Street Children and Play

Abstract

The play of street children provides a framework for understanding those children and the nature of play. They are living their childhood while acquiring immediate survival skills and preparing for adulthood. Society views them as "bad" because they are out of adult control and views the creativity and adult modeling in their play as destructive and limiting though those characteristics are considered desirable in the play of adult-supervised children. In contrast, the findings of this study support the view that these children exhibit numerous characteristics of psychological health and resourcefulness.