Play Ground
Adult Play 4 Personal Growth
In June 2025, I issued the 7-Day Play Challenge inviting adults to be more playful, engage with children more, and invest in innocent joy and laughter. It was intended as a balance to the seriousness we sometimes experience in life and in the news.
Play Ground is a continuation of that work, but with a little refinement. You can now join the WhatsApp group by applying via the form below.
Here’s the basics:
I curate play activities 1-2 times a week
Participants enact them, and report back
You have the option of participating or not
We learn from our shared experiences
Read on to learn more about the creator, the structure, and the container of safety and kindness required for this work.
Sign-Up for Play Ground
Curated by Joseph Sarosy, author of How to Tell Stories to Children & creator of the Juniper School
Play Ground is for Adults who Want to:
experience more simplicity & joy in life
connect with kids and loved ones
connect with themselves
laugh and have fun
feel ease, comfort, and inclusion
disrupt stuck mental habits
access new ideas
balance and enrich seriousness in life
stop paying to have fun
It is not necessary for you to have children to join Play Ground. It is intended for any adult who wants to rediscover their inner silly billy.
Play is a no cost solution
Play is a free activity that enriches and softens our minds and hearts. It should always be free, and freely chosen.
You will occasionally have the chance to support me and my work with kids and families, but it is never required.
Joseph Sarosy
I am the author of How to Tell Stories to Children (22 languages worldwide) and creator of the Juniper School, an outdoor microschool in northern New Mexico. Playing and learning in nature with kids, families, and elders is my profession.
I am also the father of a 14-year-old daughter, a civil engineer with a master’s degree in philosophy, and a goofball with 4 years of religious training. I’m curious about life. All of it. I’m curious about the things that make people feel alive, safe, and eager to learn and grow, as well as those things that make us feel shut down and want to hide from life.
Safety & Accountability
In order to cultivate health and wellbeing, play needs to be held in a safe container and balanced with attunement. As the admin of Play Ground, it is my responsibility to approve and welcome newcomers, and to curate and regulate the conversation within the group. I take this seriously.
It is possible for children and adults to use play in unhealthy ways, so I am on the watch for the following behaviors:
when laughter or play feels like ridicule
play or comments become overly exhibitionist or attention-seeking
judgement of others or self
When I sense that something is inappropriate, I will first seek private conversation with any necessary individuals. If anyone repeatedly ignores warnings or safe guidelines, I will remove them from the group.
I want a space where people feel free to try new things, process vulnerable experiences, and get inspired by each other. By modeling activities, as well as responding to the feelings and sensations of individuals in the group, I will hold the container of play so that you don’t have to. I want all of us to slowly and carefully step beyond the walls of restriction and self-judgement, and into a greater degree of self-expression.
Play Can Be Learned
Contrary to common belief, play isn’t a natural response in everyone. For many children (and their parents), it is a behavior that needs to be modeled to us first. If you are overwhelmed by seriousness in your life or in world events, I want to help you find innocence, laughter, and silliness in yourself. Not in watching others, but in yourself.
This kind of thing takes guts!
Fun things will happen, but I also expect uncomfortable feelings to occasionally arise in participants. That is welcome, because our purpose isn’t success. Our purpose is learning and growth. Play pushes boundaries, providing a provocative and rich exploration for people who haven’t played in a long time.
If you haven’t played in a while, it can be difficult when we:
touch into childhood themes or frames of mind
encounter hesitation in ourselves
witness others being free and easy (then wonder why we are not)
Experiences like this have the potential to turn us away from play and innocence, become judgemental, or even feel traumatic. Many of us experienced all kinds of judgement as children, and often without the maturity or safety to know what to do with it.
I cannot control your inner experience, but I can cultivate safety and open-heartedness. My goal, with kids and adults alike, is to tend a safe container so that we can bridge play with serious inquiry and life experience. As a complete loop, this is extremely powerful learning and self-development. This is our goal in Play Ground.
Sample Play Prompts
Here are some sample videos from the 7-Day Play Challenge held in June 2025. They will give you a feel for the kinds of activities you may be asked to participate in, as well as the person you’ll be working with.
But first a word of caution
The 7-Day Play Challenge was intended to be disruptive to normalcy and therefore a little wild. In Play Ground, we will be starting off more slowly so that members can build a repertoire of safety before sending you to Mars to trade with the banana fairies.
“Thank you for this invitation! I needed to feel a sense of awe and wonder again. Things have been quite heavy for me lately but this brought joy and lightness and a reconnection to some of these parts in me that have been hiding a bit. I can be more present and breathe a bit easier. Looking forward to tomorrow!” - Christine R
“It felt like I had a little secret, something that made me look at my surroundings differently than usual.” - Viki C
“I’ve come across so many playful, connection-based parenting tools before — but this challenge is exactly what I needed right now. Somehow it helped shift me out of thinking and into doing. Thank you!” - Paul T.
“I talk to critters mostly everyday, part of my morning practice with tea. Imagining things outside the window I particularly liked, because it’s easy and resonant and satisfying. Creating houses and places for objects was harder for me. I fell into my own stereotypes of my relationships and got anxious. I wanted to feel good and inspired afterward but I mostly had another thing to look at, and that quickly led to fatigue - why isn’t anything grabbing my energy and carrying me somewhere beautiful and clear and laying out my obvious next steps sort of feeling. I like what you’re up to here. And I like what you have to say about it.” - Rebecca N
“Really appreciated this reflection and orientation toward play as a practice to process hard things too.” - Rachel K
“Honestly, my resistance to the practice took way more time and energy than the play itself.” - Devin C.
Thanks for Playing
Play is an opportunity to explore your imagination AND the real world around you. There is much potential for joy and connection, and also the opportunity to notice any resistance we find. If we pause to meet these sensations, play becomes a powerful tool for awareness and growth.
Your play is your own
Please don’t let anyone take play away from you (including talking yourself out of it). When folks run marathons, the rest of us don’t stop walking. Remember, always play at your own pace.