Children playing storytelling imagination connection

Play Is How Children Make Sense of Their World

May 09, 2025•2 min read

Play is how children make sense of their world. It is where they build confidence, process emotions, and discover what they are capable of, through laughter, connection, and imagination.

UNICEF's Meenakshi Dogra puts it clearly: "When we bring play into our everyday interactions with our children, it's like we know what they need. It's a secret element that deepens the parent-child connection like nothing else."

The Adventures of Gabriel was born during 21 months of separation between Kate and her son. With one hour weekly on FaceTime, Gabriel would narrate adventures and Kate would scribe. Together they built worlds where sea monsters were defeated, fears were faced, and love held. Dr Elizabeth Dalgarno of the SHERA Research Group described it as "a path towards light, in testament to the mother-child bond, in the midst of extremely dark times."

What started as a way to stay connected became something more: a storytelling ritual that gave Gabriel control over outcomes when so much felt out of control, a space to process emotions too big to name directly, and a weekly reminder that his voice mattered and his stories were worth telling. Meenakshi Dogra describes play as building the skills children need to "collaborate, innovate, and problem-solve in uncertainty." That is exactly what storytelling with complete creative freedom does.

The same principle is what makes StoryQuest work in classrooms. When teachers create weekly spaces where every child's story matters, where imagination drives the process and children take turns as storytellers and scribes, the results mirror what Gabriel and Kate discovered. Children who felt voiceless find they have stories worth telling. Reluctant writers become enthusiastic authors. Emotional regulation improves. Peer relationships strengthen. Across 465 children in 9 schools, the research documents 100% positive engagement, because when storytelling feels like play, every child wants to take part.

As Kate has said: "I spent my entire career as a physiotherapist helping people tell their stories, because the solution was always in the story. What Gabriel and I discovered during our separation is what I now see in every StoryQuest classroom: children thrive when we make space for their voices, when we follow their imagination, when we treat storytelling as the joyful, essential practice it is."

Stories matter. Play matters. Every child deserves to know that dragons can be beaten, cages can be broken, and their story is worth telling.

Kate

Kate Markland is a former award-winning physiotherapist with twenty years of clinical experience, the founder of StoryQuest Global, and the co-author of the international bestselling Adventures of Gabriel children's book series. She developed the StoryQuest methodology from clinical listening principles built across two decades of practice. Taken into schools across the UK, it achieved 100% engagement across 465 children in nine schools with zero behavioural incidents, including children with SEND, EAL learners, and reluctant writers. The research was conducted using Classic Grounded Theory across 318 children, identifying seven self-leadership transformations. It has been presented to the British Psychological Society, accepted by UK Parliament, and submitted to UNICEF. The methodology was built during the hardest period of Kate's life. One hour a week on FaceTime with her son. No desk. No classroom. No permission. What came out of that constraint became an Amazon number one bestseller, a validated research framework, and a movement now reaching schools and families across the UK, India, Pakistan, Canada, the United States, Nigeria, and Australia. Kate has been featured on BBC News, Times Radio, and in international publications across multiple countries. She has submitted evidence to the Justice Committee, the Independent Review of Social Work Regulation, and the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. She was awarded the PhysioTimes Women in Leadership Award. She was told she was the danger. She built the proof that she was the answer.

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