well. Hospital stays are first and foremost about providing the medical care children need, but there is still room within those days for imagination, learning, creativity and play.
And when play can make those long, dreary days feel a little shorter while giving kids back some of the childhood cancer takes away, all the better.
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